Symphony No. 1 (Walton)

The Symphony No. 1 in B♭ minor is one of two symphonies by the English composer William Walton. The composer had difficulty in completing the work, and its first public performance was given without the finale, in 1934. The complete four-movement work was premiered the following year.

The work shows the influence of Sibelius, particularly in its musical structure. It is among the best-known symphonies by British composers, and has received numerous recordings from within a month of the 1935 premiere to the 21st century.

In 1923 Walton had established a reputation as an avant garde composer with his "Entertainment", Façade (to verses by Edith Sitwell). His other major works of the 1920s and early 1930s, including the overture Portsmouth Point (1926), the Viola Concerto and the cantata, Belshazzar's Feast had established him as a prominent figure in British music.

In 1931 Walton began work on a symphony. Always a slow and painstaking composer, he made gradual progress. The first two movements were finished by early 1933, and he composed the slow movement in the middle of that year. After that, he suffered a persistent writer's block and could not complete the finale. Critics including Edward Greenfield have suggested that the problem was a reaction to the break-up of Walton's six-year love affair with a young German widow, the Baroness Imma von Doernberg, to whom the symphony is dedicated. Walton was not writing to commission, and there was no contractual deadline for the completion of the symphony, but he had promised the premiere to the conductor Sir Hamilton Harty and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). The composer had allowed the work to be announced for two consecutive years in the orchestra's seasonal prospectus, and the expectation thus aroused put pressure on him. In 1934 he was persuaded by Harty and others to allow a performance of the three completed movements. This took place at the Queen's Hall on 3 December 1934. Two more performances of the incomplete work were given the following April by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent.

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