He wrote in December 1928 that he was working hard on the piece, and in February 1929 that he had finished the second movement. He wrote the concerto while wintering in Amalfi, Italy, with his friends and patrons the Sitwells. After some preliminary discussion Walton agreed. Towards the end of 1928 the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham suggested that Walton should write a concerto for the violist Lionel Tertis, for whom composers including Vaughan Williams and Bax had written major works. His exuberant and harmonically edgy concert overture Portsmouth Point (1926) maintained his reputation as an enfant terrible. In 1929 William Walton was regarded as an avant-garde composer, best known for Façade (1923), which had been a succès de scandale at its premiere. Walton revised the instrumentation of the concerto in 1961, lightening the orchestral textures.īackground and first performances The concerto established Walton as a substantial figure in British music and has been recorded by leading violists internationally. It had been written with the violist Lionel Tertis in mind, and he took the work up after initially rejecting it. The Viola Concerto by William Walton was written in 1929 and first performed at the Queen's Hall, London on 3 October of that year by Paul Hindemith as soloist and the composer conducting.
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