But few single works contain as many startling ideas, ideas that were further chosen because of the challenges they present. Many composers had better ideas and, over their careers, a lot more of them. One of the things that makes a great composer is the great ideas that appear in his compositions. Nevertheless, a basic feature of the last movement is that it repeatedly cadences in Locrian. As such the idea of a tonal Locrian cadence is nearly an oxymoron. It's generally considered very difficult to write in Locrian because it's the only mode with a tritone in its tonic chord. The notes represented form a C chord that is both major and minor.īrilliant idea #3 - Write in the Locrian mode. The basic motive for the 1st movement (which returns at the end of the 3rd movement) is made of 2 6th intervals, as follows: C over E, up a 3rd to Eb over G, then back down to C over E. The uniqueness of his approach was in its utter simplicity. Beyond this, Walton was not the first to deal with the Maj/min conflict.
First dealing with this conflict in a semi-tonal, semi-modal work presents certain difficulties such as how to avoid too much major or minor to maintain the conflict notion and how to harmonize so it doesn't seem forced or trivial. Despite the challenges of featuring the viola, Walton decided to take it on anyway.īrillinat idea #2 - Major/minor conflict in the simplest terms. There are many more concerti for violin and cello than for viola because those instruments have their own full voice well capable of carrying above a full orchestra. How they all ended up in the same piece is beyond me as any one of them would have been in itself a sufficient starting point for a complete work.īrilliant idea #1 - The idea of writing a viola concerto itself. I think William Walton's Viola Concerto is a work of genius because it grew out of a set of ideas that Walton selected, I believe, because they were difficult.
I could be quite effusive about this so I'll try to keep it simple.