Vaughan Williams's Veranda

[Christo]

The photo on the cover of "Music & Friends" shows RVW engrossed in his new iphone, which is clearly also attracting the attention of Boult...

 

It wasn't his eye-phone, but clearly his ear-phone! 

[relm1]

The photo on the cover of "Music & Friends" shows RVW engrossed in his new iphone, which is clearly also attracting the attention of Boult...

 

He looks like he's trying to log in but forgot his password while Boult is saying "try 'Password'."

[Albion]

It wasn't his eye-phone, but clearly his ear-phone! 

 

[Albion]

He looks like he's trying to log in but forgot his password while Boult is saying "try 'Password'."

 

...or "try 'Antartica' and if that fails try 'Antarctica'"

[vandermolen]

The photo on the cover of "Music & Friends" shows RVW engrossed in his new iphone, which is clearly also attracting the attention of Boult...

 

   

[Biffo]

Over the past couple of  weeks I have been listening to the Naxos/Bournemouth SO symphony cycle. The set is split between Kees Bakels and Paul Daniel. It is a fine cycle with no weak links though none of them displace my favourites.

[Albion]

Over the past couple of  weeks I have been listening to the Naxos/Bournemouth SO symphony cycle. The set is split between Kees Bakels and Paul Daniel. It is a fine cycle with no weak links though none of them displace my favourites.

Naxos has now become an incredibly serious contender in the recording industry, attracting first class artists, conductors and orchestras and continually exploring the repertoire (which has produced far more hits than misses). At a time when the ridiculously-named "majors" (Universal, Warner, Sony, etc.) are busy repackaging their enormous back catalogues from various amalgamated labels and issuing ridiculously large boxes that nobody in their right mind would ever have the time or inclination to sit through, Naxos is head and shoulders above them in terms of new releases of interest: Naxos, Chandos, Hyperion, Lyrita, BIS, Dutton and DaCapo, etc. continue to offer surprises as well and this is where all the enterprise is...

[Karl Henning]

Over the past couple of  weeks I have been listening to the Naxos/Bournemouth SO symphony cycle. The set is split between Kees Bakels and Paul Daniel. It is a fine cycle with no weak links though none of them displace my favourites.

FWIW, those Kees Bakels recordings unlocked the symphonies for me.

[Albion]

FWIW, those Kees Bakels recordings unlocked the symphonies for me.

I grew up with Adrian Boult on EMI and Andre Previn on RCA, both great cycles, and since then there has been such a proliferation of excellent recordings by Vernon Handley, Andrew Davis, Leonard Slatkin, etc. that it is difficult to keep up with them. I will try and have a listen to some of the Naxos...

[vandermolen]

Over the past couple of  weeks I have been listening to the Naxos/Bournemouth SO symphony cycle. The set is split between Kees Bakels and Paul Daniel. It is a fine cycle with no weak links though none of them displace my favourites.

I feel the same about the Vernon Handley cycle on CFP. They are all good but none would be my first choice.

[Albion]

I feel the same about the Vernon Handley cycle on CFP. They are all good but none would be my first choice.

Admittedly, Handley's set now receives more mixed reviews than it did on initial release largely on account of the sonics (which are not really a major problem) but the actual performances themselves are very strongly-conceived and very well realised by the RLPO. When he entered the field there was nowhere near the same competition available that there is now and this should be remembered. As with Bax, we are now blessed with an abundance of riches...

[JBS]

Perhaps it's simply the bias of being the one most recently listened to, but Boult's Decca cycle is the one I think people should hear.

[Albion]

Perhaps it's simply the bias of being the one most recently listened to, but Boult's Decca cycle is the one I think people should hear.

With either Boult on Decca or Boult on EMI you really are in for a treat (it's better to have both). I really don't think that there has been a total write-off in terms of RVW recorded symphony cycles. Add Previn, Handley and Slatkin into the mix and there's no way that you can go wrong. Haitink and Rozhdestvensky both had hits and misses in their sets, but offered fascinating alternatives to the "received" tradition. Likewise the two Chandos cycles (Thomson and Hickox/ Davis) are valuable because these conductors always brought their best to the table even when the engineering was sub-par: neither of the Chandos sets is a top contender, but then neither are they inconsiderable achievements. I can't say that I care much for the Elder (Halle), the Brabbins (Hyperion) or the Manze (Onyx) recordings - why are indie companies even doing this repertoire instead of concentrating on that they do best, i.e. exploration of previously unrecorded stuff...

 

[JBS]

With either Boult on Decca or Boult on EMI you really are in for a treat (it's better to have both). I really don't think that there has been a total write-off in terms of RVW recorded symphony cycles. Add Previn, Handley and Slatkin into the mix and there's no way that you can go wrong. Haitink and Rozhdestvensky both had hits and misses in their sets, but offered fascinating alternatives to the "received" tradition. Likewise the two Chandos cycles (Thomson and Hickox/ Davis) are valuable because these conductors always brought their best to the table even when the engineering was sub-par: neither of the Chandos sets is a top contender, but then neither are they inconsiderable achievements. I can't say that I care much for the Elder (Halle), the Brabbins (Hyperion) or the Manze (Onyx) recordings - why are indie companies even doing this repertoire instead of concentrating on that they do best, i.e. exploration of previously unrecorded stuff...

 

I like the Manze; I seem to be in a minority in that.

I got the first release in Elder's cycle, was not impressed so didn't get the rest until the new Songs of Travel/Job CD, which is good.

I think the Brabbins is fairly good, and generally uses as couplings RVW works that aren't recorded very often (I think in one case at least, never recorded before).

I've got the Boult EMI set, and intend to give it and the Haitink cycle new listens sooner rather than later.

[Abdel Ove Allhan]

From the recorded performance L. Bernstein gave of RVW's 4th symphony it is a shame and maybe a travesty he never recorded the cycle. A gorgeous performance of the Serenade to music is on the same album.

[Biffo]

I feel the same about the Vernon Handley cycle on CFP. They are all good but none would be my first choice.

I bought the Handley cycle piecemeal over a number of years; I think I may have to revisit it as a cycle.

[relm1]

I listened to this recording yesterday and thought it was a very beautiful disc, highly recommended!

[kyjo]

I listened to this recording yesterday and thought it was a very beautiful disc, highly recommended!

Great stuff! I've only heard the (excellent) Maggini Quartet recordings on Naxos, but I'm sure that new Somm recording is fine as well. I love the contrast between the two RVW quartets - the first is largely sunny, pastoral, and quasi-Ravelian, while the second is an angry, impassioned work in the mature style of the 6th Symphony.

[kyjo]

I posted this on another forum on RVW's B-Day.
Have been revisiting his Piano Concerto in C lately. I was previously familiar with the older 2 piano version which seemed a little unwieldy in that arrangement but now I have the Ashley Wass performance with the Liverpool Phil. and have thoroughly reignited my passion for RVW's masterpiece. Apparently Bartok loved the Toccata1st movement. It is suitably bravura and a bold sonic barrage that would have the hipsters clutching their pork pie hats. The second movement is sumptuously romantic night music with quietly sweeping piano arpeggios and hints of the Fuga theme sprinkled liberally about which then leads to an even more beautiful and transcendent melody that would melt a dodecaphonists face. The Fuga Chromatica con Finale Alla Tedesco is a romp. Inversions, retrogrades, canons abound in this free form but still tonal and "fugal-y" relevant fugue form. The Finale alla tedesco carries over the Fuga theme and developes it further into a demonic waltz/cadenza and after a lovely recapitulation of the Night/Transcendant music the orchestra and piano swell to a full and radiant mp C chord and evaporate into the cool evening.
HBD, RVW,

Great post! I greatly enjoy this work in either version and think it's one of his greatest works. My favorite RVW works are those in which both sides of his personality are present: the angular, harmonically astringent side and the beautifully lyrical, modal side, and this work definitely falls into that category!

[Albion]

Great stuff! I've only heard the (excellent) Maggini Quartet recordings on Naxos, but I'm sure that new Somm recording is fine as well. I love the contrast between the two RVW quartets - the first is largely sunny, pastoral, and quasi-Ravelian, while the second is an angry, impassioned work in the mature style of the 6th Symphony.

I've got the EMI "Collectors Edition" box which has SQ1 with the Britten Quartet and SQ2 with the Music Group of London, both very enjoyable performances. I supplemented these with the wonderful Hyperion set of early chamber music (CDA 67381-2) by The Nash Ensemble, which shows that as early as 1898 RVW was a master of chamber music. Is there any genre in which he didn't shine - opera, ballet, film, symphony, concerto, tone poem, chamber, instrumental, vocal, choral? Er, nope.