The music itself is interesting and agreeable, if not always compelling. …the quality of the recorded sound is outstanding, and it does full justice to Nelson’s beautiful instrument. Incidentally, the sound team received a Grammy for its work. Special kudos are also in order for über-accompanist John McLaughlin Williams, who conducts the Northwest Sinfonia, an excellent ensemble, and also plays the piano, harpsichord, and violin in the Speed Etude, Blues Lointains, Poem and duos. Harpist Douglas Rioth joins Nelson for the Harp Duo, and he does a fine job.

…I applaud Nelson and her colleagues for making this worthwhile recording, and any serious collectors of American classical music would be well advised to purchase it.

It is music of immediate and intriguing appeal, a blend of long-lined lyricism, jaunty spirits and vividly hued harmonies. Each of the pieces on this disc is tightly structured and clear in thematic design. Porter is equally adept sending the viola soaring, jogging and reflecting on solo paths and in chamber-music or orchestra settings.

The major work is the Viola Concerto, a four-movement piece full of idyllic and dramatic writing that epitomises Porter’s accessible art. Not that he avoids pungency. Spicy encounters give the Duo for violin and viola a special fascination, while Porter reveals his love of jazz in Blue lointains.

Nelson, a member of the Cleveland Orchestra, plays everything with gorgeous tonal focus, impeccable technique and expressive vibrancy. Her principal colleague is John McLaughlin Williams, a quadruple threat boldly accomplished as conductor, pianist, violinist and harpsichordist. Douglas Rioth, principal harp of the San Francisco Symphony, is another captivating partner on this invigorating and welcome release.

Porter must have known some of this, as he was a violist himself. His Concerto was composed in 1948 in four concise movements. Its opening is lazy, meandering, a recitative interlaced with burbling winds and noble brass with the viola sticking to its mid-range and espousing lyric verities. It has a similar ease as the Walton but lacks its Mediterranean languor and sensual appeal. Melancholy is a component too in an intimate way, but Porter unleashes his down-home self in the finale which is a barn dance of great dynamism, with witty wind writing above the strutting figures.

As this is an all-viola disc Eliesha Nelson is centre-stage. She plays the Speed Etude—written in the same year as the concerto - with just the right moto perpetuo decisiveness. The piano’s widely spaced writing allows the viola the middle ground once again and its figuration is thereby perfectly audible. The Duo for viola and harp or harpsichord is heard in both versions. It sports a long line, speeds up for a jazz-rich central panel and ends tenderly. The harp version sounds the more ‘playable’ but there’s a certain tangy quality about the harpsichord version that I like too.

If you were a Porter fan back in 1950 you’d have surveyed the discography with interest. The composer had set down his own version of the Solo Suite for Musicraft back in 1939. The Gordon Quartet had taken a punt on the Third Quartet (composed in 1930) for Columbia whilst a strictly anonymous group had set down the Sixth for the small Yaddo label, a company that had also issued the Quintet for flute and strings and some incidental music. You can now find Louis Kaufman and Artur Balsam’s recording of the Second Violin Sonata on Music & Arts CD638. These early recordings point to the fact that Porter did enjoy a certain degree of interest on disc. Of late there has been increasing interest on CD, not least in his chamber music. It would certainly be good to hear that Musicraft disc, which preserves his own playing. But certainly one would hardly find much fault with Nelson’s playing of this tightly constructed and taut work. Its baroque cadences are strikingly explicit and it’s most personalised in the free-wheeling barn dance flavours of the finale, ones that remind us omore....