CBSO plays Walton Symphonies

Audio Transcript: 

Michael Keelan: This is KBACH's First Take, and I'm Michael Keelan. I'm talking with Richard Thomas, he's sub-principal first violin of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, which has released a new album of William Walton's symphonies with Kazuki Yamada conducting. Thanks very much for talking with us today, Richard.

Richard Thomas: Oh, it's my pleasure, thank you for having me on.

Michael Keelan: You just got back from a tour where you were playing Walton's first symphony, which is on this album. Can you give us a little bit of a travelogue of what you experienced?

Richard Thomas: Yeah, that's right. So we played it twice on tour. We had, I think we had 14 concerts in total, and we played it for the first time on tour in Hamburg in the beautiful Elbphilharmonie. It was just a really, really special occasion. I mean such a fantastic hall, a great symphony, and a fantastic combination.

Michael Keelan: Your title is sub-principal first violin, right? And in the United States, even musicians might be a little bit unclear on what that distinction is. Could you explain that?

Richard Thomas: Yes, absolutely. It's different in every orchestra, I think as well, which makes it slightly even more confusing. So in the CBSO, the City of Birmingham Symphony, we have three sub-principal first violins, and so we sit, if you're to number the seats, number five, six, and seven, and so Jane, Nathan, and I rotate around those seats every, every concert.

Michael Keelan: How much of the orchestra was familiar with the Walton symphonies when you recorded them? They're very seldom played in the US.

Richard Thomas: That's, yeah, it's true. I didn't know them as in before we had to, before we had to play them. But my first experience with them would have been a few years beforehand. I used to play in the second violin section of the orchestra, and so I learned that part. I remember over the summer, it was one of the very first things I played coming back, back to work after the summer. They're fiendishly difficult, both of them. And then moving over to the firsts, and I was, I was suddenly playing the same symphony but a different part. So I feel, I feel like I've kind of ticked the box on Walton Symphony number one for sure.

Michael Keelan: How did audiences receive the symphonies in the places that you performed them, the first symphony specifically?

Richard Thomas: Yeah, so that was the one we brought on tour. And in Hamburg especially, it was received incredibly well. It's an amazing hall as well because the orchestra sits in the middle of the hall and the audience are all around you. So it kind of had that sort of almost Coliseum-type vibe for this incredibly difficult symphony, but it went down amazingly well.

Michael Keelan: What exactly makes these symphonies so difficult?

Richard Thomas: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean technically what you have in front of you in both violin parts, actually more so I would say in certainly in the first symphony in the second violin part, more so difficult than the first. But technically very challenging, just kind of awkward passages, tricky rhythms, tricky bowings. You have that in front of you, and then across the orchestra, it's also quite tricky to find a way of, I guess, trying to connect with with all the other parts because there's so many things going at the same time. Almost impossible to hear on one listening really, you have to kind of listen to them a few times and certainly play them a few times to really appreciate everything that Walton managed in, in such a short period of time.

Michael Keelan: Do you get the impression that the difficulties are for an expressive purpose, or that maybe he was not always entirely clear on what he was asking for? Because even great composers didn't always know exactly what they were asking for.

Richard Thomas: I, I think it is expressive. I think Walton, he did know what he was doing, certainly you get that sense in the violin writing anyway. It all sits well in the hand, it just takes that little bit of time just to kind of work out which, which way do I need to go to kind of get around this, this passage. But once you find it, then it's, it's there and it's fine and you need not worry about it.

Michael Keelan: Symphony number two is a bit more angular. Did you get a chance to perform it at home?

Richard Thomas: Yeah, good. We, we did play it. It's probably about a year and a half, maybe even two years ago. And it's a very different symphony, I think there's about 20 years or so between them. And the second symphony, it's quite strange because it starts as though it, it had already been there. It's always, it's always been playing in the background. You sort of dive into the middle of it. And it has that very much kind of, I think, film music sort of sound, certainly I'm sure John Williams and those would have, would have heard this symphony and it certainly inspired a lot of their music.

Michael Keelan: Does Walton to you feel more like a modernist or a romantic in the symphonies at least, or does it change from moment to moment?

Richard Thomas: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think certainly in the first symphony it feels very, it feels very romantic. It's quite luscious and there's really great high-string writing and all sorts of things. The second symphony, I think you're right, it looks more toward, more toward the future. It's a very different type of sound, which I think actually makes it a lovely album having the two of them because they're so contrasting.

Michael Keelan: You've had, as you said, more than one role in the orchestra, and how long did you spend in each of those sections? I've known a couple of people who've made that switch and it's kind of a mindset switch besides a physical switch.

Richard Thomas: Absolutely. I so I spent two and a half years in the second violin section. So I suppose I'd kind of played a lot of the repertoire. We work quite a lot, so we do two, if not three programs a week. So I certainly got a taste for the second violin parts in most of the repertoire. And then, yeah, moving over, it's quite strange because you play things that you know and are familiar to you, but then the music that's written in front of you is completely different. I remember we did on a tour a couple of years ago, we did the Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances, which they're incredibly difficult and they're, they you sort of have to to play them almost by memory in that sense because the bowings are so funny and it's kind of awkward and you sort of, you do it without necessarily thinking about it. And then we came to play it in the first violin section and I had that sensation of, oh I absolutely know what I'm doing here, and then I sat down and was like, oh these are completely different, it's a very, very different part. So yeah, that took me a little while to get used to. And I suppose I had that as well actually with the Walton symphony in the first one especially.

Michael Keelan: You play, at least recently, you've been playing a 1920 Giuseppe Pedrazzini violin from Milan. Was that your father's violin?

Richard Thomas: It was indeed, yeah. So that's, I reckon it's probably the very first instrument, let alone violin, I ever heard. So it was my dad's 18th birthday present once upon a time. He's a violin player as well. So I would have heard him practicing that and playing it throughout my childhood. And then I suppose when I was, when I was practicing, he would, he would help along along with my mom as well who's a flautist, they would both sort of help me out in my practice during during my formative years. And it's one of those things, it's quite interesting. I remember distinctly as a child it sort of sitting up on on the cabinet or on the table or whatever and I I wasn't allowed to touch it for fear that I would drop it. But certainly in my later years, in my teenage years or something, I might have, might have taken it out of the case every, every now and again to to try it. And then when I was, I suppose I was in my mid-20s or so, I, I needed a better instrument and Dad very kindly gave me gave me his. So it was really quite nice to sort of have that that violin that was always there, present in my life, and now very much so it, it stays with me all the time.

Michael Keelan: What a moment that must be to receive that violin that you had been hearing for all those years. What is the tone quality of it like?

Richard Thomas: Yeah, it's, it's very bright. It's, it's a loud violin. Which is great, so I don't really ever have to worry about projecting or anything like that. And actually when we were on tour, Thomastik strings were, were there as well and it was quite fun so we got to try out a few different, few different strings and see how it how it affected the the tone quality of the violin and things. So I mean I've been playing it for probably close on 10 years now but it's I'm still discovering new things with it every time I take it out of the case, which is quite nice.

Michael Keelan: Well, it sounds great on the album of Walton symphonies with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Richard Thomas, thanks very much for talking with us on First Take today.

Richard Thomas: It's my pleasure, thank you for having me.