Vaughan Williams's Veranda

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

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vandermolen

Quote from: Irons on August 31, 2022, 01:59:52 AM
Another review here, Jeffrey.
http://landofllostcontent.blogspot.com/2022/08/vaughan-williams-on-brass.html
Thanks Lol. Read with interest. I can relate to the point about 'those of us of a certain age' remembering the centenary celebrations of 1972! I remember them well.
"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).

Roasted Swan

#5961
Albion Recods last release of this 150th Anniversary year includes a couple of tracks that seem especially apt in the light of Queen Elizabeth's passing.


(I'm not smitten by the cover painting!)

First is a previous release of the great RVW hymn tune "For All the Saints" but for this release organist David Briggs has added an improvisation on the same tune - as if for the recessional at a service which somehow seems rather magnificent.  Then the disc finishes with a track previously released - another RVW hymn tune - this time "Randolph" which he set to the words "God be with you till we meet again".  Quite beautifuly sung, a gorgeous arrangement and very touching I found......

pjme

Quote from: Roasted Swan on September 12, 2022, 12:27:25 PM
(I'm not smitten by the cover painting!)

Not smitten...?
It is just really  bad!

There are enough good photographs and some excellent drawings of RVW.
Let's quickly listen to some lovely music and try to forget that awful portrait  : Three preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes for string orchestra

https://youtu.be/s3Bc9BRTwWA


vers la flamme

Quote from: Roasted Swan on September 12, 2022, 12:27:25 PM
Albion Recods last release of this 150th Anniversary year includes a couple of tracks that seem especially apt in the light of Quenn Elizabeth's passing.


(I'm not smitten by the cover painting!)

First is a previous release of the great RVW hymn tune "For All the Saints" but for this release organist David Briggs has added an improvisation on the same tune - as if for the recessional at a service which somehow seems rather magnificent.  Then the disc finishes with a track previously released - another RVW hymn tune - this time "Randolph" which he set to the words "God be with you till we meet again".  Quite beautifuly sung, a gorgeous arrangement and very touching I found......

Horrendous painting and design. Candidate for worst album art ever.

calyptorhynchus

I think it's supposed to be a parody of the famous portrait of J S Bach where he is holding a piece of manuscript paper with the theme from the Art of Fugue (or is it the Musical Offering?) written on it. However, I agree, terrible picture.
'Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth.' Robert Burton

vandermolen

Quote from: calyptorhynchus on September 12, 2022, 08:50:28 PM
I think it's supposed to be a parody of the famous portrait of J S Bach where he is holding a piece of manuscript paper with the theme from the Art of Fugue (or is it the Musical Offering?) written on it. However, I agree, terrible picture.
Yes, it's awful - worst I've seen.
"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

Latest Gramophone Magazine:
"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).

Roasted Swan

I've recently been singing the praises of the free download of the "Big English Music Box" from ClassicSelect

https://www.classicselectworld.com/collections/free-downloads/products/big-english-music-box

the more I have listened the more I have enjoyed.  I know/own many of the performances in their original CD releases which is why I'd never bother buying this "box" before - why pay for so much duplication?!  BUT, then today I stumbled across tracks 92 & 93 which are two early/very rare Vaughan Williams duets for soprano and baritone.  Yes they are a bit twee and also rather Victorian parlour-ish (they date from 1903) but lovely to hear and fascinating at filling out further the sense of the remarkable creative journey RVW made from worthy student composer to mature individual genius.  These were written just a year before the Songs of Travel which represent a massive leap forward and just five before On Wenlock Edge.

Peter Power Pop

Quote from: Roasted Swan on September 18, 2022, 07:22:09 AM
I've recently been singing the praises of the free download of the "Big English Music Box" from ClassicSelect

https://www.classicselectworld.com/collections/free-downloads/products/big-english-music-box

the more I have listened the more I have enjoyed.  I know/own many of the performances in their original CD releases which is why I'd never bother buying this "box" before - why pay for so much duplication?!  BUT, then today I stumbled across tracks 92 & 93 which are two early/very rare Vaughan Williams duets for soprano and baritone.  Yes they are a bit twee and also rather Victorian parlour-ish (they date from 1903) but lovely to hear and fascinating at filling out further the sense of the remarkable creative journey RVW made from worthy student composer to mature individual genius.  These were written just a year before the Songs of Travel which represent a massive leap forward and just five before On Wenlock Edge.

Thanks for letting us know about the Big English Music Box. I just downloaded it. Fabulous!

vers la flamme

I listened to the Boult/EMI recordings of the 4th and 5th symphonies today and really enjoyed both of them! Anyone else listening to Boult's RVW lately? I understand it's probably old news for most of you. Was it the first complete RVW cycle to be recorded?

Lisztianwagner

Quote from: vers la flamme on September 18, 2022, 04:29:27 PM
I listened to the Boult/EMI recordings of the 4th and 5th symphonies today and really enjoyed both of them! Anyone else listening to Boult's RVW lately? I understand it's probably old news for most of you. Was it the first complete RVW cycle to be recorded?

I have the Boult/EMI box set and I revisited all RVW's symphonies some moths ago; definitely a great experience, because I didn't remember those works were so terribly good and made me revalue Vaughan Williams as a composer.
"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." - Gustav Mahler

Roasted Swan

Quote from: vers la flamme on September 18, 2022, 04:29:27 PM
I listened to the Boult/EMI recordings of the 4th and 5th symphonies today and really enjoyed both of them! Anyone else listening to Boult's RVW lately? I understand it's probably old news for most of you. Was it the first complete RVW cycle to be recorded?

Yes & No!  YES because it WAS Boult with the LPO who recorded the 1st complete cycle (nearly) for Decca - still available and just being released in new masterings by Pristine


(this was the last Decca remastering)

NO because Decca did not record No.9.  The same artists recorded that symphony for Everest (in stereo on the day of the composer's death) but the box above does include the Everest performance to make the cycle "complete"

vandermolen

Quote from: Roasted Swan on September 18, 2022, 11:27:25 PM
Yes & No!  YES because it WAS Boult with the LPO who recorded the 1st complete cycle (nearly) for Decca - still available and just being released in new masterings by Pristine


(this was the last Decca remastering)

NO because Decca did not record No.9.  The same artists recorded that symphony for Everest (in stereo on the day of the composer's death) but the box above does include the Everest performance to make the cycle "complete"
+ you get VW's recorded speech of thanks to the orchestra after Symphony No.6 and Boult's tribute to VW (on the day of his death) before Symphony No.9
"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

New arrival. This biography, in 'The Master Musicians' series replaces the one by the late James 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

#5974
Arrived today - not to be missed:

The 'big tune' towards the end of the first movement (6th Symphony) steers a middle position between Barbirolli's more 'romantic' treatment (Orfeo CD and 70th Birthday concert) and Boult's more objective treatment which IMO works best. Boult's objective way with Vaughan Williams really suits the 6th and 7th symphonies. Brabbins is just as good in better sound (I prefer Boult's slower pacing in the Epilogue however). This is a terrific performance in all respects which takes me back 50 years to the Centenary Concert (Boult) on October 12th 1972 in the Festival Hall in London (Symphony No.8, Job, On Wenlock Edge etc). Brabbins and the BBC SO have done Vaughan Williams proud.
"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).

Roasted Swan

Quote from: vandermolen on October 08, 2022, 10:47:48 AM
Arrived today - not to be missed:

The 'big tune' towards the end of the first movement (6th Symphony) steers a middle position between Barbirolli's more 'romantic' treatment (Orfeo CD and 70th Birthday concert) and Boult's more objective treatment which IMO works best. Boult's objective way with Vaughan Williams really suits the 6th and 7th symphonies. Brabbins is just as good in better sound (I prefer Boult's slower pacing in the Epilogue however). This is a terrific performance in all respects which takes me back 50 years to the Centenary Concert (Boult) on October 12th 1972 in the Festival Hall in London (Symphony No.8, Job, On Wenlock Edge etc). Brabbins and the BBC SO have done Vaughan Williams proud.


As far as I know NO performance of the Epilogue of No.6 actually plays it as FAST as the published score marking suggests.  I agree the Boult/Decca 'feels' impressively right but its a LOT slower than the tempo marking.  Yet this is the performance that RVW specifically praises in the little recorded speech included with the Decca set.  So a great example of a composer indicating one thing yet then approving some quite different.  On a slight tangent - there is a new book written by Nigel Simeone about the correspondance/relationship between Boult and RVW which is absolutely fascinating - quite a lot of the time little tweaks and suggestions going to and froe..... (just published by Boydell)


Spotted Horses

Quote from: vandermolen on October 08, 2022, 10:47:48 AM
Arrived today - not to be missed:

The 'big tune' towards the end of the first movement (6th Symphony) steers a middle position between Barbirolli's more 'romantic' treatment (Orfeo CD and 70th Birthday concert) and Boult's more objective treatment which IMO works best. Boult's objective way with Vaughan Williams really suits the 6th and 7th symphonies. Brabbins is just as good in better sound (I prefer Boult's slower pacing in the Epilogue however). This is a terrific performance in all respects which takes me back 50 years to the Centenary Concert (Boult) on October 12th 1972 in the Festival Hall in London (Symphony No.8, Job, On Wenlock Edge etc). Brabbins and the BBC SO have done Vaughan Williams proud.

I'm sorely tempted by the Brabbins RVW. I enjoyed his recording of A London Symphony a lot, and am inclined to pick up his recordings of my favorites, 9, 8, 6, 3, maybe 5 and 4. I haven't kept track of which ones he's done so far.
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

vandermolen

Quote from: Roasted Swan on October 08, 2022, 12:48:56 PM
As far as I know NO performance of the Epilogue of No.6 actually plays it as FAST as the published score marking suggests.  I agree the Boult/Decca 'feels' impressively right but its a LOT slower than the tempo marking.  Yet this is the performance that RVW specifically praises in the little recorded speech included with the Decca set.  So a great example of a composer indicating one thing yet then approving some quite different.  On a slight tangent - there is a new book written by Nigel Simeone about the correspondance/relationship between Boult and RVW which is absolutely fascinating - quite a lot of the time little tweaks and suggestions going to and froe..... (just published by Boydell)


Thanks. Even without any technical musical knowledge I figured that must be the case with the VW Epilogue to Symphony No.6 as almost everyone other than Boult plays it much faster (Abravanel is the other exception). The Boult/VW book looks great but a bit too expensive for me (I have an earlier book about Boult's letters, including some to VW).
"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).

Roasted Swan

Quote from: Spotted Horses on October 08, 2022, 12:50:56 PM
I'm sorely tempted by the Brabbins RVW. I enjoyed his recording of A London Symphony a lot, and am inclined to pick up his recordings of my favorites, 9, 8, 6, 3, maybe 5 and 4. I haven't kept track of which ones he's done so far.

Just 7 & 9 to be released and that disc appeared in the latest Hyperion "coming soon" email but with no specific date but I guess before this anniversary year ends.  I have not heard any of the Manze cycle so cannot compare but I have enjoyed this Brabbins cycle a lot.  Very well recorded and well played - my only big "blot" was the way too small voiced baritone in the Sea Symphony.  I've enjoyed the unusual couplings too - but I know that is of little concern to some folk.  For me certainly a much better cycle than Elder of the most recent sets I do know.

vandermolen

Quote from: Roasted Swan on October 08, 2022, 11:19:16 PM
Just 7 & 9 to be released and that disc appeared in the latest Hyperion "coming soon" email but with no specific date but I guess before this anniversary year ends.  I have not heard any of the Manze cycle so cannot compare but I have enjoyed this Brabbins cycle a lot.  Very well recorded and well played - my only big "blot" was the way too small voiced baritone in the Sea Symphony.  I've enjoyed the unusual couplings too - but I know that is of little concern to some folk.  For me certainly a much better cycle than Elder of the most recent sets I do know.
Yes, I agree although Elder's 'A Pastoral Symphony' was excellent as was 'Job'.
"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).