Symphoniker Hamburg / Adrian Iliescu / Nil Venditti

William Walton’s Violin Concerto was premiered in December 1939 by Jascha Heifetz, who had commissioned the work and to whom it is dedicated. The English composer then revised it in 1944. The concerto opens with the slowest movement, the first theme of which is labelled »sognando« (dreaming). In the second movement, presto, a tarantella tells of an experience Walton had while composing in 1938, when he was actually bitten by a tarantula in Ravello, Italy. He himself smilingly calls this passage »rather gaga, I can say, and of dubious decency«. The rondo finale finally brings romantic-expressive expressiveness and brilliant virtuosity to a climax.