Walton: Passacaglia - Death of Falstaff and Touch her soft lips from Henry V (Two pieces for strings)

“This excellent Hyperion issue brings together a wide-ranging group of Walton's chamber works, from his earliest major work, the Piano Quartet, originally written when he was 16, to his last instrumental piece, the Passacaglia, which he composed for Rostropovich when he was nearly 80. As a substantial bonus there's the little song cycle for tenor and guitar, Anon in Love, as well as the two shorter pieces.
Helped by a spacious recording, the extra lightness and clarity brings an element of fantasy into such a movement as the Scherzo of the Piano Quartet and an extra tenderness into the lovely slow movement. Nowhere else does Walton so enthusiastically use modal thematic material, starting with the mysterious opening theme, which the Nash players take very reflectively at a speed much slower than the movement's main tempo, Allegramente. It's an astonishingly confident work for so young a composer, with adventurous writing for the strings that belies the fact that Walton was no string-player.
The Violin Sonata, a more elusive work, long underestimated, is given an equally persuasive performance, with Marianne Thorsen, accompanied by Ian Brown, freely expressive. John Mark Ainsley is totally undaunted by the taxing vocal writing of Anon in Love, originally designed for Peter Pears. And Craig Ogden is an ideal accompanist, totally idiomatic, adding sparkle to the vigorous songs in this offbeat collection.
Though Ian Brown gives a slightly sluggish account of Façade's 'Valse' – in the awkward piano transcription ascribed to Walton himself – cellist Paul Watkins crowns the disc with a fine reading of the solo Passacaglia.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This latest addition to Naxos's English Church Music series isn't just a first-rate bargain but provides a distinctive alternative to the Finzi Singers in the Chandos Walton Edition, in its use of boy trebles. The presence of boys' voices consistently brings extra freshness to the St John's Choir's performances, giving them the sort of bite one can imagine the composer having in mind, with Waltonian syncopations wonderfully idiomatic in their crisp articulation.
Smaller in scale, with the organ set behind the choir, these more intimate readings also convey more clearly the impression of church performances, a clear advantage in the liturgical items above all, not just the delightful Missa brevis, but the Jubilate, and the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis.
You might argue that this collegiate choir is on the small side for the big ceremonial Te Deum written for the Queen's Coronation in 1953, but there, more than ever, the freshness and bite make for extra clarity hard to achieve with bigger forces. With Robinson and the St John's Choir the words aren't just sharply defined but are given life, with subtle rubato and fine shading of dynamic.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Bowes is hardly a household name, but these exceptional accounts of Walton’s and Barber’s near-contemporaneous Violin Concertos...should increase his stock value...Bowes yields to none of the Walton’s great interpreters...in his dazzling passage work, and he brings a deliciously laid-back italianita to the canzonetta of the middle movement with his gorgeous portamento and rubato.” Sunday Times, 22nd May 2011 ****

“These works are already well represented on CD, but Thomas Bowes's performances, recorded with the solo violin placed well forward in the sound picture, make a strong case for themselves, especially his account of the Barber, which captures perfectly the first movement's rhapsodic musings.” The Guardian, 4th August 2011 ***

“What is so remarkable about Bowes as a soloist is not just his technical assurance, his flawless intonation over the widest range, tonal and dnyamic, but his natural feeling for warmly romantic expressiveness...Joseph Swensen also shows his natural sympathy for the Walton idiom...Altogether a resounding success.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2011

“William Boughton's ... hand-picked players are very good players indeed, lovely in sound and terrific in ensemble. Nimbus provides lush, sweet sonics” Fanfare