Richard Abram is the guiding mind behind this ambitious and
unique Vaughan Williams collection. He was also behind the EMI
Elgar Collector’s Edition. Of all the recording labels EMI Classics
offered the greatest breadth and depth of VW catalogue from
which to choose. They have three cycles of the symphonies (Boult,
Handley and Haitink) and they carry at least two different versions
of many of the major choral works.
The Edition is remarkable for its generosity and economy rather
than for its lavish presentation. The thirty discs reside each
in its own plain envelope with a polythene panel on one face
allowing easy inspection of the disc number and a telegraphed
synopsis of the contents is printed on the non-playing surface
of each disc. The thirty envelopes sit alongside a 40 page booklet
in a slip-case inner-sleeve which slots into a thick card outer
sheath. This product is stripped down to barest essentials.
The booklet offers no essay nor any introduction to each work
nor are the sung words included. This is therefore not for the
collector who wants the ‘compleat’ package. It will however
suit the nervous explorer, the adventurous bargain hunter and
those on a tight budget – few of us are on anything else.
It’s an astonishing package. We hear all nine symphonies in
the recordings made in Liverpool by Vernon Handley during the
1980s and 1990s. His very perceptive way with symphonies dominates
the box and its accomplishments are only diluted by the slightly
opaque recording. The Handley set has been available in boxed
set form before now and can be had individually on the CFP issues
all of which have been reviewed here (see below).
A Sea Symphony has a well drilled choir - Ian Tracey's
hand at work here, I suspect. Words are enunciated with a razor-sharp
coordinated focus. Try that tour de force The scherzo
- The Waves. It’s just as well they are so good as none
of the words are included in the booklet. There’s an invigorating
nice snap to the playing: listen to the woodwind playing in
Today a rude brief recitative. It's a fine performance
which engaged me far more than usual and brought out the Stanfordian
influences - Songs of the Sea. Surprising things appear
such as the rocking ostinato at start of A pennant universal
- so typical of a work lying five years in the future, Bax's
Tintagel. There are a wonderful 15 tracking entry points
on this CD - a superb version from which to study the score.
The first time I heard A London Symphony live was in
one of a pair of concerts given by Handley and the RLPO in celebration
of his seventieth birthday. It was given in Philharmonic Hall.
The other work was I think Bax's Violin Concerto with Chantal
Juillet -such a pity she was never offered the opportunity to
record the Concerto. Handley however made the Symphony glow.
His is a vivid reading with much poetry alongside the street
noises of the great city. Rather like Peter Ackroyd’s magnificent
three part documentary about London (2004) this captures in
detail - that is both picaresque and mystical - one person's
city vista. The same sharply etched rhythms which distinguish
The waves in A Sea Symphony also can be heard
here in a work dedicated to that other brilliant Stanford pupil
the doomed George Butterworth who had only a couple of years
to live before a sniper's bullet cut his life short in France.
From many years later comes the chimingly inventive Eighth Symphony
- it always strikes me as a symphony of the graces - Botticellian
in its serene curvature. There are the a Vanity Fair grotesqueries
of the second movement and for me a sense of the Commedia dell’Arte.
Is that a touch of Shostakovich in the sensational woodwind
writing? To what extent, I wonder, was Britten influenced by
this work in his ballet Prince of the Pagodas. I am not
letting go of my allegiance to the analogue Barbirolli version
on a magnificent Dutton double but this is a super fine performance.
Wonderful stuff and things work similarly well for the other
symphonies.
Both the other EMI RVW symphony cycles can still be purchased
should you wish: Boult (mostly 1960-70) – earlier than Handley
- and Haitink (1990s). The first seven discs are given over
to Handley’s Vaughan Williams. From that point we start to encounter,
over discs 8 and 9, parts of the Boult RVW project including
Job and the Piano Concerto in its two piano version.
EMI have already given us the solo piano with orchestra edition
as played by Piers Lane. Boult is also at the helm for some
of the other orchestral pieces which in vinyl days served as
fillers on the Boult symphony LPs. Disc 10 is quite miscellaneous
– in a good way! - mixing the roseate romanticism of Silvestri’s
vivid Tallis Fantasia with the brass band version of
the Folksong Suite, Groves’ bereft but stirring Dawn
Patrol being, alongside Hickox’s 49th
Parallel on CD 11, one of the very few direct representatives
of the RVW film music. Anent Boult’s rather reserved Concerto
Grosso it’s a pity Abram did not opt for Del Mar’s 1960s
version which really sprang vividly to life. Then there’s Larry
Adler’s fantastic harmonica Romance where the composer
is in experimental form with the solo instrument wailing and
ululating. It is almost as if Adler and RVW were serenading
Scott's Antarctic penguins. It is an engaging piece; cold but
full of welcoming strangeness. The recording now shows its age
a little. As for Catelinet’s Tuba Concerto this is rather ‘breathy-lippy’
as I put it when first reviewing this recording. It is good
but not to be preferred over the Previn’s 1960s version with
the LSO’s tuba principal John Fletcher (RCA/BMG – see
review). Hickox takes over for CD 11 with the notable tracks
being the orchestra-only version of the Serenade to Music,
the ballet Old King Cole complete with choir and the
Five Mystical Songs taken by Stephen Roberts who is good
but not as good as the older and exultant EMI Mystical Songs
by Shirley-Quirk. Gordon Jacob arranged Vaughan Williams’
Variations for Brass Band for orchestra. You can hear
this on CD 12 alongside Bradley Creswick’s Concerto Accademico.
The Concerto was for many years known only through James Buswell
IV’s recording with Previn on RCA-BMG (see
review). Buswell re-emerged about a decade ago with the
two Piston Violin Concertos on Naxos (see
review). Not all packages can be perfectly neat – thus CD
12 ends with the Britten Quartet’s fine early 1990s recording
of Vaughan Williams’ String Quartet No. 1. CD 13 is neat
with four mature major chamber works all from the hands of the
members of the Music Group of London.
CD 14 onwards returns us to a trio of conductors whose batons
swept over the choral works renaissance in the 1960s and early
1970s. They straddle centenary year in 1972: Boult, Meredith
Davies and Willcocks. RVW was even celebrated that year with
a Post Office stamp. So many of these recordings are world premieres.
While Dona Nobis Pacem had been pipped at the post by
Abravanel's fine version (Vanguard) and Toward the Unknown
Region by Sargent (EMI) recordings of the Fantasia on the
Old 104th, the Magnificat and many of the others were firsts
on commercial disc. I was raised on the Westbrook version of
An Oxford Elegy. All lovers of the English language should
flock to that work and that recording though the Nimbus version
from Jack May is pretty good too. Such a potent combination
- Westbrook's voice and the nostalgic sweetness of Vaughan Williams.
Flos Campi is one of RVW’s most sheerly beautiful, even
sensuous, pieces. I love this version but Frederick Riddle version
once on RCA and now on Chandos is also good. It used to be on
an RCA LP with the suite for viola and orchestra. Toward
the Unknown Region is early RVW and establishes his prolonged
affair with the poetry of Walt Whitman; as close and sustained
as Finzi's with Hardy’s poetry. The sound securely distinguishes
the various sumptuously rounded strands of serenity and ecstasy.
Boult's Dona has the white-toned Sheila Armstrong, John
Carol Case and the London Philharmonic Choir. They put British
reserve aside for the savagery of "Beat! Beat! Drums …"
achieving an effect not that far removed from the chaotic rammy
of Bliss’s The City Arming from Morning Heroes
(Royal Liverpool Phil Choir). This is a much more effective
image of apocalyptic violence than Franz Schmidt's contemporary
Book of the Seven Seals and is more emotionally expressive
than Eugene Goossens’ The Apocalypse. John Carol Case,
who in five years, was to find his vibrato difficult to subdue
(Lyrita Recorded Edition in Finzi Let us Garlands Bring)
is here controlled and rounded in tone. William Christensen
on the Abravanel recording (Vanguard) has more humanity and
emotional baggage. The singing of the words "… the hands
of the sisters: death and night" is very touching indeed.
Boult handles the Dirge for Two Veterans with implacable
funereal nobility and it remains intriguing to compare his friend
Holst’s setting of the same text once recorded by the Baccholian
Singers. The Fantasia on the Old 104th
has a crashingly rebellious solo piano part despatched with
darkling concentration by Peter Katin who, in a handful of years
time, was to record Finzi's similarly unrepentantly gawky Grand
Fantasia and Toccata for Lyrita. I recall the original EMI
LP which had Boult's version of the RVW Ninth Symphony as the
coupling. The Fantasia is an oddball work yet full of interest.
A late piece echoing with strange sonorities it somehow brackets
itself in the company of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia. The Magnificat
introduces Meredith Davies as conductor. Here the linkages
are with the Sinfonia Antartica notably in the succulently
rounded Gallic flute playing of Christopher Hyde-Smith. The
Ambrosian Singers remind us of the choral writing in An Oxford
Elegy and especially in Flos Campi. The late 1960s
saw an eruption of recording activity as centenary year hove
in sight. Five Tudor Portraits at last secured its recording
premiere. It is difficult to imagine it being done any better
although I concede that Elizabeth Bainbridge is far too matronly
and tends to squall. John Carol Case is in beefily strong voice.
Yet he is delectable in the sweetly light ballad My Pretty
Bess. Listen to his meshing with the chorus in the last
two minutes of the ballad. It is still something of a shock
to encounter the direct Orff quotation in the Burlesca.
However the fulcrum of the work is the Romanza (a favourite
RVW term) Jane Scroop - Her Lament for Philip Sparrow.
This is sensuous, touching, exotic - a cortège of symphonic
gravity. There is some slight choral scrappiness in the faster
tongue-twisting passages but exuberance exonerates and exalts
all. The Benedicite makes a joyfully euphoric impression and
Heather Harper is wondrously clear and splendidly ripe of tone.
The Dives and Lazarus Variants is a noble work extremely
aptly turned by the Jacques Orchestra. John Barrow contributes
his sweetly cavernous baritone to the Christmas Carol Fantasia.
The hit of the work is certainly On Christmas Night (third
movement). A more ambitious and probing seasonal work is the
late Hodie termed A Christmas Cantata. This is
another anthology work. The recorded balance is miraculously
right-feeling in the pipe organ accompanied choral narration
- Now the birth of Jesus Christ. This is a work that
should be done far more often as should that other Christmas
cantata: Cyril Rootham's Milton-based Ode on the Morning
of Christ's Nativity – still waiting impatiently in the
wings for its first recording. The highlights of Hodie are
Janet Baker's It was the winter wild (Milton), John Shirley-Quirk's
baritone in the setting of Hardy's Oxen, kin with the
Five Mystical Songs, the Herbert setting of Pastoral
(again Shirley-Quirk) and Bright Portals of the Sky (directly
referenced to the film music for ‘Scott of the Antarctic’ and
indeed to Grace Williams' scena Fairest of Stars). It
is regally exhilarating in Milton's Ring Out ye crystal spheres.
The clamour of bells, large and small prepares any audience
to go out glowing into the snowy night and home.
The Partita is not reckoned as prime RVW - it tends to
coldness - but the darting bustle of the scherzo ostinato is
likeable in a disconcertingly Britten-like way. The Concerto
Grosso is a much more emotional piece where humanity smiles
warmly. This is affecting and instantly accessible but it is
not the equal of the electrically rapturous Del Mar Bournemouth
recording (EMI). Boult keeps a lid on the emotionalism which
the earlier recording happily sheds to loveable and exciting
effect. Sargent's Tallis Fantasia is now approaching
65 years old. However it sounds fine and while it lacks Barbirolli's
rapt intensity and ecstatic concentration it is no mean performance
… if slightly hurried. The Romance gives us Larry Adler
in experimental form, his harmonica wailing and ululating. It
is almost as if he was serenading Scott's Antarctic penguins.
It is an engaging fantasy of a piece - perhaps rather cold but
full of strangeness. The recording now shows its age. Another
Romance - this time for violin and orchestra - ends the
CD.
There are several CDs of English song some with orchestra, some
with piano alone. Robert Tear (the head-line British tenor for
many years) is dark-toned and faintly nasal. The orchestral
contribution is frankly superb but my preference would be for
the lighter-hued voice of Gerald English (Unicorn nla but you
may be able to track it down). In any event Tear gives lovely
performances and Bredon Hill with its serene shimmer
has not been done better. The Songs of Travel are rooted
back into Parry. The orchestrations (three) are by RVW and the
rest by Roy Douglas. Thomas Allen shows a very clean pair of
heels to Robert Tear managing a lovely honeyed lightness. "I
have trod the upward and the downward slope" neatly echoes
the decay of the tramping theme of "The Vagabond"
giving a rounded sense to the cycle. Anthony Rolfe Johnson and
David Willison; the latter best known as Benjamin Luxon's accompanist,
address the songs with piano. Here the tenor is as dark-tinged
as Tear, but so much sweeter, less acidulous, keyed more effectively
into the honey and eschewing the vinegar.
The RVW Mass is cleanly and coldly sung as befits its
Medievalist origins. These are presented with a host of other
devotional choral pieces and hymns including All People that
on Earth Do Dwell, Te Deum in G, Three Preludes
on Welsh Hymn tunes, O Clap Your Hands and O Taste
and See. The secular songs including Four Hymns,
Merciless Beauty, Two songs of Fredegond Shove,
Ten Blake Songs and Wenlock Edge are taken by
Ian Partridge (tenor) and the Music Group of London. Songs and
folksongs with piano and choral folksong arrangements are not
neglected. The various artists include the London Madrigal Singers/Christopher
Bishop and the Baccholian Singers of London. There are also
some solo folksong arrangements and the choral-melodramatic
A Song of Thanksgiving – the latter with Robert Speaight
(orator) and the LPO/Adrian Boult.
The operas are well represented with the chilly, austere and
desolate Riders to the Sea from Norma Burrowes; Margaret
Price; Helen Watts; Benjamin Luxon and Pauline Stevens with
the Ambrosian Singers and the Orchestra Nova of London/Meredith
Davies. This is placed with Epithalamion. Three other
operas take up the last six discs in the set. Hugh the Drover
- a ballad opera - with Robert Tear; Sheila Armstrong; Michael
Rippon; Robert Lloyd and the Choristers of St Paul's Cathedral;
RPO/Charles Groves (CD 25-26), that delightful masterpiece Sir
John in Love with Felicity Palmer; Robert Tear; Robert Lloyd;
Helen Watts and the New Philharmonia/Meredith Davies (CD 27-28)
and finally his operatic testament: Pilgrim’s Progress with
Ian Partridge; John Shirley-Quirk; Jean Temperley; John Noble;
LPChoir and LPO/Adrian Boult (CD 29-30). It even includes the
rehearsal sequence with which it first appeared on LP.
There is a remarkable range of music here but what is ‘missing’?
You will not hear the original version of the London Symphony
(CHAN 9902 – see
review), nor the entertaining opera - parallel to Holst’s
Perfect Fool - The Poisoned Kiss (see
review). You will not hear the big pastoral work - Folk
Songs of the Four Seasons - written for the WI in the 1950s
and time after time disdained by promoters and labels. It awaited
a first recording for many years until rescued by the valuable
Albion label. You will look in vain for the Fantasia on Sussex
Folk Tunes for cello and orchestra unless you track down
the Lloyd Webber birthday double on RCA-BMG (see
review). You would have to go to Lyrita for The Sons
of Light (see
review) and Chandos for the Choral Hymns in Time of War
(CHAN 9984 – see
review). You will need Hyperion if you want the early chamber
music (see
review) and ASV to catch the otherworldly Three Vocalises
for soprano and clarinet – akin to Antartica – on ASV
Platinum, PLT8520 (see
review); originally ASV CD DCA 891 (Emma Johnson; Judith
Howarth). The other Housman song-cycle, the melancholically
beautiful Along the Field (voice and solo violin) can
be heard on Gordon Pullin’s own label where Pullin is accompanied
by Beth Spendlove (see
review) and on Decca with Thomas Woodman and Nancy Bean
(see
review). The complete Wasps music is on the Hallé’s
own label (see
review). Willow Wood is coupled with another version
of The Sons of Light on Naxos (see
review). The very brief Flourish for Glorious John –
all of 1:35 – was, after issue on an individual CD (09026 61196
2), only available as part of Leonard Slatkin’s RCA-BMG Red
Seal cycle of the Symphonies (issued 1993, now deleted). For
a splendid selection and superbly executed and recorded performances
of the film music go to the three volumes on Chandos (I,
II,
III
and collected
edition box). Stephen Hogger has done a great deal of work
to reconstruct much of the film music and we should not forget
his realisation of the Second Norfolk Rhapsody on Chandos
CHAN 10001 (see
review). The opera scene The Shepherds of the Delectable
Mountains can be heard in isolation on the new Hyperion
RVW box (see
review) but it forms an episode (identical?) in the ‘Morality’
Pilgrim’s Progress on CDs 29-30. Christopher Palmer’s
version of the incidental music for a 1942 radio adaptation
of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ (The Pilgrim’s Progress — A
Bunyan Sequence) can be also had on the Hyperion set (see
review). The ‘Whitman Nocturne’: ‘Whispers of Heavenly Death’
is on another Hickox Chandos disc (CHAN 10103). While RVW’s
concert cantata drawing on Sir John in Love is part of the set
you can only track down Maurice Jacobson’s 40 minute Cotswold
Romance - similar piece of composer-authorised pragmatism for
Hugh The Drover on Chandos CHAN 9646 (see
review). There it shares a disc with the equally rare incidental
music for the Maeterlinck play The Death of Tintagiles. The
major Christmas sequence, The First Nowell is also on Chandos
– CHAN 10385 (see
review).
The discs come in at £1.30 a piece when you buy the 30 CD set..
Remember that in 1971 collectors were paying £2-£2.40 per premium
LP. The EMI Boult symphonies LPs were later packaged in one
large box (SLS822) and the choral works in another big box (SLS5082).
Amazon prices the 30 disc set at about £35 including p&p.
There is nothing like this anywhere whether at this or any price
and there’s hardly a single dud in the collection. Any serious
explorer who has not amassed many of these works already should
get this and begin a journey of discovery. The only down side
is the lack of documentation and texts but a reasonably tenacious
explorer with access to the internet and library should be able
to repair that omission.
Rob Barnett
Detailed contents list
CD 1
A Sea Symphony - Joan Rodgers; William Shimell; RLPO/Vernon
Handley
CD 2
London Symphony & Symphony No. 8 – RLPO/Vernon Handley
CD 3
Pastoral Symphony and Symphony No. 4 Alison Barlow; RLPO/Vernon
Handley
CD 4
Oboe Concerto & Symphony No. 5 - Jonathan Small; RLPO/Vernon
Handley
CD 5
Symphonies Nos. 6 & 9 – RLPO/Vernon Handley
CD 6
Serenade to Music (choral), Partita for Double String Orchestra,
Sinfonia Antartica – RLPO/Vernon Handley
CD 7
The Wasps Suite, Prelude & Fugue in C minor, Piano Concerto
in C - Piers Lane (piano); LPO/Vernon Handley; RLPO/Vernon Handley
CD 8
Piano Concerto in C for two pianos, Job - Vitya Vronsky, Victor
Babin (pianos); LPO and LSO/Adrian Boult
CD 9
Serenade to Music (16 soloists), English Folk Songs Suite (orch),
Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1, The Lark Ascending, Greensleeves Fantasia,
In the Fen Country - Hugh Bean (violin); LSO/Adrian Boult; New
Philharmonia Orchestra/Adrian Boult
CD 10
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, English Folk Songs Suite
(band), Sea Songs march (band), Dawn patrol, Concerto grosso,
Tuba Concerto, Harmonica Romance - Various Artists
CD 11
Serenade to Music (orchestral only version), Poisoned Kiss overture,
Old King Cole - ballet, Five Mystical Songs, Sea Songs march
(orchestral), Running Set, 49th Parallel Prelude;
Northern Sinfonia of England/Richard Hickox
CD 12
Variations for Brass Band (orch Gordon Jacob), Concerto accademico
for violin and orchestra in D minor, String Quartet No. 1, Three
preludes (II; III), Two Hymn Tune Preludes - Bournemouth SO/Richard
Hickox; Northern Sinfonia of England/Richard Hickox; Britten
Quartet
CD 13
Violin Sonata in A minor, String Quartet No. 2, Phantasy Quintet,
Six Studies in English Folk Song (cello) - Music Group of London
CD 14
Toward the Unknown Region, Dona nobis pacem, Magnificat etc
- LPO / Adrian Boult
CD 15
An Oxford Elegy, Flos campi, Whitsunday Hymn, Sancta Civitas
- KCC / LSO / David Willcocks
CD 16
Five Tudor Portraits, Benedicite, Five variants of 'Dives and
Lazarus - John Carol Case / Bach Choir / New Phil Orch / LSO
/ David Willcocks
CD 17
Hodie, Fantasia on Christmas Carols (w/strings & organ)
- Janet Baker / Bach Choir / LSO / David Willcocks
CD 18
Fantasia on Christmas Carols (w/orch), In Windsor Forest, Songs
of travel, On Wenlock Edge - Various Artists
CD 19
Mass in G minor, All People that on Earth Do Dwell, Te Deum
in G, Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn tunes, other sacred choral
- KCC / David Willcocks
CD 20
Four Hymns, Merciless Beauty, Ten Blake Songs, Wenlock Edge
- Ian Partridge / Music Group of London
CD 21
The House of Life, Songs of Travel (piano) - Anthony Rolfe Johnson
/ David Willison
CD 22
Songs with piano, choral folksong arrangements - Various Artists
CD 23
Solo folksong arrangements, A Song of Thanksgiving - LPO / Adrian
Boult
CD 24
Epithalamion, Riders to the Sea - LPO / David Willcocks / Orchestra
Nova of London / Meredith Davies
CD 25 & CD 26
Hugh the Drover - Robert Tear / Sheila Armstrong / Michael Rippon
/ Robert Lloyd / Choristers of St Paul's Cathedral / RPO / Charles
Groves
CD 27 & CD 28
Sir John in Love - Felicity Palmer / Robert Tear / Robert Lloyd
/ Helen Watts / New Phil Orch / Meredith Davies
CD 29 & CD 30
Pilgrim's Progress & rehearsal sequence - Ian Partridge
/ John Shirley-Quirk / Jean Temperley / John Noble / LPC / LPO
/ Adrian Boult
-----------------
Overview list
Symphonies Nos. 1-9
Joan Rodgers; William Shimell; Alison Barlow; Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic Orchestra/Vernon Handley
Oboe Concerto in A minor
Jonathan Small; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vernon
Handley
Serenade to Music (choral version)
Partita for double string orchestra
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vernon Handley
The Wasps - Aristophanic Suite
Prelude and Fugue in C minor
London Philharmonic Orchestra; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra/Vernon Handley
Piano Concerto in C major
Piers Lane; London Philharmonic Orchestra; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra/Vernon Handley
Piano Concerto in C for two pianos
Vitya Vronsky; Victor Babin; London Philharmonic Orchestra/Adrian
Boult
Serenade to Music
English Folk Song Suite (orchestral version)
Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1
The Lark Ascending
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
London Symphony Orchestra; New Philharmonia Orchestra/Adrian
Boult
English Folk Song Suite (band version)
Concerto Grosso for String Orchestra
Tuba Concerto in F minor
Serenade to Music (orchestral)
Old King Cole
Five Mystical Songs
Sea Songs
Northern Sinfonia of England/Richard Hickox
Variations for Brass Band (orchestral)
Violin Concerto in D minor 'Concerto Accademico'
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra & Northern Sinfonia of England/Richard
Hickox
String Quartet No. 1 in G minor
Britten Quartet
Violin Sonata in A minor
String Quartet No. 2 in A minor
Music Group of London
Toward the Unknown Region
Dona Nobis Pacem
Magnificat
A Song of Thanksgiving
Riders to the Sea
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Adrian Boult
An Oxford Elegy
Flos Campi
Whitsunday Hymn
Sancta Civitas
Kings College Cambridge & London Symphony Orchestra/David
Willcocks
Five Tudor Portraits
Benedicite
Five Variants of ‘Dives and Lazarus'
Bach Choir, New Philharmonia Orch & LSO/David Willcocks
Hodie (A Christmas Cantata) (w/strings & organ)
Janet Baker
Bach Choir
LSO/David Willcocks
Fantasia on Christmas Carols (w/orch)
In Windsor Forest
Songs of Travel
On Wenlock Edge
Mass in G minor
Te Deum in G
All people that on earth do dwell
Household Music
Kings College Cambridge/David Willcocks
Four Hymns
Merciless Beauty
Ten Blake Songs
On Wenlock Edge
Ian Partridge; Music Group of London
House of Life
Songs of Travel
Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor); David Willison (piano)
Epithalamion
London Philharmonic Orchestra/David Willcocks
Riders to the Sea
Orchestra Nova of London/Meredith Davies
Hugh the Drover
Robert Tear; Sheila Armstrong; Michael Rippon & Robert Lloyd;
Choristers of St Paul's Cathedral & RPO/Charles Groves
Sir John in Love
Felicity Palmer; Robert Tear; Robert Lloyd & Helen Watts;
New Philharmonia Orchestra/Meredith Davies
The Pilgrim's Progress (complete) & rehearsal sequence
Ian Partridge; John Shirley-Quirk; Jean Temperley & John
Noble; LPC; LPO/Adrian Boult
RVW Reviews on MusicWeb International – a selection
1 http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2002/July02/Sea_Handley.htm
4 3 http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/aug02/Vaughan_Williams_Symphonies34.htm
Antartica Serenade Partita http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2002/July02/RVW_antartica.htm
6 9 http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2002/July02/RVW69_handley.htm
2 8 http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Sept02/RVW28.htm
5 http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Sept02/RVW5.htm
Handley Wasps http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Sept02/Lark_Cuckoo.htm
Tuba concerto Catelinet http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2003/Feb03/rvw_barbirolli.htm
Handley’s Job http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/July02/job.htm
Toward the Unknown Region (1), Dona nobis pacem (2), Fantasia
(quasi variazione) on the Old 104th
Psalm Tune (3), Magnificat (4), Partita (5), Concerto Grosso
(6), Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis (7), Romance in D
flat (8), The Lark Ascending (9) http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Feb02/RVW_EMI_collection.htm
Sir John in Love http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2003/Jun03/RVW_SirJohninLove_EMI.htm
The Poisoned Kiss http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/apr04/poisoned_kiss.htm
RVW etc choral box http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2003/Feb03/rvwbox2.htm
Full Vaughan
Williams review index
Various artists
