Sinfonia of London and John Wilson start a new series of recordings of works by Sir William Walton with this album featuring Charlie Lovell-Jones as soloist in the Violin Concerto. Lovell-Jones has soloed with major orchestras internationally, broadcasting on radio and television. As leader of the multi-award-winning Sinfonia of London, he has performed at the BBC Proms and recorded numerous albums, and found success at a number of significant international competitions.

Commissioned by Jascha Heifetz, the Concerto was premièred in 1939, in America, and was enthusiastically received. Inspired by Walton’s friend and lover Alice Wimborne, the work is extremely lyrical and passionate in nature, sporting a wild, virtuosic Tarantella as the second movement. Alice was also a driving force behind the inception of Walton’s first grand opera, Troilus and Cressida, composed over almost a decade, largely after her untimely death. Here we hear the four-movement orchestral suite compiled in 1987 by Christopher Palmer, at the instigation of Lady Walton and his lifelong publisher OUP. Walton’s overture Portsmouth Point is the earliest work on the album, premièred in 1926.