Yamada Conducts Walton for Debut Album

Kazuki Yamada is the latest conductor to serve as Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). He began his tenure in 2018, having succeeded Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla in that position. This Friday will see the release of his first album recorded with CBSO.

Kazuki Yamada on the cover of his debut album with Deutsche Grammophon

He decided that he would make his recording debut with Deutsche Grammophon, devoting the entire album to music by William Walton. Seven of the eight tracks account for the first and second symphonies (in that order), the first consisting of four movements and the second structured around three, the last of which is an elaborate passacaglia with a set of variations followed by a fugue and a concluding coda.

For my generation, Walton was a major (perhaps the major, following the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams) British composer. His repertoire was engagingly diverse, as adept with vocal performance as with his instrumentalists. I know him best for his 1931 cantata Belshazzar’s Feast. Unless I am mistaken, I have Eugene Ormandy to thank for bringing that composition to my attention when he performed it leading the Philadelphia Orchestra.

It should therefore not surprise readers that listening to this album was a nostalgic experience. Mind you, I do not think I had listened to either of the two symphonies; but I had no trouble encountering any number of familiar thematic tropes. The same can be said for the opening track, which serves as an overture of sorts. Indeed, one could call it an overture of “more than sorts,” since Walton composed it for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The context of the coronation brought about the compositions name, “Orb and Sceptre,” qualified with the subtitle “Coronation March.”

Fortunately, at least some of Walton’s works have found a place in the repertoire of the San Francisco Symphony. In recent years there seems to have been an enthusiastic bias for the composer’s viola concerto. Geraldine Walther may have triggered this bias back in 1997, when she led the viola section. Then, almost exactly two years ago, her first-chair successor, Jonathan Vinocour, performed the concerto for a program entitled Inspirations: Film/Classical. (Walton’s ghost may well have nodded in agreement with that choice of title!)

I hope that San Franciscans that have followed Walther and Vinocour might wish to “take the leap” to explore how Walton could handle a symphony as well as a concerto. He also had enough of a sense of humor to contribute to the Hoffnung Music Festival. In the spirit of Gerald Hoffnung’s sense of humor, Walton conducted the orchestra in the Royal Festival Hall with a fly swatter. The performance was a very short excerpt from Walton’s oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast. Indeed, the excerpt was so short that it consisted of only a single chord, during which the chorus sang “Slain!”

It goes without saying that Yamada’s debut album is much more serious! Nevertheless, there is no shortage of engaging expressiveness in both the symphonies and “Orb and Sceptre.” According to the Amazon.com Web page, the album is due for release this coming Friday; and, as most readers probably expect, that page can currently be used for processing pre-orders.