This is another splendid addition to EMI’s Anglo-American Chamber Music series, again with superb string players from the LSO, and with Israela Margalit making a distinguished contribution. The two major works are also coupled in the Chandos Walton Edition, but here generously you get a bonus in an outstanding performance of the Five Bagatelles for guitar, originally written for Julian Bream. The comparison with the two recordings made by the dedicatee is fascinating, with Tom Kerstens even lighter and more volatile than Bream in his earlier recording, let alone in his more measured second reading.
With Israela Margalit injecting fire, the performance of the Piano Quartet is also lighter and more volatile than that in the Chandos edition with Hamish Milne as pianist. That impression is enhanced by the EMI recording balance, with textures rather more open, letting the solo work stand out more. But where the first two movements in the new performance have more sparkle and fantasy, the Chandos team gain increasingly in the slow movement and finale, which have extra weight and intensity. You could argue that the EMI team’s treatment of the slow movement – lighter, more flowing yet still warm – is more apt for the work of a precocious 16-year-old composer, and though the finale is not quite as biting as in the Chandos performance, the vigour is hardly less, and the players more readily respond to the moments of repose, as in the pause before the final coda.
Janice Graham is the brilliant, winningly expressive violinist in both works, again more fanciful, more volatile in the Violin Sonata than her opposite number, Kenneth Sillito, notably in the first movement. In the slow variations which form the second of the two movements Sillito grows ever warmer, conveying an extra weight and intensity, but both performances are outstanding, bringing warmth and purposefulness to what can easily seem one of the more wayward of Walton’s major works. Though the three pieces were recorded in three different venues, the sound is remarkably consistent, excellent in each.'