Sir William Walton – Coronation Te Deum

Polyphony
The Wallace Collection
James Vivian (organ)
Stephen Layton

Nominated for Gramophone Award 2002

Music Week
Album of the Week

Walton: Coronation Te Deum & Other Choral Music.
8 June 2002
The Wallace Collection; Vivian; Polyphony/Layton (Hyperion CDA67330).

Gramaphone Award-winning choir Polyphony and their inspired conductor Stephen Layton appear set for further prizes on the strength of their latest Hyperion release, and anthology of choral works by William Walton issued to mark the composer’s centenary and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. This disc, which opens with Walton’s Fanfare for Elizabeth II and Coronation Te Deum, is distinguished throughout by Layton’s unwavering commitment to the highest artistic standards and his choir’s ability to live up to them. Hyperion is promoting the release as its disc of the month, backed by advertising in the specialist classical press and PoS material.

Classic FM  Magazine 

Walton Choral Music
June 2002
Polyphony/Wallace Collection/Stephen Layton

Every generation delivers an outstanding talent with the vision and commitment necessary to produce refreshingly individual, totally convincing interpretations. Stephen Layton's readings of Walton's choral music on this tremendous disc are without equal, supported by the high-octane, stylish singing of Polyphony and one of the finest recorded sounds I've heard for years. Layton sets a stately speed for the Coronation Te De Deum, although the crisp brass fanfares of the Wallace Collection and articulate work from the choir convey a rare energy and exuberance. Buy it !

Andrew Stewart

BBC Music Magazine
Martin Cotton

Walton – Coronation Te Deum and other choral music
May 2002
Polyphony / The Wallace Collection / James Vivian (organ) / Stephen Layton

This collection of Walton's smaller choral works includes the four carols omitted from the recent Naxos issue with the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, and gets off to a resounding start with the short Queen's Fanfare from 1959, leading unauthentically but seamlessly into the Coronation Te Deum.  In its original scoring with brass, organ and percussion, this has the confidence and swagger familiar from Belshazzar's Feast, as well as moments of lyricism, and most of the other pieces follow one or other of these paths. Outstanding are the reflective Where does the Uttered Music go? written in memory of Henry Wood, and The Twelve, whose words by Auden give Walton the space to create a more extended structure, almost like a miniature cantata.

Many of the shorter pieces are no more than chips off the old block, written to commission, and hearing them in quick succession points up the recurrence of particular harmonic and rhythmic quirks ('Make we joy' and 'All this time' are virtually anagrams of each other): but it's good to hear the young composer finding himself through the three versions of Drop, Drop Slow Tears.Performances are vibrant and energetic, and attack the scrunchy harmonies with complete accuracy.

Performance *****
Sounds *****

ABC Classic FM – Australia’s Classical Music Network
CD of the Week

Choral music by Sir William Walton
Hyperion CDA67330
distributed by Sonart
Polyphony with the Wallace Collection

William Walton made his reputation in the first instance with his film scores, of which he wrote very many, especially for films made by the War Office. The suite “The First of the Few” is one of the best known. But he's also famous for his choral music, which is unique in its splendid style. This is a superbly performed and recorded disc from Polyphony, one of Britain's leading choral groups, with the oustanding young conductor Stephen Layton. They have teamed up with The Wallace Collection, a group of excellent brass players assembled by John Wallace, and now regarded as one of the finest brass groups in existence. Together they perform a wide range of Walton's choral music, from the Coronation Te Deum, written for Queen Elizabeth II, to the Missa Brevis, and shorter pieces and traditional songs.

hmv.co.uk
May 2002

This disc is a tribute to two anniversaries – the centenary of English composer William Walton's birth and the Golden Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth. Featuring Walton's Coronation Te Deum and a fine selection from his other choral works, the singing is quite extraordinary. Gramophone award-winning Polyphony and The Wallace Collection combine with breathtaking ability under the directorship of Stephen Layton. Recorded at Hereford Cathedral over three days, it also features that building's majestic organ.
HMV Choice
July 2002

When it came to pomp and circumstance, Oldham's William Walton was a kind of Elgar with attitude, perfectly capable of conjuring the grand, ceremonial gestures needed on state occasions, but with a sharper edge, and the creeping cynicism of a later generation. Thus the Coronation Te Deum (1953) which gives this disc its title virtually approaches parody in places, so brazen are the juxtapositions of loud and softer music, so unbridled the outbursts of brass instruments in the accompaniment. Missa Brevis is a much more subtle and harmonically interesting work, with some highly effective writing for the soloists. The Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, written for Walter Hussey of Chichester Cathedral (“the queer dean”, as Walton indelicately termed him), also has excellent solo writing, though Walton's typical impatience with the ecclesiastical idiom makes for a fairly abrupt conclusion (“How I dislike the words”, he wrote). A smattering of shorter pieces round out this excellently performed choral portrait, including the intriguingly titled “King Herod and the Cock”.

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