Your favourite Vaughan Williams Symphonies?

[paulb]

I have the 9th on in the background.
..seems to me the 4,5,6 is the best of the cycle.
2nd is my least *favorite*...oh no I can feel it comming on, going into my *iconoclastic* mode
Time to  ....
why distrupt the Vaughan Williamiams from having their party.
Iconoclast am I, but certainly no party-basher

[lukeottevanger]

It's strange to me that only three or four people, including me, have mentioned no 5, which I always thought was ranked very highly among the VW symphonies - it's usually given a very privileged position, alongside 6 and 4. I've already described why I think so highly of it - quality-wise, it seems about as good as the symphonies get. Any explanations? Why has it not been mentioned more often? Even 7 and 8 are getting more notice, and yet it seems to me that, fine though both are, neither has the miraculous, blessed 'rightness' of 5 (I use the religious terminology for a reason, as I think this one of VW's most spiritually exalted pieces). I'm honestly confused.

[Lethevich]

It's strange to me that only three or four people, including me, have mentioned no 5, which I always thought was ranked very highly among the VW symphonies - it's usually given a very privileged position, alongside 6 and 4. I've already described why I think so highly of it - quality-wise, it seems about as good as the symphonies get. Any explanations? Why has it not been mentioned more often? Even 7 and 8 are getting more notice, and yet it seems to me that, fine though both are, neither has the miraculous, blessed 'rightness' of 5 (I use the religious terminology for a reason, as I think this one of VW's most spiritually exalted pieces). I'm honestly confused.

Perhaps because the 5th is so "typical/core RVW" that it (to me) can occasionally feel that to point it out is to draw attention to something already very obvious I certainly consider 3-6 as the real centre of his cycle (in accomplishment and spirit, not just numerically), with an even greater sophistication than he previously had arising during the writing of the 5th...

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

It's strange to me that only three or four people, including me, have mentioned no 5, which I always thought was ranked very highly among the VW symphonies - it's usually given a very privileged position, alongside 6 and 4. I've already described why I think so highly of it - quality-wise, it seems about as good as the symphonies get. Any explanations? Why has it not been mentioned more often? Even 7 and 8 are getting more notice, and yet it seems to me that, fine though both are, neither has the miraculous, blessed 'rightness' of 5 (I use the religious terminology for a reason, as I think this one of VW's most spiritually exalted pieces). I'm honestly confused.

Hm. I must honestly confess I never really liked the Fifth. Nor do I like the Sibelius Sixth, for that matter. And I really have tried, several times. It has something to do, I think, with the absence of conflict. I prefer tranquility under fire, I must feel there is something at stake. These two works are too unremittingly 'heavenly' for me. Paradise must be earned and then - only glimpsed.

P.S. I do like pieces like the 'Serenade to Music', and 'Flos Campi'. And I love 'Job'. But symphonies must be rougher, in my opinion. Otherwise I feel not much is happening.

[springrite]

I picked 4, 6 and Antarctica, although London may be my other choice.

[not edward]

It's strange to me that only three or four people, including me, have mentioned no 5, which I always thought was ranked very highly among the VW symphonies - it's usually given a very privileged position, alongside 6 and 4. I've already described why I think so highly of it - quality-wise, it seems about as good as the symphonies get. Any explanations? Why has it not been mentioned more often? Even 7 and 8 are getting more notice, and yet it seems to me that, fine though both are, neither has the miraculous, blessed 'rightness' of 5 (I use the religious terminology for a reason, as I think this one of VW's most spiritually exalted pieces). I'm honestly confused.

The 5th is leading the votes, though, and it would certainly have been my fourth choice after 6, 3 and 4. (The 3-6 grouping are the only symphonies I listen to more than occasionally, though I'm pulling out Boult's 8th right now to see why people are ranking it so highly.)

As for why I'd rate the others in its "group of four" more highly, I love the controlled ferocity of the 4th and the 3rd's false mask of tranqulity, while I simply think the 6th rises to a level above that of any of the other symphonies.

[lukeottevanger]

Hm. I must honestly confess I never really liked the Fifth. Nor do I like the Sibelius Sixth, for that matter. And I really have tried, several times. It has something to do, I think, with the absence of conflict. I prefer tranquility under fire, I must feel there is something at stake. These two works are too unremittingly 'heavenly' for me. Paradise must be earned and then - only glimpsed.

But I think this is precisely where the Fifth scores so heavily - paradise isn't reached until the end; and the gorgeousness of earlier moments is never fully stable until then. The first movement has this undertow of conflict - seen right at the opening between pure D major (the horns) and the modal implications of the underlying C; the whole movement is nagged at by this modal and chromatic ambiguity, like a Blakean worm in the rose - the development section is haunted by those baleful semitonal incantations which expand into a battering figure. The movement ends with the same C/D ambiguity it started with. Classic stuff, the sonata principle used as a vehicle for a clash of tonalities but also tonal types, the whole thing suggesting VWs perpetual concern with 'paradise' and 'fallen man'. The scherzo has similar concerns, I think, almost like a kind of perverted version of the first movement, whirring along at breakneck pace with increasing metrical complexity and conflict, eventually reaching those vicious, cruel brass outbursts. It is in the ritualistic third movement that things finally take a positive turn, but this movement needs to go through a tense fire at its heart before it can reach the balm of the coda. Full-on diatonic tonality is only reached in the last movement - paradise attained! - reaching real radiance in the polyphony of the coda.

The 4th is much more violent, of course, and the 6th sets up the conflicts between musical types more brazenly (think of the two main subject areas in the first movement), but the 5th does the same with more classical grace and poise, and with a greater purely musical coherence too, which is partly why its dedication to Sibelius is so apt (although, all in all, the 6th is still my favourite VW symphony, I must say)

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I can't fault your analysis of the Fifth, Luke! And I wish I had your ears (and heart).

Around 1980 I bought Hugh Ottaway's little book about RVW's symphonies (one of the BBC Music Guides). Before I even heard the work I had read his enticing description and was really looking forward to listening to it. But it seems this is the one work I simply am not attuned to. It's a question of temperament, I think. I'll try again when I'm in the mood. But in more than 25 years I have never been gripped by the Fifth. So I think my condition is incurable...

[Benji]

Well, I plumped for the 3rd, 5th and 8th, which are the ones that I had to work hardest to connect with, and which I now find (though i'm by no means at the final hurdle) the most rewarding.

Though I do love the remaining six, I find my three selections incredibly life-affirming.

[Christo]

Always fond of beauty contests, and in love with all of the RVW symphonies for over 30 years by now, I opted for nos. 3, 5 and 6. But now that I see only three people chose no. 9, I would rather have given that one an extra vote.

My favourites are actually nos. 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, with nos 2 and 7 a little behind, and no. 1 in a different category (I don't count it as one of his symphonies, but I still appreciate it more than Delius did when RVW broke into his London appartment and played the whole d'd piece to him, as RVW himself recalls in his musical autobiography).

[drogulus]

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

Sarge

      Is that Barbirolli 8th the Dutton from '56 or the later EMI? I'd go for the earlier one.

[Martin Lind]

I like 1,2, 3 und 5. I definetely don't like the 4th. I tried some times, I definetely don't like it. I should know better the 6th and the 7th, I think, I like them.  I liked also the 8th but not the 9th.

[Dana]

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.

      I feel like this about the London Symphony too, but calling it a "warm-up" symphony is selling it too short. This symphony is an EVENT, from beginning to end, and I think is the first manifestation of his symphonic maturity; it is formally typical of a classical symphony (overture-like 1st movement, slow 2nd mvt, scherzo, finale), but still features the type of english folk-inspired writing that made him famous with his early small orchestral pieces.

It's strange to me that only three or four people, including me, have mentioned no 5, which I always thought was ranked very highly among the VW symphonies - it's usually given a very privileged position, alongside 6 and 4. I've already described why I think so highly of it - quality-wise, it seems about as good as the symphonies get. Any explanations? Why has it not been mentioned more often? Even 7 and 8 are getting more notice, and yet it seems to me that, fine though both are, neither has the miraculous, blessed 'rightness' of 5 (I use the religious terminology for a reason, as I think this one of VW's most spiritually exalted pieces). I'm honestly confused.

      I think that Vaughan-Williams is unique amongst almost all other symphonic composers, in that each symphony is a world unto its own. While he definitely had a "golden era" with the 4th, 5th, and 6th symphonies, even those symphonies have profoundly different characters, and each occupies its own sound world - he never wrote "repeat" symphonies, which one could accuse Shostakovich, or Beethoven of doing. This reflects both his changing ideas (he never even wanted to write a symphony until someone whose name I can't recall told him he ought to), and the changing state of the world, which is another thing that makes Vaughan-Williams fairly unique. Although I believe he claimed to his dying day that his symphonies were not programmatic (and I, for one, believe him), one can easily argue that his music acted as a conduit for current events - the turbulent 4th symphony in the years leading up to World War 2, the 5th as a reaction to the War, and the 6th in the uncertain years thereafter.
      So while I voted for the 5th symphony, and I think that there is no assailing the wonderful sound that Vaughan-Williams got, and the structural integrity of said symphony, his versatility from symphonies 1-9 allows each symphony to speak to different people in a special way.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

      I think that Vaughan-Williams is unique amongst almost all other symphonic composers, in that each symphony is a world unto its own. While he definitely had a "golden era" with the 4th, 5th, and 6th symphonies, even those symphonies have profoundly different characters, and each occupies its own sound world - he never wrote "repeat" symphonies, which one could accuse Shostakovich, or Beethoven of doing.

Beethoven never repeated himself in his symphonies (which symphonies do you think are similar?) Neither did Mahler, nor Sibelius, nor Nielsen. And what about Brahms?

[Dana]

      Beethoven definitely uses the same sort of tonic language in the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 8th, and 9th symphonies - these symphonies all have a certain heroic voice to them, and while they each have different ideas, I think that these symphonies in particular seem like siblings; they all reside in the same sound world, and if you hear them, you immediately think "Beethoven," - he develops this characteristic sound also shared by the Emperor Concerto, and the Razumovsky Quartets. It's certainly not a vice, and it's why I always return to Beethoven - but I don't think his compositional voice evolved over the course of his career as dramatically as Vaughan-Williams' did.
      While you could draw similar comparisons between Vaughan-Williams' 1st and 2nd (in terms of English idioms), and 3rd and 5th symphonies (in terms of organic lyricism), he doesn't develops this "go-to" sound which he consistently goes to like Beethoven does (at any rate, he abandons it for his symphonies). I certainly feel more justified in saying that these Beethoven symphonies are more similar to each other then any of Vaughan-Williams' symphonies.

As for Sibelius and Mahler, I did say almost

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I wonder. I think the 'heroic voice' takes on many different forms, that also generate an atmosphere, or sound world, specific to each work. The funeral march in the Third is a one-off, so is the enormous concentration of the Fifth, the same goes for the spaciousness and colouring of the Seventh, and the grandness of the Ninth. For a man who didn't live as long as RVW, Beethoven is as developmental and differentiated a composer as you could wish for. I think Mozart is a composer who stuck to the same perfect style. Not Beethoven.

[karlhenning]

I have the 9th on in the background.
..seems to me the 4,5,6 is the best of the cycle.

Get back to us when you listen to the entire symphony with undivided attention, Paul.

[karlhenning]

Dana! Welcome back!

[Sergeant Rock]

It's strange to me that only three or four people, including me, have mentioned no 5, which I always thought was ranked very highly among the VW symphonies - it's usually given a very privileged position, alongside 6 and 4. 

The Fifth made a late surge and is now leading...which is what I would have predicted. But in truth, it is actually my least favorite among his nine. Yes, I even prefer the Seventh to the Fifth. I've never analysed my reaction even though I've always been in the minority in this respect.

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

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.

Still, it was a shock, and the symphony is such an oddball anyway that hearing it the first time coming from any direction was going to be a challenging experience. I remember being initially both puzzled by it, and disappointed. After the Fourth I was expecting something more, uh...militant, and sonically jarring. The London Symphony I picked up a few weeks later gave me some of that and I recall listening to it far more than the Eighth. The Eighth slowly made its greatness known to me and eventually became my favorite...or at least, the one symphony of his I listen to most often.

The cheapness of CDs nowadays means that people of my generation are completely spoilt for choice...

Indeed....it was very different in the mid-60s, especially if one lived, like I did, in the midwestern sticks with no major record outlets near. It was not a matter of choosing, but rather buying what was available...and little was available.

Sarge