Vaughan Williams's Veranda

[Mirror Image]

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

I had a hunch you might.

[Roasted Swan]

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.

Really well put - thankyou!

[vandermolen]

Really well put - thankyou!

+1

[vandermolen]

Last night I turned on the car radio near the start of the 4th Symphony conducted by Sir Andrew Davis from the Proms. I remained in the car to hear the rest of it. It sounded like a very good performance.
I found this short video online of Andrew Davis talking about the composer (when he says 'Shackleton' he means 'Scott'):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIEEfmwQncY

[DaveF]

I just think this writer wreaks of elitism and has much to learn about populism he defends without understanding.

Ha! - brilliant, devastating in fact.  Says perfectly in one line what I got rather more carried away trying to express:

Of course, this being the New Statesman, everything Matthew Gilley writes has passed through the filter of the magazine's left-wing political stance.  There is no music criticism as such in his piece; VW is not presented as a bad, incompetent composer (an opinion that wouldn't stand up to much examination) but as an out-of-touch toff, enjoying a private income and using folk music only in its most "pleasant, uncomplicated form" (rather than, presumably, incorporating the Jarrow Marchers' songs into his pieces).  The composers to whom he is unflatteringly compared are an interesting bunch: Ethel Smyth (imprisoned for her involvement in the Women's Suffrage movement), Michael Tippett (ditto for his pacifist views), Thomas Tallis (possibly recusant Roman Catholic) - all good anti-establishment rebels (which didn't stop the first two accepting dame/knighthoods and also enjoying private incomes).

Gilley is particularly scathing about the use of anniversaries to aid programming, contending that it is possible to find a significant anniversary for any occasion. This may be true (I'm particularly looking forward to 2023 being Ligeti and Rachmaninoff year), but as far as I can see we're not actually doing that (I've seen little or no mention of Xenakis, Franck or Scriabin this year, all of whom are also enjoying "big ones") - we're celebrating the sesquicentenary (couldn't wait to get that word in) of someone usually reckoned to be one of the three greatest British composers of the last century.  And as far as Steve Reich goes, I can find plenty of events that were held to celebrate his 80th 5 years ago, but not these annual birthday bashes that Gilley finds so irritating.  I wonder whether Gilley would find a Xenakis centenary concert, were such to be held, backward-looking.

A few points from Gilley's review that particularly annoyed me:

"Vaughan Williams is venerated for developing a distinctly English style" - not by me he's not: I don't hear anything English in my favourite VW pieces (Job, the symphonies, the A minor violin sonata etc. etc.).  I just enjoy his music ("venerate" is perhaps a bit strong for me) because it's such damn good stuff.

"If this is our national music" - who ever claimed it was?  To my ears Britten is every bit as English.  (At least he had an English name, not two Welsh ones .)  What the heck is "national music" anyway?  And what does Gilley think should be placed on this national pedestal in place of VW?  The contemporary pieces he recommends are by, respectively, an Irish and an American composer.

"There is plenty on at the Proms this year with obvious contemporary appeal" - only if it's good music.  I really hope both Walshe's and Mazzoli's pieces fall into that category, and I look forward with interest to hearing them, but a stinkingly bad piece about social media and microplastics will have no appeal whatever, contemporary or otherwise.

"Missy Mazzoli, a thrilling, vibrant, easy-to-love composer" - a description that sounds a lot like poor old VW.

"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" - why should it take more effort? It's all there in the Proms guide.

There - rant over.

[relm1]

Ha! - brilliant, devastating in fact.  Says perfectly in one line what I got rather more carried away trying to express:

Of course, this being the New Statesman, everything Matthew Gilley writes has passed through the filter of the magazine's left-wing political stance.  There is no music criticism as such in his piece; VW is not presented as a bad, incompetent composer (an opinion that wouldn't stand up to much examination) but as an out-of-touch toff, enjoying a private income and using folk music only in its most "pleasant, uncomplicated form" (rather than, presumably, incorporating the Jarrow Marchers' songs into his pieces).  The composers to whom he is unflatteringly compared are an interesting bunch: Ethel Smyth (imprisoned for her involvement in the Women's Suffrage movement), Michael Tippett (ditto for his pacifist views), Thomas Tallis (possibly recusant Roman Catholic) - all good anti-establishment rebels (which didn't stop the first two accepting dame/knighthoods and also enjoying private incomes).

Gilley is particularly scathing about the use of anniversaries to aid programming, contending that it is possible to find a significant anniversary for any occasion. This may be true (I'm particularly looking forward to 2023 being Ligeti and Rachmaninoff year), but as far as I can see we're not actually doing that (I've seen little or no mention of Xenakis, Franck or Scriabin this year, all of whom are also enjoying "big ones") - we're celebrating the sesquicentenary (couldn't wait to get that word in) of someone usually reckoned to be one of the three greatest British composers of the last century.  And as far as Steve Reich goes, I can find plenty of events that were held to celebrate his 80th 5 years ago, but not these annual birthday bashes that Gilley finds so irritating.  I wonder whether Gilley would find a Xenakis centenary concert, were such to be held, backward-looking.

A few points from Gilley's review that particularly annoyed me:

"Vaughan Williams is venerated for developing a distinctly English style" - not by me he's not: I don't hear anything English in my favourite VW pieces (Job, the symphonies, the A minor violin sonata etc. etc.).  I just enjoy his music ("venerate" is perhaps a bit strong for me) because it's such damn good stuff.

"If this is our national music" - who ever claimed it was?  To my ears Britten is every bit as English.  (At least he had an English name, not two Welsh ones .)  What the heck is "national music" anyway?  And what does Gilley think should be placed on this national pedestal in place of VW?  The contemporary pieces he recommends are by, respectively, an Irish and an American composer.

"There is plenty on at the Proms this year with obvious contemporary appeal" - only if it's good music.  I really hope both Walshe's and Mazzoli's pieces fall into that category, and I look forward with interest to hearing them, but a stinkingly bad piece about social media and microplastics will have no appeal whatever, contemporary or otherwise.

"Missy Mazzoli, a thrilling, vibrant, easy-to-love composer" - a description that sounds a lot like poor old VW.

"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" - why should it take more effort? It's all there in the Proms guide.

There - rant over.

Also, some have said Missy Mazzoli and Ades are very conservative contemporary composers who are not the torch bearers of contemporary music but the easy and popular choice. 

[calyptorhynchus]

What's funny about that piece VW is that it comes from a Marxist perspective, and yet instead of giving people the option of experiencing certain atheistic experiences, it draws a fence around them and says no-one must enjoy them because they are somehow impure.OK so in the past ordinary people might have been excluded from enjoying VW's music because of difficulties in getting to concerts, price of tickets, not having the necessary knowledge to appreciate the music &c. But to the extent those operate now, what's to stop people people taking the barriers away and allowing more people to experience VW?
And VW is a very poor choice to pillory as a member of an elite, seeing as he spent much time conducting amateur choirs and so forth.

[Irons]

Ha! - brilliant, devastating in fact.  Says perfectly in one line what I got rather more carried away trying to express:

Of course, this being the New Statesman, everything Matthew Gilley writes has passed through the filter of the magazine's left-wing political stance.  There is no music criticism as such in his piece; VW is not presented as a bad, incompetent composer (an opinion that wouldn't stand up to much examination) but as an out-of-touch toff, enjoying a private income and using folk music only in its most "pleasant, uncomplicated form" (rather than, presumably, incorporating the Jarrow Marchers' songs into his pieces).  The composers to whom he is unflatteringly compared are an interesting bunch: Ethel Smyth (imprisoned for her involvement in the Women's Suffrage movement), Michael Tippett (ditto for his pacifist views), Thomas Tallis (possibly recusant Roman Catholic) - all good anti-establishment rebels (which didn't stop the first two accepting dame/knighthoods and also enjoying private incomes).

Gilley is particularly scathing about the use of anniversaries to aid programming, contending that it is possible to find a significant anniversary for any occasion. This may be true (I'm particularly looking forward to 2023 being Ligeti and Rachmaninoff year), but as far as I can see we're not actually doing that (I've seen little or no mention of Xenakis, Franck or Scriabin this year, all of whom are also enjoying "big ones") - we're celebrating the sesquicentenary (couldn't wait to get that word in) of someone usually reckoned to be one of the three greatest British composers of the last century.  And as far as Steve Reich goes, I can find plenty of events that were held to celebrate his 80th 5 years ago, but not these annual birthday bashes that Gilley finds so irritating.  I wonder whether Gilley would find a Xenakis centenary concert, were such to be held, backward-looking.

A few points from Gilley's review that particularly annoyed me:

"Vaughan Williams is venerated for developing a distinctly English style" - not by me he's not: I don't hear anything English in my favourite VW pieces (Job, the symphonies, the A minor violin sonata etc. etc.).  I just enjoy his music ("venerate" is perhaps a bit strong for me) because it's such damn good stuff.

"If this is our national music" - who ever claimed it was?  To my ears Britten is every bit as English.  (At least he had an English name, not two Welsh ones .)  What the heck is "national music" anyway?  And what does Gilley think should be placed on this national pedestal in place of VW?  The contemporary pieces he recommends are by, respectively, an Irish and an American composer.

"There is plenty on at the Proms this year with obvious contemporary appeal" - only if it's good music.  I really hope both Walshe's and Mazzoli's pieces fall into that category, and I look forward with interest to hearing them, but a stinkingly bad piece about social media and microplastics will have no appeal whatever, contemporary or otherwise.

"Missy Mazzoli, a thrilling, vibrant, easy-to-love composer" - a description that sounds a lot like poor old VW.

"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" - why should it take more effort? It's all there in the Proms guide.

There - rant over.

Great points very well put.

[Oates]

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 would have thought that this Gilley character might have better served a political agenda (if that is his motivation) by attacking the reactionary forces that have appropriated some music to celebrate nationalism in countries where capitalism and empire building were a dominant social and economic factor (certainly including pre-WW1 Great Britain) - and this may well include a few composers as well (should Elgar spring to mind?). We still regularly sing "Land of Hope and Glory" and "I Vow To Thee My Country", the words of which, certainly the latter, do not reflect the views of the composers. Do people still view the folk song movement as left wing? It certainly still was in the 1960s and 1970s.  RVW was clearly happy to collaborate with a Marxist (A.L. Lloyd) on The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.

[Roasted Swan]

I finally got around to listening to Brabbins' Sea Symphony this morning;



I like his interpretation - quite broad and powerful and well played and OK chorus.  But quite who booked Marcus Farnsworth as the baritone soloist I cannot imagine.  Vocally its quite a nice true and light voice but he is SO unsuited for the role.  His is a light lyric/lieder type baritone not at all right to hurl out Whitman's visionary verse over a large chorus and orchestra.  Its a struggle and audibly so.  When you compare his singing to so many of the greats who have preceeded him this is frankly embarassing and it leaves you wondering what on earth him, his agent, Hyperion, Brabbins or Andrew Keener producing were thinking.  Perhaps he was a last minute replacement?

[Biffo]

I finally got around to listening to Brabbins' Sea Symphony this morning;



I like his interpretation - quite broad and powerful and well played and OK chorus.  But quite who booked Marcus Farnsworth as the baritone soloist I cannot imagine.  Vocally its quite a nice true and light voice but he is SO unsuited for the role.  His is a light lyric/lieder type baritone not at all right to hurl out Whitman's visionary verse over a large chorus and orchestra.  Its a struggle and audibly so.  When you compare his singing to so many of the greats who have preceeded him this is frankly embarassing and it leaves you wondering what on earth him, his agent, Hyperion, Brabbins or Andrew Keener producing were thinking.  Perhaps he was a last minute replacement?

I have never managed to get to the end of this recording, not because of Farnsworth but the overall sound picture. If I set the volume so that the it sounds  natural, every so often a section of the chorus jumps out at deafening volume. The BBC broadcast a Brabbins performance of the work from the Edinburgh Festival [Aug 9 2018] and it was excellent though I can't remember the soloists.

Edit: The artists were: 

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Martyn Brabbins Conductor

Edinburgh Festival Chorus
Christopher Bell Chorus Director

Elizabeth Watts Soprano
Christopher Maltman Baritone

[vandermolen]

From WAYLTN thread:
I've just returned from a week away in Dorset. The accommodation had a CD player which sort-of worked and this CD was often played as my wife enjoyed it as well. It's a great programme of VW's chamber music for Violin and Piano, including 'Romance and Pastoral' the Violin Sonata, The Lark Ascending (in its original arrangement for violin and piano) and Six Studies in English folksong. I don't know a better recording of VW's chamber music:

[Irons]

From WAYLTN thread:
I've just returned from a week away in Dorset. The accommodation had a CD player which sort-of worked and this CD was often played as my wife enjoyed it as well. It's a great programme of VW's chamber music for Violin and Piano, including 'Romance and Pastoral' the Violin Sonata, The Lark Ascending (in its original arrangement for violin and piano) and Six Studies in English folksong. I don't know a better recording of VW's chamber music:

As I wrote on the main thread I think the only criticism that can be levelled at this CD is that it is too good. I would be surprised if any performance of this group of works has been played with more care and as much thought behind every note. There is a danger that perfection can rob music of something but not here. I compared "Six Studies" with an old gritty folksy recording (with viola), both accounts although different were equally valid. 

[vandermolen]

As I wrote on the main thread I think the only criticism that can be levelled at this CD is that it is too good. I would be surprised if any performance of this group of works has been played with more care and as much thought behind every note. There is a danger that perfection can rob music of something but not here. I compared "Six Studies" with an old gritty folksy recording (with viola), both accounts although different were equally valid.

I'm glad that you enjoyed it too Lol.

[Mirror Image]

I finally got around to listening to Brabbins' Sea Symphony this morning;



I like his interpretation - quite broad and powerful and well played and OK chorus.  But quite who booked Marcus Farnsworth as the baritone soloist I cannot imagine.  Vocally its quite a nice true and light voice but he is SO unsuited for the role.  His is a light lyric/lieder type baritone not at all right to hurl out Whitman's visionary verse over a large chorus and orchestra.  Its a struggle and audibly so.  When you compare his singing to so many of the greats who have preceeded him this is frankly embarassing and it leaves you wondering what on earth him, his agent, Hyperion, Brabbins or Andrew Keener producing were thinking.  Perhaps he was a last minute replacement?

Yeah, I'm afraid Boult on EMI (Warner) can't be beat in A Sea Symphony for me. Brabbins is a decent performance, though, but as you noted the baritone is wrong for the part. His voice doesn't project as it should above the orchestral texture. Another performance of this symphony I enjoy is Thomson on Chandos who had Brian Rayner Cook as the baritone soloist and he's quite good I must say and I want to say that Yvonne Kenny was the soprano in this performance, but I can't remember. Anyway, there are better performances found elsewhere. The low-point of Brabbins cycle for me so far. Everything else has been either very good or excellent. Oh and I still think Brabbins blows Manze out of the water. Manze has no feel for RVW and it's apparent by the first CD of his cycle that was released (A London Symphony, Symphony No. 8). Manze really should've stuck with playing violin in Baroque music.

[calyptorhynchus]

Manze really should've stuck with playing violin in Baroque music.

LOL, I came across the name the other day in a recording of some Italian Baroque violin sonatas and wondered whether he was the same person. The sonatas were good..

[Mirror Image]

LOL, I came across the name the other day in a recording of some Italian Baroque violin sonatas and wondered whether he was the same person. The sonatas were good..

I don't listen to Baroque Era music, but earlier on I did buy some Vivaldi recordings and he played violin on them. He's quite good!

[LKB]

Tonight I'll be singing Dona Nobis Pacem, with a community chorus and accompanied on the piano. Looking forward to it, though the choral results will be far from professional. Hopefully it won't rain, as we're outdoors.

[Karl Henning]

Tonight I'll be singing Dona Nobis Pacem, with a community chorus and accompanied on the piano. Looking forward to it, though the choral results will be far from professional. Hopefully it won't rain, as we're outdoors.

Nice! I had a similar experience with a local group in Lexington a couple of years ago. Great piece!

[LKB]

Nice! I had a similar experience with a local group in Lexington a couple of years ago. Great piece!

I'm looking forward to it, the rest of the program is Fauré's Requiem. So, two solid works, both of which have baritone solos I've been familiar with for decades. Should be awesome as long as we don't get wet...