1. Allegramente

2. Allegro scherzando

3. Andante tranquillo

4. Allegro molto

Walton started work on his Piano Quartet in 1918 – when he was sixteen years old – and he finished it in 1921. Herbert Howells’s work for the same forces was an influence and its success encouraged him to try his own hand at one. In 1924, it was published in the Carnegie Collection of British Music (as Howells’s Piano Quartet had been), though not before getting lost in the post for a couple of years. It’s a brilliant display of a young composer’s gifts, with a haunting slow movement and a ruggedly exciting finale.

Nigel Simeone 2013