Your favourite Vaughan Williams Symphonies?

[Guido]

Hands down, the Pastoral. There's not an uninspired moment in the piece, and the soprano solo stays with one forever. It's like Debussy, only English, and the symphony I would write, if I could write symphonies.

not Ives' Fourth?! I must hear it!

Do I get the Handley or Haitink boxed set? (both are the same price - cheap! Boult is almost double even although I know that his is considered the 'benchmark')

[anasazi]

not Ives' Fourth?! I must hear it!

Do I get the Handley or Haitink boxed set? (both are the same price - cheap! Boult is almost double even although I know that his is considered the 'benchmark')

There are also the Thomson set on Chandos and the Previn set on BMG.  The latter one is also fairly cheap.

[Lethevich]

Do I get the Handley or Haitink boxed set? (both are the same price - cheap! Boult is almost double even although I know that his is considered the 'benchmark')

There are many cheap ones - the Previn set as well, for eg. I recommend the Handley above all though, it's exceptionally well filled out with bonuses, and the interps are the most consistent I've heard - plus very good sound (although perhaps not as good as Haitink, which borders on phenomonal, at the risk of overstatement).

[Sergeant Rock]

I love them all, even the oft-maligned Sea Symphony. But since we can only choose three for this thread: 4, 8, 9. Favorite versions:

4 - Bernstein/NY Phil
8 - Barbirolli/Hallé
9 - Boult/LPO Haitink/LPO

Sarge

[Symphonien]

Based on initial reactions (I have only recently discovered this composer and listened once through Handley's set): 5, 6 and 8.

[Sergeant Rock]

The 8th by far. My favorite symphony of any composer of any time, actually.

Really? That's very interesting. In a similar poll on another forum, populated almost entirely by Brits, the Eighth was one of the least liked. But here it's very popular. The Barbirolli recording (with the Hallé Orchestra on Vanguard Everyman) was my first classical purchase. Over the last forty-two years I've listened to the Eighth far more than any of his other symphonies. It's a welcome listen whatever mood I'm in, and at any time of day or night.

Sarge

[Lethevich]

This thread has inspired me to listen to some discs of RVW (as if I've ever needed an excuse), and the 3rd has risen in my estimation, and the low ratings of the 4th and 9th still mystify me. I can understand why people dislike the 1st, as much as I do like it.

[Sergeant Rock]

the low ratings of the 4th...still mystify me.

I suppose it's too dissonant, violent, and martial for the wimps here. 

The Fourth is the first Vaughan Williams I ever heard: Bernstein played part of it during one of his televised Young People's Concerts. I was intrigued. A short time later I heard the entire symphony during a broadcast on WCLV, Cleveland's classical station. I was hooked. I couldn't find a recording, though, and had to settle for Barbirolli's RVW Eighth and a few weeks later, his version of the London Symphony.

Sarge

[karlhenning]

There are many cheap ones - the Previn set as well, for eg. I recommend the Handley above all though, it's exceptionally well filled out with bonuses, and the interps are the most consistent I've heard - plus very good sound (although perhaps not as good as Haitink, which borders on phenomonal, at the risk of overstatement).

I will join Sarah in praising both the Handley and Haitink sets.

[karlhenning]

. . . the low ratings of the 4th and 9th still mystify me.

In my case, simply a matter of only choosing three, and I wavered between the Fourth and Fifth. In the end, though . . .

[karlhenning]

Just listened to the 5th again - amazed as always by its generosity, eventual optimism and humanity, and also by the almost unique fashion in which its trajectory is carried out and supported by a purely musical set of principles. The transition from modality to diatonicism, and the steps along the way, as well as the lucid, coherent interaction of motives from movement to movement - they all flow so very naturally without the slightest forcing. A miracle, in its own way.

[emphasis mine.]

It flows indeed, and gives the impression of being inevitable, and effortless.

[Lethevich]

The Fourth is the first Vaughan Williams I ever heard: Bernstein played part of it during one of his televised Young People's Concerts. I was intrigued. A short time later I heard the entire symphony during a broadcast on WCLV, Cleveland's classical station. I was hooked. I couldn't find a recording, though, and had to settle for Barbirolli's RVW Eighth and a few weeks later, his version of the London Symphony.

Did the style of his other works after the 4th come as a particular surprise? I suppose the 8th is more emotionally ambiguous than 3 & 5, so would be less of a shock after the 4th. I got in via the usual route - Tallis Fantasia and no.5, then immediately began to binge on cycles and single discs. The cheapness of CDs nowadays means that people of my generation are completely spoilt for choice...

I will join Sarah in praising both the Handley and Haitink sets.

They are IMO the best along with Boult mono - I could perhaps live with just Handley and Boult, but that would be a sad existence

In my case, simply a matter of only choosing three, and I wavered between the Fourth and Fifth. In the end, though . . .

As usual I blatantly sabotaged the poll by voting for works that I thought would not get a decent showing (nos.1 and 2), so my favourites post was not entirely representative of what I voted for I love the 6th enough to have used my third vote on that, though.

[karlhenning]

As usual I blatantly sabotaged the poll by voting for works that I thought would not get a decent showing (nos.1 and 2), so my favourites post was not entirely representative of what I voted for

That, too, is a valid mode of poll-participation . . . .

[hautbois]

I picked No. 2 because i have played it in concert during a tour of the national youth orchestra. Despite the initial lack of interest in it, i was complete taken by the climaxes of the first and second of movements, especially the 2nd. Beautiful music, and lingers less in ideas compared to most of the other RVW symphonies (But i have not heard of 7 and 8 before, not a big fan).

Howard

[BachQ]

The 8th by far. My favorite symphony of any composer of any time, actually.

Super ....... another 8 fan! ........

[paulb]

. The sequence 4, 5 and 6 is the pinnacle of his symphonic writing,

I also would agree with this 4,5,6 as his very finest.
Like Sargent I have no issues with the 1st, inspite of others protests that its *not his finest*, *and not really anything special* The music works for me, though the ending seems to lose some *steam*, the Walt Whitman poem is excellent and scored beautifully for chorus.
Seems all his syms have been mentioned in this topic and attests to the high  level of excellence of all 9.
For me its the Sir Bryden Thomson /LSO set that takes the prize.

[Wanderer]

I like them all (with the exception of No.2, which I'm not too fond of...yet); Nos. 1, 5 & 7 get my vote for today.

[val]

Until now it was the 6th. But I never heard the First, 3rd, 7th.

That is about to change since I bought the box with all the Symphonies conducted by Adrian Boult.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

If I have to choose: Second - Third - Sixth.

[paulb]

I like them all (with the exception of No.2, which I'm not too fond of...yet); Nos. 1, 5 & 7 get my vote for today.

Odd that include the 1st among your 3 favs. The 1st appears to me as the facade of his later deeper structures, like the outer walls of a  cathedreal that holds the fine inner beauties of design.
I'm listening to the 2nd sym. Seems RVW used his 2nd sym as a  source of themes for other later syms, the 5th sym is there. I think the 2nd is like a  *warm-up* sym, he is defining what he later intends to accomplish. The thing is with RVW even in this *experimental* 2nd sym, the orch colors and textures *grab* onto to you, so you are not ready to dismiss it *at least not just yet anyway*, that is , we may come back to it time to time.