Vaughan Williams's Veranda

[vandermolen]

Listening to it now on Spotify - woodwinds sound too bright and forward but that could be Spotify. It now only seems to be available as part of a two-disc set with the Berglund 4 & 6; as I already have them in the Warner Berglund Icon set it is a bit of a non-starter. The album cover has wasps on it, presumably because it also contains the Aristophanic Suite, all 8'35 of it.

I will hunt round a bit more as it sounds like a fine performance.

Yes it's the same recording as in the 'Wasps' set. I much prefer this cover:

[relm1]

I listened to Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 4 with the NYPO just now.  As expected, this is a very fine performance full of structural finesse and nuance.  My favorite is Boult's 1953 recording with London Philharmonic. 

[vandermolen]

I listened to Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 4 with the NYPO just now.  As expected, this is a very fine performance full of structural finesse and nuance.  My favorite is Boult's 1953 recording with London Philharmonic.

I totally agree. I originally had the LP version. I like the LP cover image. I'm sorry that Bernstein never AFAIK recorded the 6th Symphony.

[Biffo]

Yes it's the same recording as in the 'Wasps' set. I much prefer this cover:

The 'Wasps' set has too much duplication for me. Presto have it as a lossless download but they are rather naughty - the Berglund and Silvestri items are available separately but you have to buy the whole album to get the Gibson. It is very inexpensive but it still irks me, in any case I would prefer to have it on a CD.

[vandermolen]

From WAYLTN thread:
Vaughan Williams: 'The Lark Ascending' (original version for violin and piano)
This is a wonderful CD of VW's complete works for violin and piano which makes a great programme. Beautifully performed and recorded. The booklet is excellent, featuring a number of photos of VW (see below) and a cover image of the soloists at Leith Hill Place, VW's childhood home.
Sections of the late Violin Sonata reminded me of Shostakovich. I much prefer this performance to the much lauded recent Chandos recording with Jennifer Pike.

[vandermolen]

Negative article about VW from the New Statesman (online edition) with my brother's response printed (with his permission) below.

Vaughan Williams' vision of Englishness is not the one we need
The composer dominates the BBC Proms this year, the 150th anniversary of his birth. But if this is our national music, it is a toothless pastiche.
By Matthew Gilley
This year "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams was voted Classic FM listeners' favourite piece of classical music (as it was last year, and the one before that, and the one before that). They're not alone in their admiration. A major theme of the BBC Proms this year is the 150th anniversary of the English composer's birth.
Vaughan Williams is venerated for developing a distinctly English style, as opposed to the German-influenced Romanticism that had dominated British music in the 19th century, yet his is a toothless, pastiche Englishness. If, as Michael Sheen suggested in the New Statesman in March, Britain is a divided nation in search of a story, this is a poor one to choose.
One of his main influences was folk music, but in "The Lark Ascending" (first performed in its version for solo violin and orchestra in 1921) and other pieces, it is alluded to only in its most pleasant, uncomplicated form. The solo line swoops and soars, imitating folk melody with little vitality, trapping a living tradition in amber. The "Norfolk Rhapsody No 1" (1906) might make nice hold music for the tourist board, but offers little else.
Vaughan Williams was born to minor aristocracy without the need to ever earn his living. His efforts to create a particularly English music are attractive in theory, but the genteel result cannot speak for the country. If this is our national music, you might fairly ask, what place does it hold for me? He may well have prepared the way for later composers to be English without being so staid, but even among his contemporaries there was better available, such as Ethel Smyth's glorious Mass in D Major (1891), open and generous in its uncertainties, which will be performed at this year's Prom 44 instead. The narrow, exclusive vision of Vaughan Williams' music didn't befit his own time, and it certainly doesn't befit ours.
Vaughan Williams' other great influence was Renaissance choral music, and he sucked its soul in the same way he did with folk music. Prom 2 includes one of his most popular compositions, "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" (number three on the Classic FM chart), a piece for string orchestra of weightless prettiness that really makes you think, "Gosh, I wish I was listening to Thomas Tallis." (Fortunately you can do that at Prom 50.)
There's an outing in Prom 6 for Vaughan Williams' Fourth Symphony, a darker and more complicated piece, written in the febrile 1930s, which only emphasises the pastoral naivety in the rest of his oeuvre. And yet it still sounds thin when compared with Michael Tippett's dramatic, poignant Fourth Symphony (1977), with which it is paired.
If marking anniversaries and smuggling interesting music in around the ossified canon is what classical programmers think they need to do to sell tickets, it seems a damning indictment of the industry. The strategy lacks creativity or optimism. There are enough composers and enough round numbers that you can find a "significant" anniversary for any occasion, resulting in concerts that only ever look backwards. (More modern music is not immune to this impulse. The minimalist composer Steve Reich has a birthday every year and it invariably comes with a rash of celebratory concerts – though at least he's there to do the celebrating.)
It's also hard to see how this approach serves the BBC's aim, stated in May, to "build new audiences for classical music". There is plenty on at the Proms this year with obvious contemporary appeal (such as Jennifer Walshe's "The Site of an Investigation", an experimental, ingenious work about social media and micro-pollutants, or a Violin Concerto by Missy Mazzoli, a thrilling, vibrant, easy-to-love composer), but they are poorly served by being hidden among the old standards. It is worth seeking them, or any of the other new commissions, out though, even if it takes a bit more effort than finding the classics.
And if you really need some larks in your music, they're there in the UK premiere in Prom 52 of Märchentänze by Thomas Adès.

(My brother's response)
Music is very important to me, especially deriving an emotional narrative from the music I am listening to, and like Matthew Gilley (15 July) I am not a huge fan of either the Lark Ascending or A Norfolk Rhapsody though I am not hostile to them. But to treat those relatively static pieces as summing up Vaughan Williams's oeuvre is false. So is complaining about the thinness of his fourth symphony in relation to the atmosphere of the 'febrile' 1930s. I see it as unrelated to the political atmosphere but rather a unique expression of personal irritability. Also to treat the fourth as a solitary contrast to the rest of his oeuvre is nonsensical. In these days of potential climate disaster and uncaring hedonism, his sixth symphony written in 1948 seems terrifyingly prophetic.
Finally, to place the Tallis Fantasia as part of his more static music is a misreading. Imagine –
•   the introduction of the plucked string theme as Tallis's ghost wandering the earth wondering whether he had done any good;
•   the working up to a climax as Vaughan Williams get increasingly sent by the theme as he writes around it; and
•   the reappearance of the plucked strings and the rhythm change as the ghost realising that and then doing a little pleased dance before ascent to heaven;
and one can derive an emotional narrative equal to that of the most dramatic of symphonies.

[Biffo]

Negative article about VW from the New Statesman (online edition) with my brother's response printed (with his permission) below.

Vaughan Williams' vision of Englishness is not the one we need
The composer dominates the BBC Proms this year, the 150th anniversary of his birth. But if this is our national music, it is a toothless pastiche.
By Matthew Gilley
This year "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams was voted Classic FM listeners' favourite piece of classical music (as it was last year, and the one before that, and the one before that). They're not alone in their admiration. A major theme of the BBC Proms this year is the 150th anniversary of the English composer's birth.
Vaughan Williams is venerated for developing a distinctly English style, as opposed to the German-influenced Romanticism that had dominated British music in the 19th century, yet his is a toothless, pastiche Englishness. If, as Michael Sheen suggested in the New Statesman in March, Britain is a divided nation in search of a story, this is a poor one to choose.
One of his main influences was folk music, but in "The Lark Ascending" (first performed in its version for solo violin and orchestra in 1921) and other pieces, it is alluded to only in its most pleasant, uncomplicated form. The solo line swoops and soars, imitating folk melody with little vitality, trapping a living tradition in amber. The "Norfolk Rhapsody No 1" (1906) might make nice hold music for the tourist board, but offers little else.
Vaughan Williams was born to minor aristocracy without the need to ever earn his living. His efforts to create a particularly English music are attractive in theory, but the genteel result cannot speak for the country. If this is our national music, you might fairly ask, what place does it hold for me? He may well have prepared the way for later composers to be English without being so staid, but even among his contemporaries there was better available, such as Ethel Smyth's glorious Mass in D Major (1891), open and generous in its uncertainties, which will be performed at this year's Prom 44 instead. The narrow, exclusive vision of Vaughan Williams' music didn't befit his own time, and it certainly doesn't befit ours.
Vaughan Williams' other great influence was Renaissance choral music, and he sucked its soul in the same way he did with folk music. Prom 2 includes one of his most popular compositions, "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" (number three on the Classic FM chart), a piece for string orchestra of weightless prettiness that really makes you think, "Gosh, I wish I was listening to Thomas Tallis." (Fortunately you can do that at Prom 50.)
There's an outing in Prom 6 for Vaughan Williams' Fourth Symphony, a darker and more complicated piece, written in the febrile 1930s, which only emphasises the pastoral naivety in the rest of his oeuvre. And yet it still sounds thin when compared with Michael Tippett's dramatic, poignant Fourth Symphony (1977), with which it is paired.
If marking anniversaries and smuggling interesting music in around the ossified canon is what classical programmers think they need to do to sell tickets, it seems a damning indictment of the industry. The strategy lacks creativity or optimism. There are enough composers and enough round numbers that you can find a "significant" anniversary for any occasion, resulting in concerts that only ever look backwards. (More modern music is not immune to this impulse. The minimalist composer Steve Reich has a birthday every year and it invariably comes with a rash of celebratory concerts – though at least he's there to do the celebrating.)
It's also hard to see how this approach serves the BBC's aim, stated in May, to "build new audiences for classical music". There is plenty on at the Proms this year with obvious contemporary appeal (such as Jennifer Walshe's "The Site of an Investigation", an experimental, ingenious work about social media and micro-pollutants, or a Violin Concerto by Missy Mazzoli, a thrilling, vibrant, easy-to-love composer), but they are poorly served by being hidden among the old standards. It is worth seeking them, or any of the other new commissions, out though, even if it takes a bit more effort than finding the classics.
And if you really need some larks in your music, they're there in the UK premiere in Prom 52 of Märchentänze by Thomas Adès.

(My brother's response)
Music is very important to me, especially deriving an emotional narrative from the music I am listening to, and like Matthew Gilley (15 July) I am not a huge fan of either the Lark Ascending or A Norfolk Rhapsody though I am not hostile to them. But to treat those relatively static pieces as summing up Vaughan Williams's oeuvre is false. So is complaining about the thinness of his fourth symphony in relation to the atmosphere of the 'febrile' 1930s. I see it as unrelated to the political atmosphere but rather a unique expression of personal irritability. Also to treat the fourth as a solitary contrast to the rest of his oeuvre is nonsensical. In these days of potential climate disaster and uncaring hedonism, his sixth symphony written in 1948 seems terrifyingly prophetic.
Finally, to place the Tallis Fantasia as part of his more static music is a misreading. Imagine –
•   the introduction of the plucked string theme as Tallis's ghost wandering the earth wondering whether he had done any good;
•   the working up to a climax as Vaughan Williams get increasingly sent by the theme as he writes around it; and
•   the reappearance of the plucked strings and the rhythm change as the ghost realising that and then doing a little pleased dance before ascent to heaven;
and one can derive an emotional narrative equal to that of the most dramatic of symphonies.

I can understand your brother wanting to reply but personally I wouldn't have bothered, it is, after all, only The New Statesman and they have been publishing garbage like this for decades.

[LKB]

Negative article about VW from the New Statesman (online edition) with my brother's response printed (with his permission) below.

Vaughan Williams' vision of Englishness is not the one we need
The composer dominates the BBC Proms this year, the 150th anniversary of his birth. But if this is our national music, it is a toothless pastiche.
By Matthew Gilley
This year "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams was voted Classic FM listeners' favourite piece of classical music (as it was last year, and the one before that, and the one before that). They're not alone in their admiration. A major theme of the BBC Proms this year is the 150th anniversary of the English composer's birth.
Vaughan Williams is venerated for developing a distinctly English style, as opposed to the German-influenced Romanticism that had dominated British music in the 19th century, yet his is a toothless, pastiche Englishness. If, as Michael Sheen suggested in the New Statesman in March, Britain is a divided nation in search of a story, this is a poor one to choose.
One of his main influences was folk music, but in "The Lark Ascending" (first performed in its version for solo violin and orchestra in 1921) and other pieces, it is alluded to only in its most pleasant, uncomplicated form. The solo line swoops and soars, imitating folk melody with little vitality, trapping a living tradition in amber. The "Norfolk Rhapsody No 1" (1906) might make nice hold music for the tourist board, but offers little else.
Vaughan Williams was born to minor aristocracy without the need to ever earn his living. His efforts to create a particularly English music are attractive in theory, but the genteel result cannot speak for the country. If this is our national music, you might fairly ask, what place does it hold for me? He may well have prepared the way for later composers to be English without being so staid, but even among his contemporaries there was better available, such as Ethel Smyth's glorious Mass in D Major (1891), open and generous in its uncertainties, which will be performed at this year's Prom 44 instead. The narrow, exclusive vision of Vaughan Williams' music didn't befit his own time, and it certainly doesn't befit ours.
Vaughan Williams' other great influence was Renaissance choral music, and he sucked its soul in the same way he did with folk music. Prom 2 includes one of his most popular compositions, "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" (number three on the Classic FM chart), a piece for string orchestra of weightless prettiness that really makes you think, "Gosh, I wish I was listening to Thomas Tallis." (Fortunately you can do that at Prom 50.)
There's an outing in Prom 6 for Vaughan Williams' Fourth Symphony, a darker and more complicated piece, written in the febrile 1930s, which only emphasises the pastoral naivety in the rest of his oeuvre. And yet it still sounds thin when compared with Michael Tippett's dramatic, poignant Fourth Symphony (1977), with which it is paired.
If marking anniversaries and smuggling interesting music in around the ossified canon is what classical programmers think they need to do to sell tickets, it seems a damning indictment of the industry. The strategy lacks creativity or optimism. There are enough composers and enough round numbers that you can find a "significant" anniversary for any occasion, resulting in concerts that only ever look backwards. (More modern music is not immune to this impulse. The minimalist composer Steve Reich has a birthday every year and it invariably comes with a rash of celebratory concerts – though at least he's there to do the celebrating.)
It's also hard to see how this approach serves the BBC's aim, stated in May, to "build new audiences for classical music". There is plenty on at the Proms this year with obvious contemporary appeal (such as Jennifer Walshe's "The Site of an Investigation", an experimental, ingenious work about social media and micro-pollutants, or a Violin Concerto by Missy Mazzoli, a thrilling, vibrant, easy-to-love composer), but they are poorly served by being hidden among the old standards. It is worth seeking them, or any of the other new commissions, out though, even if it takes a bit more effort than finding the classics.
And if you really need some larks in your music, they're there in the UK premiere in Prom 52 of Märchentänze by Thomas Adès.

(My brother's response)
Music is very important to me, especially deriving an emotional narrative from the music I am listening to, and like Matthew Gilley (15 July) I am not a huge fan of either the Lark Ascending or A Norfolk Rhapsody though I am not hostile to them. But to treat those relatively static pieces as summing up Vaughan Williams's oeuvre is false. So is complaining about the thinness of his fourth symphony in relation to the atmosphere of the 'febrile' 1930s. I see it as unrelated to the political atmosphere but rather a unique expression of personal irritability. Also to treat the fourth as a solitary contrast to the rest of his oeuvre is nonsensical. In these days of potential climate disaster and uncaring hedonism, his sixth symphony written in 1948 seems terrifyingly prophetic.
Finally, to place the Tallis Fantasia as part of his more static music is a misreading. Imagine –
•   the introduction of the plucked string theme as Tallis's ghost wandering the earth wondering whether he had done any good;
•   the working up to a climax as Vaughan Williams get increasingly sent by the theme as he writes around it; and
•   the reappearance of the plucked strings and the rhythm change as the ghost realising that and then doing a little pleased dance before ascent to heaven;
and one can derive an emotional narrative equal to that of the most dramatic of symphonies.

To your brother l offer a heartfelt " Well done! " 

[vandermolen]

To your brother l offer a heartfelt " Well done! " 

Thanks - I've passed your message on.

[vandermolen]

From WAYLTN thread
Vaughan Williams Symphony No.9 World Premiere Performance (1958)
A most interesting VW release. I enjoyed the whole CD. Best of all was Sargent's powerful and urgent performance of Symphony No.6 (complete with BBC radio announcements) from the 1964 Proms. I was very gripped by the urgency of this performance and, for once, the epilogue felt right and not rushed. It reminded me of the excitement of my first encounter with the work (Boult/LPO) on a Decca Eclipse LP (complete with speech of thanks from the composer). The Ninth Symphony is the controversial premiere performance. It has been available on Pristine before. It does sound a bit rushed compared to later performances but I still enjoyed it and the harp's fade-out at the end worked well. I even enjoyed 'The Wasps' having enjoyed hearing it live at a local concert recently.

[Karl Henning]

To your brother l offer a heartfelt " Well done! " 

+ 1

[Spotted Horses]

Seems like running down RVW is a national pastime in the UK! 

Maybe we can delete the Elizabethan stuff and he can posthumously emigrate to the U.S. We could use him.

[Biffo]

Seems like running down RVW is a national pastime in the UK!

Maybe we can delete the Elizabethan stuff and he can posthumously emigrate to the U.S. We could use him.

It has been for years, even when he was still alive. The article by Matthew Gilley (who he?) is the the usual ragbag of clichés tarted up with references to fashionably woke composers.

A couple of weeks ago MSN had a 'critics choice' of works to look out for at the Proms. My reaction was ' another year when the Proms won't be troubling my airwaves'.

Fortunately, I have all the RVW I will ever need in my record collection.

[DavidW]

That article read as a classic strawman.  He depicts RVW's music in a very specific and bizarre manner just to make it easy to knock it down and RVW's listeners at the same time.  It's just lazy writing not worthy of much thought or emotion.  Just toss it in the bin and move on.

[Karl Henning]

Truly. Throwaway "journalism."

[Mirror Image]

Negative article about VW from the New Statesman (online edition) with my brother's response printed (with his permission) below.

Vaughan Williams' vision of Englishness is not the one we need
The composer dominates the BBC Proms this year, the 150th anniversary of his birth. But if this is our national music, it is a toothless pastiche.
By Matthew Gilley
This year "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams was voted Classic FM listeners' favourite piece of classical music (as it was last year, and the one before that, and the one before that). They're not alone in their admiration. A major theme of the BBC Proms this year is the 150th anniversary of the English composer's birth.
Vaughan Williams is venerated for developing a distinctly English style, as opposed to the German-influenced Romanticism that had dominated British music in the 19th century, yet his is a toothless, pastiche Englishness. If, as Michael Sheen suggested in the New Statesman in March, Britain is a divided nation in search of a story, this is a poor one to choose.
One of his main influences was folk music, but in "The Lark Ascending" (first performed in its version for solo violin and orchestra in 1921) and other pieces, it is alluded to only in its most pleasant, uncomplicated form. The solo line swoops and soars, imitating folk melody with little vitality, trapping a living tradition in amber. The "Norfolk Rhapsody No 1" (1906) might make nice hold music for the tourist board, but offers little else.
Vaughan Williams was born to minor aristocracy without the need to ever earn his living. His efforts to create a particularly English music are attractive in theory, but the genteel result cannot speak for the country. If this is our national music, you might fairly ask, what place does it hold for me? He may well have prepared the way for later composers to be English without being so staid, but even among his contemporaries there was better available, such as Ethel Smyth's glorious Mass in D Major (1891), open and generous in its uncertainties, which will be performed at this year's Prom 44 instead. The narrow, exclusive vision of Vaughan Williams' music didn't befit his own time, and it certainly doesn't befit ours.
Vaughan Williams' other great influence was Renaissance choral music, and he sucked its soul in the same way he did with folk music. Prom 2 includes one of his most popular compositions, "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" (number three on the Classic FM chart), a piece for string orchestra of weightless prettiness that really makes you think, "Gosh, I wish I was listening to Thomas Tallis." (Fortunately you can do that at Prom 50.)
There's an outing in Prom 6 for Vaughan Williams' Fourth Symphony, a darker and more complicated piece, written in the febrile 1930s, which only emphasises the pastoral naivety in the rest of his oeuvre. And yet it still sounds thin when compared with Michael Tippett's dramatic, poignant Fourth Symphony (1977), with which it is paired.
If marking anniversaries and smuggling interesting music in around the ossified canon is what classical programmers think they need to do to sell tickets, it seems a damning indictment of the industry. The strategy lacks creativity or optimism. There are enough composers and enough round numbers that you can find a "significant" anniversary for any occasion, resulting in concerts that only ever look backwards. (More modern music is not immune to this impulse. The minimalist composer Steve Reich has a birthday every year and it invariably comes with a rash of celebratory concerts – though at least he's there to do the celebrating.)
It's also hard to see how this approach serves the BBC's aim, stated in May, to "build new audiences for classical music". There is plenty on at the Proms this year with obvious contemporary appeal (such as Jennifer Walshe's "The Site of an Investigation", an experimental, ingenious work about social media and micro-pollutants, or a Violin Concerto by Missy Mazzoli, a thrilling, vibrant, easy-to-love composer), but they are poorly served by being hidden among the old standards. It is worth seeking them, or any of the other new commissions, out though, even if it takes a bit more effort than finding the classics.
And if you really need some larks in your music, they're there in the UK premiere in Prom 52 of Märchentänze by Thomas Adès.

(My brother's response)
Music is very important to me, especially deriving an emotional narrative from the music I am listening to, and like Matthew Gilley (15 July) I am not a huge fan of either the Lark Ascending or A Norfolk Rhapsody though I am not hostile to them. But to treat those relatively static pieces as summing up Vaughan Williams's oeuvre is false. So is complaining about the thinness of his fourth symphony in relation to the atmosphere of the 'febrile' 1930s. I see it as unrelated to the political atmosphere but rather a unique expression of personal irritability. Also to treat the fourth as a solitary contrast to the rest of his oeuvre is nonsensical. In these days of potential climate disaster and uncaring hedonism, his sixth symphony written in 1948 seems terrifyingly prophetic.
Finally, to place the Tallis Fantasia as part of his more static music is a misreading. Imagine –
•   the introduction of the plucked string theme as Tallis's ghost wandering the earth wondering whether he had done any good;
•   the working up to a climax as Vaughan Williams get increasingly sent by the theme as he writes around it; and
•   the reappearance of the plucked strings and the rhythm change as the ghost realising that and then doing a little pleased dance before ascent to heaven;
and one can derive an emotional narrative equal to that of the most dramatic of symphonies.

A lousy article, but your brother's follow-up was spot on, Jeffrey. It never ceases to amaze me that RVW gets raked through dirt while composers like Stockhausen get praised for their "forward-thinking" modernity. If one actually listened to RVW's oeuvre in any depth, they would soon realize that pigeonholing him is not something that can be done. It often makes me think of the downright nastiness that comes from critics when writing about Delius for example. This poor composer has suffered some of the most vicious attacks from critics that it does make me wonder if they've actually spent any time with his music before writing their slop. Getting back to RVW, I think it's best we ignore the naysayers and continue to praise his music, because, at the very least, we know what we're talking about and understand that this man's genius is not bound by one style, but many of them and no matter what is written, his own soul, spirit and humanity comes to foreground in the music and this is something these journalists don't understand.

[calyptorhynchus]

Ha, lol, that article. My politics are of the same ilk as the New Statesman but my musical tastes are, I hope, a bit more sophisticated. No socialist realism for me.

[vandermolen]

A lousy article, but your brother's follow-up was spot on, Jeffrey. It never ceases to amaze me that RVW gets raked through dirt while composers like Stockhausen get praised for their "forward-thinking" modernity. If one actually listened to RVW's oeuvre in any depth, they would soon realize that pigeonholing him is not something that can be done. It often makes me think of the downright nastiness that comes from critics when writing about Delius for example. This poor composer has suffered some of the most vicious attacks from critics that it does make me wonder if they've actually spent any time with his music before writing their slop. Getting back to RVW, I think it's best we ignore the naysayers and continue to praise his music, because, at the very least, we know what we're talking about and understand that this man's genius is not bound by one style, but many of them and no matter what is written, his own soul, spirit and humanity comes to foreground in the music and this is something these journalists don't understand.

Thanks John - I very much agree with what you say.

[vandermolen]

Ha, lol, that article. My politics are of the same ilk as the New Statesman but my musical tastes are, I hope, a bit more sophisticated. No socialist realism for me.

I like the New Statesman as well and have started buying it recently. However, their online hatchet job on Vaughan Williams was most unappealing.

[relm1]

Negative article about VW from the New Statesman (online edition) with my brother's response printed (with his permission) below.

Vaughan Williams' vision of Englishness is not the one we need
The composer dominates the BBC Proms this year, the 150th anniversary of his birth. But if this is our national music, it is a toothless pastiche.
By Matthew Gilley
This year "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams was voted Classic FM listeners' favourite piece of classical music (as it was last year, and the one before that, and the one before that). They're not alone in their admiration. A major theme of the BBC Proms this year is the 150th anniversary of the English composer's birth.
Vaughan Williams is venerated for developing a distinctly English style, as opposed to the German-influenced Romanticism that had dominated British music in the 19th century, yet his is a toothless, pastiche Englishness. If, as Michael Sheen suggested in the New Statesman in March, Britain is a divided nation in search of a story, this is a poor one to choose.
One of his main influences was folk music, but in "The Lark Ascending" (first performed in its version for solo violin and orchestra in 1921) and other pieces, it is alluded to only in its most pleasant, uncomplicated form. The solo line swoops and soars, imitating folk melody with little vitality, trapping a living tradition in amber. The "Norfolk Rhapsody No 1" (1906) might make nice hold music for the tourist board, but offers little else.
Vaughan Williams was born to minor aristocracy without the need to ever earn his living. His efforts to create a particularly English music are attractive in theory, but the genteel result cannot speak for the country. If this is our national music, you might fairly ask, what place does it hold for me? He may well have prepared the way for later composers to be English without being so staid, but even among his contemporaries there was better available, such as Ethel Smyth's glorious Mass in D Major (1891), open and generous in its uncertainties, which will be performed at this year's Prom 44 instead. The narrow, exclusive vision of Vaughan Williams' music didn't befit his own time, and it certainly doesn't befit ours.
Vaughan Williams' other great influence was Renaissance choral music, and he sucked its soul in the same way he did with folk music. Prom 2 includes one of his most popular compositions, "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" (number three on the Classic FM chart), a piece for string orchestra of weightless prettiness that really makes you think, "Gosh, I wish I was listening to Thomas Tallis." (Fortunately you can do that at Prom 50.)
There's an outing in Prom 6 for Vaughan Williams' Fourth Symphony, a darker and more complicated piece, written in the febrile 1930s, which only emphasises the pastoral naivety in the rest of his oeuvre. And yet it still sounds thin when compared with Michael Tippett's dramatic, poignant Fourth Symphony (1977), with which it is paired.
If marking anniversaries and smuggling interesting music in around the ossified canon is what classical programmers think they need to do to sell tickets, it seems a damning indictment of the industry. The strategy lacks creativity or optimism. There are enough composers and enough round numbers that you can find a "significant" anniversary for any occasion, resulting in concerts that only ever look backwards. (More modern music is not immune to this impulse. The minimalist composer Steve Reich has a birthday every year and it invariably comes with a rash of celebratory concerts – though at least he's there to do the celebrating.)
It's also hard to see how this approach serves the BBC's aim, stated in May, to "build new audiences for classical music". There is plenty on at the Proms this year with obvious contemporary appeal (such as Jennifer Walshe's "The Site of an Investigation", an experimental, ingenious work about social media and micro-pollutants, or a Violin Concerto by Missy Mazzoli, a thrilling, vibrant, easy-to-love composer), but they are poorly served by being hidden among the old standards. It is worth seeking them, or any of the other new commissions, out though, even if it takes a bit more effort than finding the classics.
And if you really need some larks in your music, they're there in the UK premiere in Prom 52 of Märchentänze by Thomas Adès.

(My brother's response)
Music is very important to me, especially deriving an emotional narrative from the music I am listening to, and like Matthew Gilley (15 July) I am not a huge fan of either the Lark Ascending or A Norfolk Rhapsody though I am not hostile to them. But to treat those relatively static pieces as summing up Vaughan Williams's oeuvre is false. So is complaining about the thinness of his fourth symphony in relation to the atmosphere of the 'febrile' 1930s. I see it as unrelated to the political atmosphere but rather a unique expression of personal irritability. Also to treat the fourth as a solitary contrast to the rest of his oeuvre is nonsensical. In these days of potential climate disaster and uncaring hedonism, his sixth symphony written in 1948 seems terrifyingly prophetic.
Finally, to place the Tallis Fantasia as part of his more static music is a misreading. Imagine –
•   the introduction of the plucked string theme as Tallis's ghost wandering the earth wondering whether he had done any good;
•   the working up to a climax as Vaughan Williams get increasingly sent by the theme as he writes around it; and
•   the reappearance of the plucked strings and the rhythm change as the ghost realising that and then doing a little pleased dance before ascent to heaven;
and one can derive an emotional narrative equal to that of the most dramatic of symphonies.

Wow, so cynical an article.  I was just talking about this to a widow of an English composer I quite admire who felt this.  It's not always as overt as this author is.  I'll certainly share this with her.  The author also misses a musicological approach and is focused on an audience reaction (is it engaging).  Musicological approaches take into account context, history, impact, etc.  It's such a juvenile assessment.  I happen to consider RVW as one of my top 5 composers.  I also deeply appreciate the works he singles out as weak perhaps because I'm not English and to me it represents something slightly more exotic.  I clearly hear the French influence in RVW just like I hear the Germanic in Elgar.  That's not a problem.  All music has influences.  We can hear eastern gamelan influences in Debussy for example.  Very clearly hear French in Rimsky Korsakov and Stravinsky.  This is exotic and interesting.  I also happen to love many of the composers the article singles out such as Adès and Missy Mazzoli who I've met at a few occasions before she was "famous".  I just think this writer wreaks of elitism and has much to learn about populism he defends without understanding.