JAVS Spring 2022

Riddle had made were less offensive than the liberties taken by Primrose and Tertis? Maybe Walton felt more of an affinity with Riddle, the quiet achiever: “At a time when the scene was dominated by the extrovert Lionel Tertis and William Primrose, Riddle represented a quieter, more inward approach, in some ways truer to the innate character of the instrument” claims Tully Potter. 25 Was Walton’s viola writing really lacking in clarity and detail? This writer believes that the young Walton wrote remarkably well for the viola, dazzlingly well for someone who claimed to know little of the instrument when he started “save that it made a rather awful sound” and who played no instrument himself. 26 It is not as if there is a general ambiguity or a paucity of markings in Walton’s scores—on the contrary, he was very specific in his indications as several writers have observed: “Every [score] bears the most scrupulous marks of expression, accent and phrasing.” 27 In the new “definitive” William Walton edition, Christopher Wellington makes some bold claims. He argues that Riddle’s version “conveys the nature of the work even more successfully than the original”—a rather subjective statement—and that he “succeeds in bringing out the lyrical and nostalgic character of the first statement, and at the same time organizes the bowings to deliver the soloist to the appropriate part of the bow (bars 4–22).” 28 It is a performer’s job, rather than the composer’s, to address issues of bow distribution, and this is a consideration in all the music we play, not just that by Walton. Wellington goes on to claim that “[g]rouping the viola’s octaves in threes rather than pairs [the passage shown in Example 3] is slightly more tranquil, less distracting.” 29 Though as mentioned above, this change by Riddle removes an interesting rhythmic interplay that is in keeping with the character of the rest of the movement and which was presumably the intention of the composer in grouping the notes as he did. Wellington asserts the changes add “technical expertise and a stylish dimension to the writing.” 30 Missing Riddle What is rather perplexing is that it is hard to find any mention of Riddle in Walton’s correspondence. In The Selected Letters of WilliamWalton (ed. Malcolm Hayes), Riddle is not mentioned at all. Of course, what is included in this volume is at the editor's discretion, but

other performers of the Viola Concerto (e.g. Hindemith and Menuhin) fare much better. There is also no mention of Riddle anywhere in Susana Walton's comprehensive biography of her husband. From reading Walton's letters, however, we see that he was quick to bestow praise on performers. In 1970, he wrote to Menuhin: “Your playing is absolutely astounding, in fact I am unable to conjure up adequate superlatives for your interpretation & performance—nor can I thank you enough for having brought to life a dream which I thought would never come true.” 31 We know quite a lot about what Walton thought of performances of the concerto by Menuhin, Hindemith, Primrose, and Tertis— but surprisingly little about Riddle, the player who had such a profound influence on the solo part. Walton is said to have expressed a preference for Riddle’s version, yet he did not notice that it was not Riddle’s version that was copied into his dummy 1962 score when revising the work. For a less exacting composer this might be understandable, but for Walton, “always a painstaking perfectionist,” it seems odd. 32 Walton may have liked Riddle’s interpretation in a general sense, but he didn’t recognize it when faced with it in printed form. Romantic Longing? While early critics praised the originality and rhythmic vitality of the work, and emphasized the influence of Prokofiev and Hindemith, more recent ones have sought to portray the piece as belonging to an English romantic tradition. Michael Kennedy writes “[i]n spite of its twentyish trappings—echoes of Gershwin here and there—the viola concerto belongs musically and spiritually to the late romantic tradition: it is essentially within the orbit of Bax, Elgar, and Ireland, a mature, not to say middle-aged, outpouring.” 33 Walton would probably have strongly disliked this statement—as Elgar had not taken kindly to the Viola Concerto , and Walton had little admiration for Bax. Gershwin, however, was a composer with whom he was always happy to be compared, according to Susana Walton. 34 Wellington is clearly influenced by this romantic view of the work, emphasizing its “lyrical and nostalgic” character; but this view has been challenged by some recent writers. 35 Robert Meikle investigates in detail the similarities in structure and harmonic language between Walton’s concerto and the concertos of Hindemith and

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 38, No. 1, Spring 2022

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