Vaughan Williams's Veranda

[karlhenning]

Word.

[Sergeant Rock]

Ironically, the Boult cycle was the first I listened to, and it more or less convinced me that I don't like Vaughan Williams.  I don't have it any more because I justified buying the Haitink cycle to myself by selling the Boult, and it was Haitink who more or less changed my opinion about Vaughan Williams.  Since then I've listened to some other recordings by Barbirolli, Hickox, a few others, that have reinforced my regard for Vaughan Williams.  Maybe it would be time to go back to Boult, although now I only have the Decca set.

Well, the Decca cycle gets the most critical acclaim (and is well thought of here) so you may have Boult's best already with no need for the EMI. My preference for the EMI performances is personal, and biographical. It was the first cycle I owned and, along with Barbirolli's Hallé recordings of 2 and 8, it made a significant imprint on my psyche when I first started collecting music. I find his Decca interpretations rather coarse in comparison and I much prefer the sound quality of the stereo remakes. Who knows: if I'd started with Decca I might have the opposite opinion now. But as it is, Boult/EMI is just too deeply ingrained and won't budge 

Sarge

[karlhenning]

Well, I don't find highly-charged programs in the Haitink cycle;  I just find excellent music-making.

[Sergeant Rock]

Most of this landscape is unchanged since RVW's time, and I know what he means about the November afternoon: a kind of grey melancholy, like the smell of damp tweed - when you're aware that you're going to die, not because there's anything wrong with you, but because all things die. This mood is there in the music.  Barbirolli, for one, captures it very well.  But in Haitink's hands it becomes lyrical and passionate - which on its own terms, considered in isolation, is fine - except that it misses the point of this particular piece of music.  Bloomsbury Square on a November afternoon is not dramatic - it's certainly not tragic - it's not even sad, particularly - but there is something about it that makes you aware of, and regret, all those missed opportunities in your life.

I'll try to listen to this movement with your ears. I have Barbirolli's Hallé recording for comparison. Who, besides Barbirolli, do you think captures this mood?

Sarge

[Scarpia]

Take the slow movement of the 2nd Symphony, which RVW said should convey "Bloomsbury Square on a November afternoon."  Now if there's a corner of London which I'm familiar with in all its moods, it has to be that.  For years I used to work a late shift in Senate House on Malet Street, and every afternoon would drive to the underground car park in Bloomsbury Square and walk up through Russell Square.  Most of this landscape is unchanged since RVW's time, and I know what he means about the November afternoon: a kind of grey melancholy, like the smell of damp tweed - when you're aware that you're going to die, not because there's anything wrong with you, but because all things die. 

Still not getting that damp tweed vibe, more of a sweaty polyester feel.  Maybe it really has to be November. 

[vandermolen]

Yes, but the big question, which nobody here seems to have considered, is who does the best wind-machine in Sinfonia Antartica?

(Below - photo of a wind machine)

[Elgarian]

Just putting in my two-penn'orth on the Haitink issue: I believe these other folk who say they find all these other things in his cycle, but they are not the things that ever drew me to RVW in the first place. What captivated me from the start was the English pastoral mysticism, growing as it were from folk roots - the underlying vision that is related in painting to the work of Samuel Palmer, Paul Nash, or Blake's little woodcut illustrations to Virgil. Boult expresses this, for me, wonderfully well. So does Handley. You might say this is too narrow a perception of RVW and you may be right; still, it is essential, for me.

Now, when I listen to Haitink, it isn't there. Or if it is, it's an afterthought, an incidental, a mere whisper of something. And so with Haitink my chief reason for listening to RVW at all simply evaporates. The set just moulders on my shelf now; I keep it there so that I can give it another try, some day - but really, I know I never will. I'm aware that this sounds like an old dog not being able to learn new tricks, and maybe to some extent that's true; but it feels more like the old dog not being willing to abandon the old tricks in order to learn the new ones which, for him, don't reach the deep places that the old ones do.

[drogulus]

Ironically, the Boult cycle was the first I listened to, and it more or less convinced me that I don't like Vaughan Williams.  I don't have it any more because I justified buying the Haitink cycle to myself by selling the Boult, and it was Haitink who more or less changed my opinion about Vaughan Williams.  Since then I've listened to some other recordings by Barbirolli, Hickox, a few others, that have reinforced my regard for Vaughan Williams.  Maybe it would be time to go back to Boult, although now I only have the Decca set.

When I don't get is the unconditional condemnation of Haitink's cycle as "an utter failure" etc.   I was under the impression that Vaughan Williams was a great composer whose works, like those of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, admit diverse interesting interpretations.  To me, what these people are saying is that I should regard Vaughan Williams as a composer who wrote a string of period pieces which have to be play just so to create just the right effect, or they flop.  It is not a sign of respect for Vaughan Williams, in my view.

     Yes, try the Boult/EMI again. Once you begin to appreciate a composer it becomes possible to hear various performances in a different light.

     I only know Haitink's Sinfonia Antartica which is generally very good but at points sounds curiously detached to me, as though the conductor doesn't quite know what feelings the music can impart.

     I will soon have the Handley cycle which I have good hopes for, based on a fine rendition of the Sea Symphony. I still prefer the 2 Boults for that one, though.

[Sergeant Rock]

Just putting in my two-penn'orth on the Haitink issue: I believe these other folk who say they find all these other things in his cycle, but they are not the things that ever drew me to RVW in the first place. What captivated me from the start was the English pastoral mysticism, growing as it were from folk roots...

While I acknowledge his musical roots, none of his symphonies are really about "English pastoral mysticism"...not even the Pastoral! To hear them only in that way is to pigeonhole him as a member in good standing of the Cow Pat Brigade. I think the composer would be deeply offended by that stereotype.

But I can't, and don't want to change your mind. We've all come to the music in our individual ways. As an American with German ancestry, English pastoral mysticism is utterly foreign to me, of course. I hear something very different in the symphonies.

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

     I only know Haitink's Sinfonia Antartica which is generally very good but at points sounds curiously detached to me, as though the conductor doesn't quite know what feelings the music can impart.

That detachment reflects the inhuman landscape. I think the interpretation is perfect in that respect: nature's indifference...utterly chilling.

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

Yes, but the big question, which nobody here seems to have considered, is who does the best wind-machine in Sinfonia Antartica?

I'll do some comparative listening and get back to you 

Sarge

[drogulus]

But I can't, and don't want to change your mind. We've all come to the music in our individual ways. As an American with German ancestry, English pastoral mysticism is utterly foreign to me, of course. I hear something very different in the symphonies.

Sarge

      Cool. As an American with German ancestry, I don't know how I'm supposed to hear this music, so I seem to fluctuate between the implied programs (sometimes provided by the composer, sometimes a frame devised by commentators) and the more orthodox approach the composer urged. I also play movies in my head for the symphonies that don't have movies attached to them. There may have been a cow in one of them.

[Sergeant Rock]

I also play movies in my head for the symphonies that don't have movies attached to them. There may have been a cow in one of them.

There are some cows in mine too but they all seem to have large bells attached and reside in Alpine landscapes 

Sarge

[Scarpia]

While I acknowledge his musical roots, none of his symphonies are really about "English pastoral mysticism"...not even the Pastoral! To hear them only in that way is to pigeonhole him as a member in good standing of the Cow Pat Brigade. I think the composer would be deeply offended by that stereotype.

My thought's exactly.  The pastoral mysticism is there in the Lark Ascending, the Greensleeves fantasia, Dives and Lazarus, etc, but I don't see it as pivotal in the symphonies.  It may come in to play in various degrees in some works, such as the 9th, which is supposed to have been inspired by Tess, but what draws me to Vaughan Williams is interesting harmony, counterpoint, and thematic transformation; the music in an absolute sense. 

[drogulus]

There are some cows in mine too but they all seem to have large bells attached and reside in Alpine landscapes 

Sarge

     That's a Strauss cow. He shared them with Mahler. You really should be more careful.

     

My thought's exactly.  The pastoral mysticism is there in the Lark Ascending, the Greensleeves fantasia, Dives and Lazarus, etc, but I don't see it as pivotal in the symphonies.  It may come in to play in various degrees in some works, such as the 9th, which is supposed to have been inspired by Tess, but what draws me to Vaughan Williams is interesting harmony, counterpoint, and thematic transformation; the music in an absolute sense. 

     I really do hear the music both ways, not just in jokes. And no matter what composers think about this, it's really out of their hands what listeners imagine.

     I like the RVW/Hardy association. They go together easily in my mind. It's something about their shared humanism, with a tragic sense. When I was first listening to Vaughan Williams I was also reading Jude the Obscure. I couldn't break the association if I wanted to.

[Scarpia]

Ok, Elgar is Nobilimente, Vaughan Williams is Bovine, let's hope any Britten threads remain dormant for the time being.   

[karlhenning]

Just putting in my two-penn'orth on the Haitink issue: I believe these other folk who say they find all these other things in his cycle, but they are not the things that ever drew me to RVW in the first place. What captivated me from the start was the English pastoral mysticism, growing as it were from folk roots - the underlying vision that is related in painting to the work of Samuel Palmer, Paul Nash, or Blake's little woodcut illustrations to Virgil. Boult expresses this, for me, wonderfully well. So does Handley. You might say this is too narrow a perception of RVW and you may be right; still, it is essential, for me.

Now, when I listen to Haitink, it isn't there. Or if it is, it's an afterthought, an incidental, a mere whisper of something. And so with Haitink my chief reason for listening to RVW at all simply evaporates. The set just moulders on my shelf now; I keep it there so that I can give it another try, some day - but really, I know I never will. I'm aware that this sounds like an old dog not being able to learn new tricks, and maybe to some extent that's true; but it feels more like the old dog not being willing to abandon the old tricks in order to learn the new ones which, for him, don't reach the deep places that the old ones do.

Most interesting, thanks.

[Elgarian]

While I acknowledge his musical roots, none of his symphonies are really about "English pastoral mysticism"...not even the Pastoral! To hear them only in that way is to pigeonhole him as a member in good standing of the Cow Pat Brigade. I think the composer would be deeply offended by that stereotype.

No, no - Sarge, that's a misunderstanding of what I mean by English pastoral mysticism - I've never had any truck with all that cowpat nonsense, which is indeed an insult to the composer. The examples I gave are the significant ones: Palmer, Blake, Nash in the visual arts. There's nothing cowpat about those guys. One could add Elgar (in the Intro & Allegro and the string quartet, for instance). These are not restrictive pigeonholes I'm proposing but suggestive analogies. Neither am I saying that I hear them only in that way: but it is an essential ingredient, for me - it underpins all else. Without it, the starkness of the sense of loss in the third symphony, for example, would be in danger of becoming detached from its roots and appearing as a kind of floating anxiety.

But I can't, and don't want to change your mind. We've all come to the music in our individual ways. As an American with German ancestry, English pastoral mysticism is utterly foreign to me, of course. I hear something very different in the symphonies.

Like you, I'm not trying to convert anyone - just explaining my own perspective. When I describe Nash or Palmer as English pastoral mystics, I'm not trying to put them in pigeonholes - they're great artists, and simply won't stay in the places we try to slot them into. So with RVW. I'm not saying he is only that; but I want to assert that he is at least that. Despite these difficulties of expression, we have to find some way of comparing notes, of talking about the similarities that we perceive, don't we, even at risk of being misunderstood?

[karlhenning]

Like you [Sarge], I'm not trying to convert anyone - just explaining my own perspective.

I dig it!

[Lethevich]

(violinist: Michael Davis - I hadn't heard of him, either)

I rarely listen to this piece, but I'm enjoying this recording a lot, enough to blab about it a bit... The biggest reason is because it removes some of the airiness that I have come associate with the piece, and introduces a slightly more fantastical and moody quality - but still with the essential tactility the piece calls out for. Problems I have with other performances tend to involve an excessively strongly played or recorded violin part, not necessarily brutalising the music (I have yet to hear such a thing), but underlining it too hard through sheer technical assuredness. The orchestral accompaniment poses just as many issues if it is recorded too cleanly (thin, early digital sound can further hurt this necessity). My favourite recording by Bean/Handley slightly suffers in this respect, as save for the slightly under-nourished (or deliberately under-played?) orchestra, it has everything going for it.

I feel the bloom that Chandos gives the orchestra in its (albeit somewhat unnatural) production helps alleviate this issue of a perceived clinical presentation, and allows the orchestra and soloist more of a dialogue due to the slightly enhanced dynamics of the orchestral part - the lower range of the orchestra really comes through in this recording due to the ambiance in the recording, and I have never heard the woodwinds and lower strings so effectively blend into a pseudo-organ tone to hit home the (as Elgarian would perhaps recognise) "mystical" Blake-like qualities that RVW seems to draw upon in writing the piece.

This slight promotion of the orchestra from accompaniment to a fuller player allows a more naturalistic wave of sound to occasionally momenterally threaten to engulf the soloist rather than to politely and classically slip in. Compared to fine recordings such as Handley, Thomson's brass and lower strings make their presence more strongly known which really underlines the (essential) ambiguity of the piece which is rarely made apparent, as frankly it's not there in the score - it needs to be coaxed out and implied by the performers. Yes it's beautiful, but you must somehow find something concealed behind this to produce a truly great performance.

This is one aspect in which I strongly favour the Bean/Handley in over competition such as, say, Chang/Haitink or Brown/Marriner. The latter two are fine, but lack a true connection. Chang and Haitink for simply producing a very appealing run-through but with none of the wide-eyed feel that Bean and Handley bring to the music (which itself is heavily reliant on Boult's EMI recording, but IMO surpasses that). It simply somewhat "tromps" or slurs at moments, i.e., it feels as if the music has not entirely unfolded at its own pace. The beauty is there, but the radiance is not. Hahn/Davis I don't really understand - it simply sounds wrong to me at the moment. It does have a little more orchestral heft to it than Handley's somewhat ineffectual sounding orchestral part, but it sounds overall disconnected, episodic and weird even moment-to-moment next to Bean and Handley's utterly in the zone take on it, which whether it leaves me wishing for certain small differences or not, it is nothing if not 'perfect'.

I still feel that Bean/Handley is the most "yes, you understood that" performance, but the Davis/Thomson makes a fine supplement. Does anybody know of any other recordings of note?