Symphony No. 1: III. Andante con malinconia-New Haven Symphony Orchestra/Kurt Nikkanen

Walton originally marked the slow movement "Adagio con melancolia", now amended in printed editions of the score to "Andante con malinconia" ("at a moderate pace, with melancholy"). The movement, in C ♯minor, opens with a melancholy flute melody and later employs a second slow theme; both themes are, in Burton's phrase, "characteristically bitter-sweet lyricism". Walton develops them contrapuntally to a passionate climactic outburst, after which the music subsides and moves to a hushed conclusion. In Walton's earlier drafts the theme of the andante was intended for the opening movement, but he found "it didn't work out, then it became the slow movement". His original plan for the movement included a central scherzando episode, but he removed it from the short score, and nothing of it survives.