Walton, Vaughan Williams, Ravel: Philharmonia/Collon ***
Royal Festival Hall, 1st December 2016
Breaking up is hard to do. If his First Symphony is anything to go by, William Walton took it particularly badly. A turbulent love affair with his mistress, the wealthy widow Baroness Imma von Doernberg, had come to an acrimonious end and in the first three movements of the symphony, Walton picks the scabs of his emotional wounds. The Philharmonia bristled and gnashed its teeth in a fierce, taut reading, the highlight of its Anglo-French programme conducted by Nicholas Collon.
Nicholas Collon
© Jim Hinson
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