Vaughan Williams's Veranda

[lukeottevanger]

M - for the same reason they're not going to start a tradition of, say, Villa-Lobos or Enescu: because there's little reason to do so when the repertoire they play is 'working for them'. Though aficionados all over the world may love the VW symphonies (to which fact GMG is testament), if as a series they aren't well-known now in Helsinki then there's not much incentive to make them so, barring the odd (but increasingly less odd) performances.

Spitvalve - yes, you're right: I'm using 'orchestra' to stand for conductor and anyone else responsible for programming. Thanks for the clarification.

Scarpia - I didn't mean to imply that you didn't rate Shostakovich: I thought it was pretty clear from context and from my mention of 'sustained slow movement' that I was referring to your reaction to this piece in particular. My point remains precisely as I made it.

[karlhenning]

Scarpia's observation is still true though. What does that tell us?

Which observation do you mean?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Which observation do you mean?

This one:

Depends on your definition of "wider world."  I couldn't help but notice that except for a few recordings of the most popular works, recordings of V-W are invariably made in Britten by conductors who are reputed as British music specialists.

[karlhenning]

In that case, as to what that tells us:  a. that the British musical community has a head start on far the larger part of Vaughan Williams's work;  and b. that at press time, not a great many non-British recording artists have made the effort required to acquire fluency in his oeuvre.

[M forever]

That's just what Scarpia said, only slightly differently (and more flowery) worded.

M - for the same reason they're not going to start a tradition of, say, Villa-Lobos or Enescu: because there's little reason to do so when the repertoire they play is 'working for them'. Though aficionados all over the world may love the VW symphonies (to which fact GMG is testament), if as a series they aren't well-known now in Helsinki then there's not much incentive to make them so, barring the odd (but increasingly less odd) performances.

I don't quite understand what this has to do with "starting a tradition" though. Orchestras and conductors can still perform the music when they want. After all, the scores and parts are available outside Britain, aren't they? There is a lot of repertoire that may not be "mainstream" in a number of places, but it still gets played once in a while. I played the Tallis Fantasia once with my own chamber ensemble in Berlin, and we didn't need to "start a tradition" to do so. We just played the piece (and we had no problems getting the parts, so it's not like there is an embargo on them).

[karlhenning]

That's just what Scarpia said, only slightly differently (and more flowery) worded.

No, I stop well short of scarps's claim that this "means" that Vaughan Williams is a minor composer.

[drogulus]

That's just what Scarpia said, only slightly differently (and more flowery) worded.

I don't quite understand what this has to do with "starting a tradition" though. Orchestras and conductors can still perform the music when they want. After all, the scores and parts are available outside Britain, aren't they? There is a lot of repertoire that may not be "mainstream" in a number of places, but it still gets played once in a while. I played the Tallis Fantasia once with my own chamber ensemble in Berlin, and we didn't need to "start a tradition" to do so. We just played the piece (and we had no problems getting the parts, so it's not like there is an embargo on them).

     Yes, it's possible to perform music from anywhere if the scores are available. Are you asking why Vaughan Williams is not performed often outside Britain? It looks like increasingly his music is performed around the world. That's a change from a few decades ago. There appears to be a growing awareness of his music, and where it's now being heard it may be becoming more popular. Critical opinion can evolve, and so can popular acceptance. The prejudice against the "unmusical country", probably more prevalent among musicians and critics than audiences, may be crumbling under the weight of massive evidence that the 20th century was a very good one for British music. Now that music belongs to the world!  _{(I don't know about Bax, though. The world might not be willing to go that far... )}

[Dundonnell]

Oh!!! Controversial or what

The Baxians here will be after you

[M forever]

No, I stop well short of scarps's claim that this "means" that Vaughan Williams is a minor composer.

I didn't see that "claim" in the post I responded to.

 Are you asking why Vaughan Williams is not performed often outside Britain? It looks like increasingly his music is performed around the world.

No, I was more asking about Mr O's "people are not ready to start a tradition" statement. Well, I have don't have to repeat what I said earlier...the posts are still there.

[lukeottevanger]

Simple, M. I read Scarpia's initial post on this subject

I couldn't help but notice that except for a few recordings of the most popular works, recordings of V-W are invariably made in Britten by conductors who are reputed as British music specialists

as an observation that there is no tradition of performing/recording VW abroad - 'tradition' meaning not just 'a few recordings of the most popular works' but regular performances of the symphonies and other major works, with the symphonies taking on the same sort of central role as canonic symphony cycles like Dvorak or Bruckner or whatever. The sort of thing that you like to say in fact, as here:

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?

(Although as I think was shown by a collation of statistics at the time, that is a wildly inaccurate representation of VW performance in Britain). VW isn't a part of the international canon of symphonists just as other major symphonists like Hartmann and Pettersson aren't, and so on and on, and for similar accidents-of-history, mid-20th-century reasons.

Your line

Orchestras and conductors can still perform the music when they want. After all, the scores and parts are available outside Britain, aren't they? There is a lot of repertoire that may not be "mainstream" in a number of places, but it still gets played once in a while. I played the Tallis Fantasia once with my own chamber ensemble in Berlin, and we didn't need to "start a tradition" to do so. We just played the piece (and we had no problems getting the parts, so it's not like there is an embargo on them).

is disingenuousness, because (of course) I never suggested any such thing, and it's also nothing to do with the point.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

VW isn't a part of the international canon of symphonists just as other major symphonists like Hartmann and Pettersson aren't, and so on and on, and for similar accidents-of-history, mid-20th-century reasons.

I wonder if this is part of the problem for VW. The 20th century was overloaded with fine symphonies from a bunch of composers, and the sad fact is that there's not room in orchestral schedules (or money in orchestral budgets) to do them all justice. At least VW does get some attention - his symphonies show up occasionally on programs in the US, and even in continental Europe (I remember that shortly after I moved from Prague, the CzPO played the 6th Symphony - too bad I missed it). And of course the recording companies have done an admirable job.

Why some composers catch on abroad, and some don't, is a bit of a mystery to me. Here in Russia for instance, Bruckner is hardly ever played, while Mahler is played a lot (I heard the latter's 3rd Symphony just this week, in fact).

[lukeottevanger]

I agree - and in fact, the high status of VW worldwide, when compared to his symphony-composing contemporaries such as Hartmann et al, speaks positively for him, not negatively as has been implied.

There's also the issue that, whilst as you say 'the 20th century was overloaded with fine symphonies from a bunch of composers', composers working in the genre after, say, the 1940s, were seen in some quarters as rather reactionary: to be New and thus elligible for entry to the canon (which, given its limited space, perhaps understandably has its Hegelian aspects) music had to tick other more obviously innovatory boxes (small innovations like the quiet Epilogue of VW 6th were hardly enough to cut it!). I don't like to write this, as I've always been suspicious of the kind of 'conspiracy theories' (which have evil modernists scheming against symphony composers and others of their ilk) which litter Amazon reviews of recordings of this music. But there's truth, nevertheless, in the fact that VW, Pettersson, Hartmann, and all those others, don't fit neatly into line - they simply come too late.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Another way to look at it is that the symphonic impulse exhausted itself in its traditional Central European homeland, but instead of dying altogether, it migrated to places that had traditionally been peripheral to the creation of "classical" music - Britain, the Nordic countries, and the US.

[lukeottevanger]

Yes, that's an interesting and productive way of seeing it (isn't the subtitle of Paul Rapoport's Opus Est something suggestive of this?...I must check)

[lukeottevanger]

Six composers from Northern Europe, that's it. Those composers being Vermeulen, Holmboe, Brian, Pettersson, Valen and Sorabji. But that's a digression....

[Dundonnell]

In the light of this ongoing discussion- it might be appropriate to mention that on April 22 next year the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier will perform VW's 4th Symphony in Davies Hall, SF.

I know that a West Coast American orchestra conducted by a Frenchman performing a VW symphony proves nothing

[Dundonnell]

Also just read a review online of a concert by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Colin Davis in April this year in which Davis delivered a 'searing' performance of the 4th.

How come Sir Colin has never championed VW here in Britain but goes to Boston and New York and conducts his music??

[mn dave]

How come Sir Colin has never championed VW here in Britain but goes to Boston and New York and conducts his music??

To spread the good sounds?

[karlhenning]

I didn't see that "claim" in the post I responded to.

That's right;  it was made earlier.  One follows a conversation, you see.

[Dundonnell]

To spread the good sounds?

What about a Colin Davis recorded cycle then?