Vaughan Williams's Veranda

Started by karlhenning, April 12, 2007, 06:03:44 AM

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Dundonnell



Dundonnell

"...where the Lowells talk to the Cabots, and the Cabots talk only to God".

Lethevich

Quote from: sound67 on July 12, 2008, 01:09:50 AM
There will be a lot of RVW in this year's proms (for obvious reasons). I think the whole cycle of symphonies will be played under various conductors.

I hope that somebody takes them under their wing and rips them all at good bitrate to Operashare - or even better, videos for the ones that were broadcast on TV. If this happens I'll rehost and post them here, of course.
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

Christo

... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

J.Z. Herrenberg

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

vandermolen

Quote from: Christo on July 12, 2008, 02:51:23 AM
's-Hertogenbosch (nice spelling test for our Britons here  ;)

Home of Hieronymus?

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: vandermolen on July 13, 2008, 07:54:23 AM
Home of Hieronymus?

Of course - or Jeroen Bosch, as we say. 's-Hertogenbosch is the official name of the city. Den Bosch is more commonly used. (Cf. 's-Gravenhage and Den Haag.)
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

eyeresist


Has anyone dared to do the Antarctica without wind machine? I'm wondering if that would help it get taking a little more seriously....

vandermolen

#489
Quote from: Jezetha on July 13, 2008, 08:16:07 AM
Of course - or Jeroen Bosch, as we say. 's-Hertogenbosch is the official name of the city. Den Bosch is more commonly used. (Cf. 's-Gravenhage and Den Haag.)

One of my favourite artists, along with the equally mad James Ensor.

Below is Ensor's well-known painting:

'Meeting of CMG Forum enthusiasts in Leiden': ;D

"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

J.Z. Herrenberg

Ensor has me down to a T. Incredible!  ;D
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Dundonnell

Quote from: eyeresist on July 13, 2008, 07:03:08 PM
Has anyone dared to do the Antarctica without wind machine? I'm wondering if that would help it get taking a little more seriously....


Is it really true to say that the Sinfonia Antartica is not taken 'seriously'? That may have been the case at one time but I am not so sure is a view still held.

And would omitting the wind machine help? Richard Strauss used one in both 'Don Quixote' and the Alpine Symphony-both of which are taken seriously. So too, Ravel's 'Daphnis et Chloe' and Messiaen's ' Opera 'Saint-Francois d'Assise' and other works.

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Dundonnell on July 14, 2008, 02:42:51 AM
Is it really true to say that the Sinfonia Antartica is not taken 'seriously'? That may have been the case at one time but I am not so sure is a view still held.

And would omitting the wind machine help? Richard Strauss used one in both 'Don Quixote' and the Alpine Symphony-both of which are taken seriously. So too, Ravel's 'Daphnis et Chloe' and Messiaen's ' Opera 'Saint-Francois d'Assise' and other works.

And Brian's Tenth Symphony...
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Christo

Quote from: eyeresist on July 13, 2008, 07:03:08 PM
Has anyone dared to do the Antarctica without wind machine?

The performance in Jeroen Bosch'/Hieronymus Bosch' birthplace, Den Bosch/'s-Hertogenbosch, I attended back in 2001, by the Brabants Orkest under Petri Sakari, was indeed done without windmachine. Most of that part, as far as I remember, was done by the (augmented?) horn section.
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Dundonnell

Quote from: Jezetha on July 14, 2008, 02:48:26 AM
And Brian's Tenth Symphony...

Which is not taken ANYTHING like seriously enough :) ;)

Dundonnell

#495
Quote from: Christo on July 14, 2008, 02:51:01 AM
The performance in Jeroen Bosch'/Hieronymus Bosch' birthplace, Den Bosch/'s-Hertogenbosch, I attended back in 2001, by the Brabants Orkest under Petri Sakari, was indeed done without windmachine. Most of that part, as far as I remember, was done by the (augmented?) horn section.

I do feel that a composer's wishes should be adhered to! If VW wanted a wind machine then that is what should be used(provided, of course, one is available!). Just like Havergal Brian's 2nd Symphony....if the man wants 16 horns then let's try to grant his wishes...!

Has anyone heard the Chandos CD "The Film Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Volume 1" on which the BBC Philharmonic(Rumon Gamba) play the Suite from the music for the film "Scott of the Antartic"? That is an interesting work, providing the complete music VW wrote for the film(later reworked for the Sinfonia) but NOT using a wind-machine!
It is quite remarkable that VW wrote the music without even seeing the script for the film. When one watches the fim itself(with less than half of VW's music included of course) one is struck by how incredibly fitting the music is! OK, the film IS dated and does have a very British stiff upper-lip portrayal of the doomed expedition but VW himself was very aware of the dangerous(and ultimately fatal) risks run by the polar party and sought to convey the dreadful tragedy as it unfolded. The combination of his music and the film itself is unbelievably potent. It is indeed as VW wrote in 1945 almost as if "the film (was) devised to accompany it(the music)"

sound67

The importance of Ernest Irving, music director at Ealing studios and orchestrator of SotA, in making the music fit the film should not be underestimated. Not all the music written and recorded for it was actually used in the final cut. I kind of prefer the film score to the symphony, which is not really symphonic anyway.
"Vivaldi didn't compose 500 concertos. He composed the same concerto 500 times" - Igor Stravinsky

"Mozart is a menace to musical progress, a relic of rituals that were losing relevance in his own time and are meaningless to ours." - Norman Lebrecht

karlhenning

And yet, I think it does work as a symphony. (No reason to omit the wind machine, IMO.)

bhodges

Today on Night After Night, Steve Smith posted a good piece on Vaughan Williams, calling his symphonies "...quite possibly the most overlooked major cycle of the 20th century."

--Bruce

karlhenning

More overlooked than Holmboe8)