JAVS Spring 2006

to be unwise to commi t to paper... " ')

does come off," it should malu a rous ing 6· diverting fin ish to the work. It is meant to dit;ert; & also to annoy, & 1 shall be intensely disappointed if 1 get a kind wordftom either Peter Heyworth or Donald Mitchell or anybody else. 'Vulgar without being fiamy' (in the words ofthe lctte Sir B. Sitwell in reply to some inane remark oJOsbert's) is the best 1 can hope j(Jr. 10 The Viola Concerto It was Thomas Beecham who sug gested to Walton that he write a concerto for the great English vio list Lionel Terris, who had for many years led a campaign cham pioning the viola as the neglected "Cinderella of the string h1111ily." following the success of both Parade and Portsnwuth Point, Walton was ga ining confidence in his composing, though still pro fessing difficul ty in the actual writ ing. In Februa1y 1929 Walton wrote to his friend Siegfri ed Sassoon "I finished yesterday the second movement of my Viola Concerto. At rhe moment, 1 think it will be my best work, better than the Sinfimia, if only the rhird and lasr movement works our well. "' ' At the same time, he wrote his good fr iend, pianist Angus Morrison , relating hi s progress with d1e concerto, and implying rhar his style was "maturi ng. " Morrison was amused to hear this from such a young composer, but changed his mind when Walton played the concerto ~o r him later that spring: '"T n this work', declared Morrison, ' he had, in fact, reached complete maturi ty of style and given full rein , for the first time, to his entirely personal lyrical gift. "' 12

For all the wit and glibness evident in his correspondence, though, Walton was demanding of himself throughout his life, constantly making revisions and sincerely ask ing the opinions of his trusted fi·iends. ln a strange kind of symbi otic relationship, he even became a close personal friend of the music critic Peter Heyworth who regular ly wrote unkind reviews of Walton's music! Yet they would stay at each others' homes, either on the Italian island ofTschia or in London, and share both humor and a musical challenge. lleyworth's criticism notwithstand ing, Walton could also respond with tongue- in-check needling, so ir was an unusual yet compatible relation. Fo r instance in a 1962 letter, Walton wrote in pan: My dear Peter, (or tormentor-in chief), f did as a nuttter ~f fact tele phone you but with no success. Once on Sun morn. April 1st pointing out you had split an infinitive 6· hoping you would have to boreyourse?fblue by reading through your contribution to find it.. . BlessingJ~ and don't pu!! your punches! '' While otherwise sensitive ro most public cri ticism, especially as his music began ro fall our of favo r as old-fashioned in the I

In person he tended to be more ci rcumspect, but there is a tel ling anecdote about his first meeting many yea rs later with his future wife. Walton was in Buenos Aires at a press conference when music publisher Leslie Boosey tactlessly announced in front ofWalton that Benjamin Britten (represented by Boosey's firm, of course) was the UK's leading composer! "Happily there was instant compensation for the wounded Wa lton: he caught the eye of rhe British Council's sec retary, a vivacious girl of 22: "We met, went off to lunch and I pro posed to her the next day. As far as I remember, she sa id 'Don't be ridi culous, Dr. Walton', bur we got engaged three weeks after rhar. " 1 ' Generally self-deprecating, Walton insisted thar he only conducted because he was asked to. Of course he then added: "I cert;tinly could conduct my music better than most ... because it was, w me, child's play and st ill is." 7 His piano playing, on the other hand, seems ro have left much to be desired. Composing at the keyboa rd was laborious, and trying to pl ay from sco re nea rly disastrous. Once Walton called his friend, the critic Basil Maine, and offered to come over to play some of his newly completed viola concerto for him. Maine recalled: "He arri ved soon after, and , in rhe indescribable idiom of his p ianoforte playing, gave some idea of the orchest ral sco re, and occasionally a sketchy 110calise of the viola part. " ~

JOURNAL OF THF. A MF.R I CAN VTOLA SOCI ETY 14