Vaughan Williams's Veranda

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

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sound67

Quote from: vandermolen on August 26, 2008, 08:09:12 AM
This is an interesting, enjoyable version of the PC, with the Slovenian RSO:

I seriously doubt it's a patch for the Lyrita version (which also includes John Foulds' fine Dynamic Triptych.



Thomas
"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

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: sound67 on August 26, 2008, 09:57:23 AM
I seriously doubt it's a patch for the Lyrita version (which also includes John Foulds' fine Dynamic Triptych.



Thomas

Which is what I listened to.

At the moment: Job has just started on BBC 3....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/promsbroadcasts/
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

vandermolen

I listened to the concert on the car radio en-route to Holland. Oddly nostalgic for me. I first discovered Vaughan Williams when I was 17 in  1972 and worked on a farm in Holland for 6 weeks between school and university in the summer of 1973. I remember driving round the farm tractor in deserted fields in Zeeland (at a mad reckless speed....I was much less timid in tose days) with Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony running through my head.  It was really weird and a huge nostalgia trip to be listening to Symphony No 9 on the car radio while taking my daughter to study in Holland for one year.  The performance of Job and the Ninth Symphony, conducted by Andrew Davis sounded very moving. Hearing Job was another nostalgic experience as I heard Adrian Boult conduct it (it is dedicated to him) on 12th October 1972 at the Festival Hall in London, VW's 100th birthday.

For me the highlight of this anniversary year has been attending The Pilgrim's Progress in London and I am looking forward to hearing Richard Hickox conduct symphonies 5,6 and 9 in November.
"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).

drogulus

#603
Quote from: Lethe on August 26, 2008, 12:13:15 AM
The Boult mono sounds very decent for its age. If you are alright with older recordings in general these will not be difficult to listen to. As "interesting" as the Haitink may be, it doesn't compensate in overall value for Boult who practically owns several of the symphonies (1, 5, 6). The total inspiration of his interpretations IMO belie any thoughts of "stuffiness". If anything, that term better applies to later run-throughs by conductors performing the music on autopilot, such as Hickox. One of the Boults is basically the only "mandatory" cycle for fans - after that it's down to preference.

     Hickox has done a fine 5th, though I'll take Barbirolli, Boult, and Previn ahead of it. The Hickox London Symphony with the restored cuts is a special case. I need to listen to it some more.

     Last night I played the London Symphony recording made by Barbirolli with the HallĂ© Orchestra (not the later one on EMI).

     

    This is really interesting. The sound is very clear for a 1956 recording, and the orchestra plays beautifully and expressively (with the usual limitations of this group). The recording was made by the Mercury team, and sounds like it.

     Edit: It was not made by the Mercury team. The 8th symphony, on the same disc, was. This 1957 recording is by the Pye team (Robert Auger, Douglas Terry). It's hard to describe how it differs from other good recordings from the era, so:

     [mp3=200,20,0,center]http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/11/2/1559968/IV%20%20Andante%20con%20moto.mp3
[/mp3]

     It's remarkably dynamic for a recording of this age, and less congested sounding on peaks.
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J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: vandermolen on August 27, 2008, 01:18:30 PM
I listened to the concert on the car radio en-route to Holland. Oddly nostalgic for me. I first discovered Vaughan Williams when I was 17 in  1972 and worked on a farm in Holland for 6 weeks between school and university in the summer of 1973. I remember driving round the farm tractor in deserted fields in Zeeland (at a mad reckless speed....I was much less timid in tose days) with Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony running through my head.  It was really weird and a huge nostalgia trip to be listening to Symphony No 9 on the car radio while taking my daughter to study in Holland for one year.  The performance of Job and the Ninth Symphony, conducted by Andrew Davis sounded very moving. Hearing Job was another nostalgic experience as I heard Adrian Boult conduct it (it is dedicated to him) on 12th October 1972 at the Festival Hall in London, VW's 100th birthday.

For me the highlight of this anniversary year has been attending The Pilgrim's Progress in London and I am looking forward to hearing Richard Hickox conduct symphonies 5,6 and 9 in November.

I KNEW you'd be listening to the concert on your car radio! I only wondered whether your daughter would put up with it. But she apparently did...  :)

I always have a problem with Sir Andrew Davies in that I find his conducting rather run-of-the-mill. I like his (rostrum) personality more than his talent. Both Job and the Ninth need a visionary to really bring them off, which Andrew Davies, IMO, signally isn't... Still - I enjoyed the performances up to a certain point (the works are so strong, they can withstand mediocrity).
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich

#605
Just realized it was his 50th anniversary of death (2008-08-26).
Deutschlandfunk addresses this. (German language)

Bought today of Chandos: Christmas Music and On Wenlock Edge etc.:


J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Wurstwasser on August 28, 2008, 05:56:47 AM
Just realized it was his 50th anniversary of death (2008-08-26).
Deutschlandfunk addresses this. (German language)

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

vandermolen

#607
Quote from: Jezetha on August 27, 2008, 03:25:23 PM
I KNEW you'd be listening to the concert on your car radio! I only wondered whether your daughter would put up with it. But she apparently did...  :)

I always have a problem with Sir Andrew Davies in that I find his conducting rather run-of-the-mill. I like his (rostrum) personality more than his talent. Both Job and the Ninth need a visionary to really bring them off, which Andrew Davies, IMO, signally isn't... Still - I enjoyed the performances up to a certain point (the works are so strong, they can withstand mediocrity).


The deal was that she HAD to put up with me listening to it on the car radio, in return for me accompanying her on the madcap trip to Leiden at the last minute. There was one ugly moment, however, when she decided to call her boyfriend on her mobile and instructed me to "turn the music down"  :o >:D >:(. I explained that I was doing no such thing, so a sort-of compromise was eventually reached where I pretended to turn the radio down, but then turned it straight up again ;D

It sounded to me (from what I was allowed to hear) that Davis's performances of Job and the 9th Symphony were rather better than those on his Warner CD coupling but, no doubt, the moving nature of the occasion and the live, appreciative (apart from my daughter) audience had something to do with that.
"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

My apologies to Sir Andrew Davis for consistently and stupidly misspelling his name...  ???

Quote from: vandermolen on August 29, 2008, 04:48:59 AM

The deal was that she HAD to put up with me listening to it on the car radio, in return for me accompanying her on the madcap trip to Leiden at the last minute. There was one ugly moment, however, when she decided to call her boyfriend on her mobile and instructed me to "turn the music down"  :o >:D >:(. I explained that I was doing no such thing, so a sort-of compromise was eventually reached where I pretended to turn the radio down, but then turned it straight up again ;D

For this you'll receive from me the sobriquet Braveheart.

QuoteIt sounded to me (from what I was allowed to hear) that Davis's performances of Job and the 9th Symphony were rather better than those on his Warner CD coupling but, no doubt, the moving nature of the occasion and the live, appreciative (apart from my daughter) audience had something to do with that.

He has improved, then. Still, I don't expect greatness from him, alas...  :(



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

vandermolen

Quote from: Jezetha on August 29, 2008, 05:48:44 AM
My apologies to Sir Andrew Davis for consistently and stupidly misspelling his name...  ???

For this you'll receive from me the sobriquet Braveheart.

He has improved, then. Still, I don't expect greatness from him, alas...  :(

OT

Yes, Davis without the "e" is the more cultured spelling  ;D

"Braveheart" yes, that suits me, notwithstanding the fact that I screamed when a frog  jumped out in front of me a while back.
"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).

M forever

Quote from: scarpia on August 26, 2008, 08:40:14 AM
I beg you pardon, MF, but I addressed precisely that point when the issue was raised.


Did you mean the string sound or the grunting part?

Christo

Quote from: vandermolen on August 27, 2008, 01:18:30 PM
I listened to the concert on the car radio en-route to Holland. Oddly nostalgic for me. I first discovered Vaughan Williams when I was 17 in  1972 and worked on a farm in Holland for 6 weeks between school and university in the summer of 1973. I remember driving round the farm tractor in deserted fields in Zeeland (at a mad reckless speed....I was much less timid in tose days) with Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony running through my head.  It was really weird and a huge nostalgia trip to be listening to Symphony No 9 on the car radio while taking my daughter to study in Holland for one year. 

Lovely story, read with great pleasure. :D The empty horizon of Zeeland filled with the sound of Vaughan Williams' Ninth, back in the 1970s...  ::) My own first encounter with the Ninth came later in the decade, but in a similar landscape. I remember vividly that our Radio 4 broadcasted all of his symphonies, probably Boult's second cycle, in the Summer of 1978. And I hurried back home after school on my bike, 11 kilometres (sorry: 7 miles) through a similar type of "polder" (your "deserted fields") just in time to hear the mysterious Finale of the Ninth, but too late for the first three movements. For a couple of years, that was the only part of the Ninth I knew, since I could only afford to buy an LP with it (Previn's) in the Spring of 1981.

Well, those were the days.  8)

BTW, there's a literary equivalent to your nostalgic memories of Zeeland. In 1962, William Golding wrote about his sailing trip across the Channel to Zeeland, for the Holiday magazine, reprinted among his collection of essays in `A Moving Target'. His observations on the landscape and its people remind me of your account - might be fun to read them (for me, they are).  :)
... 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

M forever

I have listened to most of the VW symphonies at some point, but I never got much into the music. Maybe I should have another go at exploring his "idiom". What symphonies would the VW experts here recommend to listen to first?

drogulus


     I would start with the 5th symphony. There are a number of fine performances to choose from.

     Here are 2 CDs that would be a good starting point:

     

     Richard Hickox with the London Symphony Orchestra, a hybrid SACD with some good couplings especially The Pilgrim Pavement.

     You might find this one even better for the study of the particular idiom of RVW, since it has performances of both the 5th and A Pastoral Symphony(No. 3) conducted by Adrian Boult, who more than anyone is responsible for establishing the performance tradition. (click the pic for link)

     
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J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Christo on August 29, 2008, 10:59:03 AM
My own first encounter with the Ninth came later in the decade, but in a similar landscape. I remember vividly that our Radio 4 broadcast all of his symphonies, probably Boult's second cycle, in the Summer of 1978.

I don't remember. But I must have known a few of RVW's symphonies already, by then (I discovered Brian in '77, so I must have been listening to British music)...

QuoteBTW, there's a literary equivalent to your nostalgic memories of Zeeland. In 1962, William Golding wrote about his sailing trip across the Channel to Zeeland, for the Holiday magazine, reprinted among his collection of essays in `A Moving Target'. His observations on the landscape and its people remind me of your account - might be fun to read them (for me, they are).  :)

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

vandermolen

#615
Quote from: M forever on August 29, 2008, 11:04:36 AM
I have listened to most of the VW symphonies at some point, but I never got much into the music. Maybe I should have another go at exploring his "idiom". What symphonies would the VW experts here recommend to listen to first?

VW's own favourite was A London Symphony and, at some point you must listen to the original version on Chandos (Hickox) which contains some exquisite music which VW later excised from the score. Generally though, symphonies 4-6 are considered the greatest. EMI have just issued an inexpensive double album with all three symphonies in great performances (Gibson/Berglund, link below). I think that that would be a good place to start. The Chandos CD (Hickox) with No 5 on is very good and contains some unusual other works like The Pilgrim's Pavement.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vaughan-Williams-Symphonies-Nos-6/dp/B0018OAP2U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1220050121&sr=1-1

"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).

Mark G. Simon

Quote from: vandermolen on August 29, 2008, 02:47:57 PM
VW's own favourite was A London Symphony and, at some point you must listen to the original version on Chandos (Hickox) which contains some exquisite music which VW later excised from the score.

for good reason too. Composers have to have the courage to cut even exquisite music when it's out of place, makes the music too long, or obscures the structure. RVW had that courage.

vandermolen

Quote from: Christo on August 29, 2008, 10:59:03 AM
Lovely story, read with great pleasure. :D The empty horizon of Zeeland filled with the sound of Vaughan Williams' Ninth, back in the 1970s...  ::) My own first encounter with the Ninth came later in the decade, but in a similar landscape. I remember vividly that our Radio 4 broadcasted all of his symphonies, probably Boult's second cycle, in the Summer of 1978. And I hurried back home after school on my bike, 11 kilometres (sorry: 7 miles) through a similar type of "polder" (your "deserted fields") just in time to hear the mysterious Finale of the Ninth, but too late for the first three movements. For a couple of years, that was the only part of the Ninth I knew, since I could only afford to buy an LP with it (Previn's) in the Spring of 1981.

Well, those were the days.  8)

BTW, there's a literary equivalent to your nostalgic memories of Zeeland. In 1962, William Golding wrote about his sailing trip across the Channel to Zeeland, for the Holiday magazine, reprinted among his collection of essays in `A Moving Target'. His observations on the landscape and its people remind me of your account - might be fun to read them (for me, they are).  :)


Thank you Johan,

Yes, there was something about the juxtapostion of the empty Zeeland sky (empty that is apart from the occasional Dutch airforce jet fighter), and Vaughan Williams's Ninth Symphony which stayed with me. My first VW LP was of Morton Gould conducting the Tallis Fantasia, English Folk Song suite etc, but what bowled me over was the Boult Decca Eclipse LP of Symphony No 6 (complete with composer's speech) which I bought one day on my way home from school.  After that I saved up from my Saturday job in the WH Smith record dept in Earl's Court Rd, until I could buy the Boult EMI LP cycle in a boxed set and I never looked back (infact my wages were invariably spent on LPs)

William Golding; interesting. I will look out for that.  In fact I had to study Golding's novels in my first year at university. I enjoyed Lord of the Flies but found works like Pincher Martin rather heavy going.  My feelings may be different now.

By the way, I bought a map of the Netherlands in Leiden yesterday and worked where the farm was. It was at a remote place called Portvliet on the island of Tholen in Zeeland. I would be curious to go back there one day.
"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).

vandermolen

Quote from: Mark G. Simon on August 29, 2008, 02:51:14 PM
for good reason too. Composers have to have the courage to cut even exquisite music when it's out of place, makes the music too long, or obscures the structure. RVW had that courage.

Yes, but I think that excising the section just before the end was a mistake; one of the most moving passages in all VW. I think that at that point (and that point only) the structural gain was offset by the poetic loss. At the time of his final revision (1936), VW was very influenced by Sibelius. I have also seen it argued that the cut at the end actually weakens the structure by creation too abrupt a transition to the Epilogue section.
"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).

M forever

I think I actually have the 5th symphony because I have a Telarc disc of the Tallis Fantasia with RPO/Previn which also has the 5th on it. The Tallis Fantasia is the only VW piece I know very well because I once performed it with my chamber group in Berlin. There is a chance I might still have a copy of the recording of the concert (every time I am reminded of this, I could hit my head against the wall because when I last came across the tape, I think that was when I packed for moving to the US 5 years ago, I didn't set it aside but packed it up with other stuff...).
Anyway, when I listened to the 5th, I didn't find much access to the music. I might buy the download of that Boult recording. I think I also have the 6th and 9th with LSO/Previn somewhere. Did Previn understand the very special "idiom"?