Presto Recording of the Week
28th February 2025

Charlie Lovell-Jones (violin), Sinfonia of London, John Wilson

Walton: Symphonic Suite: Troilus & Cressida, arranged Palmer
Walton: Violin Concerto
Walton: Portsmouth Point Overture

Sinfonia of London and John Wilson start a new series of recordings of works by Sir William Walton with this album featuring Charlie Lovell-Jones as soloist in the Violin Concerto. Lovell-Jones has soloed with major orchestras internationally, broadcasting on radio and television. As leader of the multi-award-winning Sinfonia of London, he has performed at the BBC Proms and recorded numerous albums, and found success at a number of significant international competitions.

Commissioned by Jascha Heifetz, the Concerto was premièred in 1939, in America, and was enthusiastically received. Inspired by Walton’s friend and lover Alice Wimborne, the work is extremely lyrical and passionate in nature, sporting a wild, virtuosic Tarantella as the second movement. Alice was also a driving force behind the inception of Walton’s first grand opera, Troilus and Cressida, composed over almost a decade, largely after her untimely death. Here we hear the four-movement orchestral suite compiled in 1987 by Christopher Palmer, at the instigation of Lady Walton and his lifelong publisher OUP. Walton’s overture Portsmouth Point is the earliest work on the album, premièred in 1926.

"Lovell-Jones despatches every technical demand thrown at him with apparent ease...As undoubtedly impressive as this is, it's not all about the flashy bits, and Lovell-Jones contrasts the virtuosic sections with a terrific searching tone, not least in the opening phrases of the concerto...Portsmouth Point is a bustling depiction of eighteenth-century seamen, and in Wilson's hands you can almost smell the salty sea air. Despite it being an overture, it's a cracking way to end the album, and makes me eager to hear more from all concerned." - James Longstaffe, Presto Music, 28th February 2025