Vaughan Williams's Veranda

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

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drogulus

#680
Quote from: lukeottevanger on August 31, 2008, 05:06:31 AM


He uses different modes with great consistency - the Phrygian for this sort of music, the Mixolydian for that, and so on. And he uses diatonicism, pentatonicism and chromaticism with the same 'rightness'. There is as much logic in his use of the various modes as there is in (say) Bruckner's use of major and minor (I'm not comparing in any other respect, and Bruckner's name is pulled at random), and so the modes and their relationships take on a force equivalent to that between major and minor in earlier music. Hear that Phrygian pull at the beginning of the 9th, and its continuation into the parallel chord motive of the saxophones? That dark, ominous use of the Phrygian semitone is treated with great logicality, going to to inflect/infect the harmony throughout the movement, leading to constant major-minor ambiguities that likewise inflect/infect the music even when it moves into aeolian, major and lydian modes. This is wonderful symphonic thinking, a perfect reconciliation of two things - modality and development - that really oughtn't go together!


    Tremendous posts , Luke. I wish I could read them as well as you write them.

   And this "rightness", because it belongs to RVW and not to the main line of tonal development, will always be contested to an even greater extent than other composers, at least outside the avant-garde. In fact, I think this shows that it isn't just the avant-garde that raises the question of how to judge music that doesn't exist comfortably within a framework.

   I think I'd better stay away from Mellers, and see if I can find the Kennedy book and try harder this time.
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lukeottevanger

Quote from: drogulus on August 31, 2008, 07:18:54 AM
    And this "rightness", because it belongs to RVW and not to the main line of tonal development, will always be contested to an even greater extent than other composers, at least outside the avant-garde. In fact, I think this shows that it isn't just the avant-garde that raises the question of how to judge music that doesn't exist comfortably within a framework.

I think there's a lot to this. And I'm probably not alone in thinking 'Havergal Brian' when I read it! Though of course there are many, many others...

DavidRoss

Quote from: drogulus on August 31, 2008, 07:18:54 AM
    Tremendous posts , Luke. I wish I could read them as well as you write them.
Yes, thank you so much, Luke, for taking the time to offer these thoughtful and very helpful analyses.  I will try to digest the points you make and keep them in mind the next time I listen to RVW, a composer whom I like but haven't really understood yet, even in my limited, non-expert, and far-from-musically-sophisticated way.
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: lukeottevanger on August 31, 2008, 07:42:24 AM
I think there's a lot to this. And I'm probably not alone in thinking 'Havergal Brian' when I read it!

No, you're not...  ;)
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

lukeottevanger

Quote from: DavidRoss on August 31, 2008, 07:43:42 AM
Yes, thank you so much, Luke, for taking the time to offer these thoughtful and very helpful analyses.  I will try to digest the points you make and keep them in mind the next time I listen to RVW, a composer whom I like but haven't really understood yet, even in my limited, non-expert, and far-from-musically-sophisticated way.

:) A pleasure.

DavidRoss

Quote from: Jezetha on August 31, 2008, 07:45:26 AM
No, you're not...  ;)
Of course not.  That's the case for Sibelius, Bax, RVW, and so on...in other words, virtually every artist who expresses a truly distinctive voice that expands the framework, whether with party hats and full-page ads in the Times or with somewhat less fanfare and grandiosity.
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

lukeottevanger

Enough talking for today, I just listened to VW 5 (and its erotic counterpart, Flos Campi). My word, what a piece that symphony is - surely VW's most perfect symphony, no? No more theory or metaphysics for now - it's just damned beautiful, compelling, lucid, perfectly imagined and perfectly formed. And - let's get down to brass tacks - is that not one of the most sublime slow movements ever composed!?  ;D ;)

lukeottevanger

#687
BTW, that movement - and the rest of the symphony - prominently feature the same figure that M heard in the 6th as being derived from Janacek's Sinfonietta, but which I think is simply a common musical figure (as I pointed out, found in exactly the same form as in the Janacek in Mozart K387). It's simply a descending 2nd followed by a descending 3rd, and it's one of the most common melodic shapes in many folk musics, found over and over in many folk-music-influenced composers even up to Ligeti's Violin Concerto (and it's a shape which I'm well aware is a constantly recurring one in my own music). I'd never really concentrated on it in VW until now, but it's clearly a vital shape in his music too - it's the opening of the Tallis Fantasia, it's the violin's opening shape in the 5th, which haunts the piece throughout, become by turns demonic and tortured in the first movement's development and in the central movements, it and its variants are all through Flos Campi, it's the shape into which those saxophone chords break in the 9th (and which expand throughout the orchestra), and of course it's a dominant feature of the 6th, from the very first bar - and these, of course, are just the pieces I've been thinking about today. The point being, something that on one's first listen to a composer may seem to come from somewhere else turns out to be an integral feature, that runs through all that composer's music as if part of its DNA.

sound67

#688
Quote from: drogulus on August 31, 2008, 07:18:54 AM
    I think I'd better stay away from Mellors, and see if I can find the Kennedy book and try harder this time.

I read the Mellers 14 years ago right after the Kennedy, which is very hands-on and perceptive. After that, the Mellers (we're talking about the ''Vision of Albion'' thingee here?) seemed like one big waffle, very repetitive in its effort to drive home very few points by "examining" a lot of different works.

Picked up two new books on RVW in London this time,



"Vaughan Williams on Music", naturally, is very fragmented - sometimes the comments on a certain subject consist of just a couple of lines, my favorite being his comment on the passing of Schoenberg:

"Schoenberg meant nothing to me. But as he meant a lot to a lot of other people I daresay it's all my fault."


The analyses on folk music, some British composers, Strauss and Brahms etc. are intriguing.

Haven't got around to the other one yet. Too busy devouring Bukowski crudities.

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

lukeottevanger

Quote from: sound67 on August 31, 2008, 10:50:22 AM
I read the Mellers 14 years ago right after the Kennedy, which is very hands-on and perceptive. After that, the Mellers (we're talking about the ''Vision of Albion'' thingee here?) seemed like one big waffle, very repetitive in its effort to drive home very few points by "examining" a lot of different works.

That may well be true - I'm certainly aware of Mellers' idiosyncrasies, and they exist not just in this book but in his others too. I just think that those 'very few points' are vital and insightful, and left unsaid or insufficiently emphasized by others. VW's music is the perfect music for Mellers' approach, because the composer obviously had the same kind of sensitivity to nuances of interval, key, mode and metre as Mellers himself does, and he is also located in the midst of social and historical trends which Mellers (above all a social historian of music) is very alive to. Anyway, enough about Mellers!

drogulus



     That's right, it's Mellers, not Mellors.  :-[

     



     
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eyeresist

Quote from: vandermolen on August 29, 2008, 02:47:57 PM
Generally though, symphonies 4-6 are considered the greatest.

8)

Barbirolli's EMI recording of the 5th is supposed to be The Best, but I haven't heard it.

For the 6th, Andrew Davis's recording has received much praise (it's the only one of his cycle that did).


Re the London symphony, one reason I haven't quite taken to it is the " 'ave a banana" musical quote in the first movement (reminding me of comedian Bill Bailey's skit on the Cockney origins of much classical music).

For the 9th, I've only heard Previn thus far, and found it far from satisfactory. He doesn't seem to have a grip on the rhetorical style needed here.

knight66

#692
In respomse to reading some of the posts here, I have ordered a full cycle of the symphonies. At present I only have four of them. So, thanks, especialy to Luke, for firing my interest. I will go over some of the posts again when I can listen to specific symphonies.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

eyeresist

Quote from: knight on August 31, 2008, 09:48:40 PM
I have ordered a full cycle of the symphonies.

That's very provocative.... Which cycle, may we ask?

knight66

I have ordered the Previn set. I can see they all have their ups and downs, but it has plenty of good points according to what I read.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

sound67

Quote from: knight on August 31, 2008, 10:36:57 PMI can see they all have their ... downs

Handley's doesn't.   $:)

The Previn set has a fine Sea Symphony, arguably the "best" Pastoral (a.o.t. he and Boult are the only ones that get the Moderato opening right), a great Antartica. I'm less convinced his 4th and 6th still make the grade, but the "London" and 5th are both good, too.

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

M forever

Thanks for all the detailed replies. I didn't have time to read through all of them, however, the first reply to my last post by sound67, a self-declared VW expert, already confirmed what I had suspected, namely that VW's music can apparently only be appreciated by comparing it to more famous composers of his era, and putting these down. But I am not interested in that. I am only interested in music which stands on its own. Apparently, VW's music doesn't.
According to several people here, it only gains status as some kind of anti-thesis to composers like Mahler and Strauss, and others. Funny, I am not even into Mahler that much right now, in fact, I have been tired of and taking a break from his music for a long time now and wanted to explore music which is radically different and which offers me contrasting perspectives on how musical material can be sourced, used, and developed to make coherent, relevant statements which stand on their own. That does not seem to be the case here with VW. According to sound67, being a trained musician also stands in the way of appreciating his music. I do not know of any other composer where that is the case. In fact, understanding music from the point of view of a trained musician usually enhances enjoyment of just about any kind of musical style. Since that is not the case here, I think I will just pass and spend my time better exploring the music of more relevant composers than this marginal English phenomenon, like VW's teacher Ravel from whom I have never heard a single bar of music, be it orchestral, chamber music, or songs, which did not deeply fascinate and intrigue  me. The only open question which remains here is, why is England among all the major cultures of Europe the only one which is such a complete failure when it comes to music of any kind of status or influence? Why do even English musicians prefer to perform the music of such composers that their local heroes, like VW, get compared to by the "experts"? Why is his music performed far less even in England than any given composer - and I mean any, even the more marginal figues included - from the standard canon of French - German - Austrian - Czech - Russian composers? Wy does it not stand on its own, but only as a negative comparison to these by pseudo-intellectuals?

Guido

Another thank you here Luke - truly great posts... I'm going to have to listen through Symphonies 3-6 again.

You say that the fifth is his most perfect, but I'm sure you've said that the sixth represents the pinnacle of his Symphonic thinking too. I guess this could be a subtle difference.
Geologist.

The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

Guido

Quote from: M forever on August 31, 2008, 11:26:56 PM
Thanks for all the detailed replies. I didn't have time to read through all of them, however, the first reply to my last post by sound67, a self-declared VW expert, already confirmed what I had suspected, namely that VW's music can apparently only be appreciated by comparing it to more famous composers of his era, and putting these down. But I am not interested in that. I am only interested in music which stands on its own. Apparently, VW's music doesn't.
According to several people here, it only gains status as some kind of anti-thesis to composers like Mahler and Strauss, and others. Funny, I am not even into Mahler that much right now, in fact, I have been tired of and taking a break from his music for a long time now and wanted to explore music which is radically different and which offers me contrasting perspectives on how musical material can be sourced, used, and developed to make coherent, relevant statements which stand on their own. That does not seem to be the case here with VW. According to sound67, being a trained musician also stands in the way of appreciating his music. I do not know of any other composer where that is the case. In fact, understanding music from the point of view of a trained musician usually enhances enjoyment of just about any kind of musical style. Since that is not the case here, I think I will just pass and spend my time better exploring the music of more relevant composers than this marginal English phenomenon, like VW's teacher Ravel from whom I have never heard a single bar of music, be it orchestral, chamber music, or songs, which did not deeply fascinate and intrigue  me. The only open question which remains here is, why is England among all the major cultures of Europe the only one which is such a complete failure when it comes to music of any kind of status or influence? Why do even English musicians prefer to perform the music of such composers that their local heroes, like VW, get compared to by the "experts"? Why is his music performed far less even in England than any given composer - and I mean any, even the more marginal figues included - from the standard canon of French - German - Austrian - Czech - Russian composers? Wy does it not stand on its own, but only as a negative comparison to these by pseudo-intellectuals?

Please lets cut this crap. This post is just an excuse for you to not really engage with anything serious that has been said - like all of Luke's fantastic posts. sound67's comments were very very obviously a joke, and you treating them as serious and then using this as an excuse to dismiss VW's music is just unbelievably lazy intellectually. It is painfully obvious that everything that Luke said he suspected but hoped you weren't doing is in fact exactly what you are doing here.
Geologist.

The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

M forever

Excusez-moi? Please don't treat sound67 as if his posts are just jokes, he means to be taken very, very seriously, and like I said, that was already enough information for me in this context. Ever since I asked about VW's "idiom" about two weeks ago, most of the posts regarding that were just personal attacks and what you probably would call jokes, so I am convinced now that there isn't really much more to the subject. Like I said, there must be a reason even English musicians treat him as a marginal phenomenon. Maybe it's because he apparently was just a very mediocre composer who gets a little bit elevated by the dire, dire need for English people to have at least one, or one and a half, "great composers"? That his music can apparently not be appreciated on his own, but just by putting more famous composers down confirms to me that there isn't much to appreciate there, unless you adopt that as an intellectual, or rather, pseudo-intellectual, attitude. And again, like I said before, this is the only time I have ever seen somebody say that being a trained musicians is actually an obstacle to enjoying anybody's music.