Long before The lark ascending became one of the most
popular landmarks of the violinists’ repertory, one of the very
first recordings of the work became a staple of the Argo
LP catalogue. There had been two previous recordings by
Sir Adrian Boult: the earlier now available on Dutton
CDBP 9703, and the later one in various EMI
collections. The version issued in 1972 by Iona Brown and
the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields under Neville Marriner
effectively began the cumulative process of establishing the
work as the favourite it has since become. That LP also contained
recordings of the Tallis Fantasia, the Fantasia
on Greensleeves and one of the first recordings of the
Dives and Lazarus variants. When it was first reissued
on CD a later
recording by the same forces of the Oboe Concerto
was added. The releases have now been repackaged in various
forms. This Nimbus disc reduplicates the contents of that CD,
but for the brief Harmonica
Romance included by Marriner it substitutes the better-known
and more substantial overture from The Wasps.
So, how does this release compare with its distinguished predecessor?
Well, in the first place Marriner’s readings, superbly played
and recorded as they were, were rather lacking in character
– the more recognisably so as we have got to know these pieces
better. Character is one thing that Boughton’s performances
could not be accused of wanting. The two works, recorded earlier,
which include wind instruments have plenty of individuality.
Most people purchasing this disc will be looking for a performance
of The lark ascending. Over the years there has been
an infinity of performances to choose from, ranging from Hugh
Bean’s pioneering and still effective account for Boult
to Nigel Kennedy’s incredibly slow - and very beautiful - version
with Rattle; the latter available in various couplings. In the
version here Michael Bochmann is set slightly back in the recorded
acoustic. This lends his playing a nicely distanced romantic
quality but the resulting sound is a bit thin for music which
we are used to hearing with a more romantic ardour. Both he
and Boughton are too ready to allow the music to fall into a
lazily swinging 6/8 rhythm which sounds folksy enough but misses
the more poetic heart of the music. A little more rhythmic give-and-take
is really needed here, but the orchestral balance is nicely
judged and the work casts much of its accustomed spell.
The Wasps was originally performed with a pit orchestra
with very few strings, but the usual tendency has been to use
a full symphonic complement in this music. Boughton’s players
have plenty of body, but he tears into the music with terrific
zip which leaves the strings scurrying in places and unable
therefore to give full substance to their sound. The wind and
brass dominate in a way that might mirror the original performances,
but some of the more lyrical passages really need more weight;
the reprise of the big tune on the trumpet comes across as vulgar
in quite the wrong sort of way - and I know that the play is
a comedy, and the big tune is set in the
full incidental music to words that are pretty vulgar in
their own right.
The sound in the other tracks recorded four years later, for
strings only with various soloists, is rather more forward.
It is very difficult to go wrong in the Fantasia on Greensleeves,
and Boughton does it full justice. In the middle section the
contrasting tune of Lovely Joan is given delightful
poise, but one does wish that he would bring out the counterpoint
– derived from the line in the opera Sir John in love
(from which the Fantasia is extracted) to the words
“Thine own true knight”. Incidentally this beautiful middle
section is, incredibly enough, marked in the operatic score
as an optional cut – and this cut is indeed made in both complete
recordings (Davies;
Hickox)
of the opera despite its references to the “knight” motif.
The Oboe Concerto is not one of Vaughan Williams’s
most popular works, and indeed despite its pastoral atmosphere
it does lack some degree of memorability. The prolific composer
could not be expected to produce a masterpiece every time. The
experienced Maurice Bourgue plays with great poise and affection,
but does not really succeed in convincing us that the work is
greater than it is. He is not helped by a rather forward balance
which only serves to emphasise the note-spinning nature of some
of the passages he is given to play. A more substantial string
sound might have helped in the scherzo finale, where Bourgue
also produces some rather undignified squawks in some of the
fastest passages.
The Tallis Fantasia, on the other hand, is a blazing
masterpiece. There are two ways to play this piece. First: slowly
and with a sense of architecture, emphasising the contrasts
between the various near and distant string groups and achieving
a sense of ethereal calm - the Boult
and Marriner
approach. Second: with full romantic passion, bringing out the
emotion inherent in the Tallis melody - the Barbirolli
approach. Both can be equally effective, but whichever approach
is adopted the work absolutely demands a sufficiently large
body of strings to bring out the contrasts in the music. It
doesn’t really get that here, and however good the playing -
and it is very good - one really wants a bigger volume of sound
from the main group in the second richly embroidered statement
of the Tallis melody. To my mind the best recording of this
that I have heard is that by Andrew
Davis (now on Warner Apex) given in the acoustic of Gloucester
Cathedral for which the work was originally conceived. The recorded
sound here cannot begin to match the sense of space there, although
the distant string group is nicely ethereal. Boughton seems
to be aiming for the Barbirolli approach - his speeds move forward
flowingly, sometimes too much so - but his players lack the
sheer body of sound that Barbirolli obtains from his pick-up
band (various EMI couplings). One notes with pleasure the playing
of Susan Lynn and Helen Roberts in the violin and viola solos.
Similarly Dives and Lazarus really demands a large
string body. It was written for performance at the New York
World Fair, and presumably the composer had substantial forces
at his disposal there. Without such forces the divided strings
can sound horribly scrawny in places, as they do in the Willcocks’s
pioneering recording with the Jacques Orchestra; this despite
the assistance of the ultra-reverberant acoustic of King’s College
Chapel. On the other hand, if the strings are too numerous the
important passages for harp can fail to come through the texture.
Vernon
Handley - currently available only as part of his set of
the complete symphonies - judges this to perfection. It is amazing
that the EMI
Vaughan Williams ‘edition’ (30 discs) preferred Willcocks’s
performance to his. Although Boughton does not really have enough
strings here to produce the ideal creamily romantic sound, he
achieves a nicely poised performance. The playing is considerably
superior to that obtained by Willcocks - the contrapuntal passage
at 5.04 is much more expertly handled. The harp of Audrey Douglas
comes through nicely in a very natural balance.
There are indeed better performances in the catalogue of all
these individual pieces but as a package this is highly acceptable
if these are precisely the works you want; and nobody else has
precisely this collection. David Gutman’s booklet note mounts
a robust defence of Vaughan Williams against those who accuse
his music of being “a trickle of pentatonic wish-wash”; quite
rightly too. One would hope that in the eighteen years since
this note was written the need for such a defence has become
less necessary.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Michael Bochmann (violin)*; Maurice Bourgue (oboe)+