The Resonance of a Small Voice : William Walton and the Violin Concerto in England Between 1900 and 1940

9781443817219
1-4438-1721-X

This book constitutes both a study and a historical musicological analysis of Sir William Walton's Violin Concerto, treating the form of the violin concerto in general in England, as it developed between.

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1900 and 1940, taking into consideration the works of Charles Villiers Stanford, Edward Elgar, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Frederick Delius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arthur Somervell, Arnold Bax and Benjamin Britten. The study is divided into three parts: -The Violin Concerto in England between 1900-1920: Stanford, Elgar, Coleridge-Taylor, Delius. -The Violin Concerto in England between 1920 and 1940: Vaughan Williams, Somervell, Bax, Britten. -William Walton's Violin Concerto The book opens with a brief description of the form of the Violin Concerto between the 19th and 20th centuries in Europe. This description is intended to provide both a familiarity with the fundamental characteristics of this musical form during the period under examination, and the beginning of a comparison between different national compositional styles.Each section is introduced with a portrait of the historical musical character in England during the respective period, and presents, after a biographical introduction to the respective composers, a formal structural, harmonic and aesthetic analysis (this analysis being embedded within a general discussion of the concertos themselves). In addition, a study of the technical and interpretative aspects of the concerto and a reflection on the relationship between composer and performer form part of the analysis. At the close of each section a comparative overview is also given.The first and second parts are developed entirely in relation to the third, which treats, exclusively and in consi