Longtime friend David Federman wrote, "Given the present circumstances, and the elegiac purpose of the Third, why don't you share it with your followers. I can't think of a better piece of music for the 20th anniversary of 9/11."
Nor can I, David. I have previously presented Boult's 1953 recording of this symphony; here is the worthy remake, dating from 1968. Sir Adrian conducted the 1922 premiere of the work.
As I wrote in my 2018 post, Vaughan Williams' composition was both a meditation on the English countryside and on the war-scarred terrain of World War I France, where he served as a corpsman and where he began writing the symphony.
"Vaughan Williams was confronted by death constantly. His response was to produce a symphony of remarkable beauty, heartbreaking and elegiac," I wrote then. "Among its effects are a solo bugle, whose sound he would have heard each evening in France, and also at the military funerals he attended; and a wordless soprano solo, perhaps an angel's voice comforting the souls of the dead and welcoming them to a better world.
"Or so I imagine. The work does not really have any stated programmatic aim, and can be enjoyed simply as an extraordinary piece of music."
The soprano soloist here is Margaret Price.
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| Boult and Vaughan Williams in 1935 |
In the Fen Country
The "symphonic impression" In the Fen Country, from 1904, was the first orchestral work that Vaughan Williams acknowledged, although earlier items have come to light. It's an accomplished piece of music, and with its meditation on the Fenlands in Eastern England, well chosen as a disc mate for the Pastoral Symphony.
In an enclosed Gramophone review, critic Trevor Harvey disagreed that In the Fen Country is well-matched to the symphony. He considered it an "undistinguished piece" that is inferior to the composer's Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1. I don't agree; In the Fen Country is well shaped and has memorable themes; what else could you want? The Norfolk Rhapsody is built on folk tunes, and while it is enjoyable enough, to me the tragic Captain's Apprentice fits uneasily next to the jaunty On Board a Ninety-Eight. (Robert Tear's brilliant recordings of these folksongs are still available here, a decade later.)
Boult's was the first recording of In the Fen Country.
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| From a September 1968 ad in The Gramophone |
On the Recording
I mentioned in my post on the Symphony No. 5 that vinyl sources are preferable to the digital remasterings of these works, and that the UK pressings are usually superior to their US counterparts. For the Pastoral Symphony (unlike the Fifth), I don't own the UK pressing, only my US copy from nearly 50 years ago. While the LP is in good shape, it shows the familiar characteristics that drove American music lovers mad way back when - low-level rustle and muted high frequencies. I have matched my transfer of the US LP to the UK sound as closely as possible; the results are pleasing, I believe.
September 11, 2001
Most American adults will, I am sure, remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11, 2001. I happened to be in New York on that day. I was staying in the city on business, and had just arrived at a meeting taking place across the river in New Jersey.
When we heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I thought it must have been an accident. We were in a building with a clear view across the river at the twin towers. Seeing smoke coming from the building was a strange site, but not as strange as the massive plume of dust - and nothing else - that soon would replace the iconic towers.
We soon were on our way home to the Midwest. So many people were not as fortunate as me - a spectator and not a victim or a participant in the aftermath. They all are in our thoughts today.
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS SYMPHONY & H.D.'s SONG OF SOLACE: 1942/3
ReplyDeleteIf you happened to be tuned in by AM or shortwave to the BBC on June 24, 1943, you would have heard Vaughan Williams conduct the London Philharmonic in the world premiere of his Fifth Symphony. One of the listeners to that broadcast was Williams' friend and long-time associate, conductor Sir Adrian Boult, who wrote to the composer: " . . . its serve loveliness is completely satisfactory in these times and shows, as only music can, what we must work for when this madness is over." That is, perhaps, the most succinct summary of the work's nearly universal consoling impact and its immediate triumph with the critics and public alike. If ever a work of sublime solace was needed, this was it.
Ever since 1939, England had lived under a constant rain of terror—day and night bombings and rocketry from Nazi Germany meant to bring Britain to its knees. But the country never broke. In the opening poem of the first book of her War trilogy, “The Walls Do Not Fall,” American poetess H.D. described the physical and spiritual condition of her adopted country in 1942 as this:
ruin everywhere, yet as the fallen roof
leaves the sealed room
open to the air,
so, through our desolation,
thoughts stir, inspiration stalks us
through gloom:
unaware, Spirit announces the Presence . . .
These lines could serve as a summation of the overriding intent of Vaughan Williams Fifth Symphony: to allow "Spirit to announce the Presence." Of what? Of God? Of Hope? Of Strength? As with his Third Symphony, written as a four-movement elegy to WWI 21 years earlier, the Fifth was the product of all-engulfing conflagration. Only this time the composer, who had used his hard-edged, trenchant Fourth Symphony to decry the rise of fascism, meant his music to contribute an abiding comfort in service of his countrymen’s resilience. I find the lines at the end of H.D.'s first poem in her "The Walls Do Not Fall" sequence as perfect a mission statement for her words as they are for Williams' music:
the bone-frame was made for
no such shock knit within terror,
yet the skeleton stood up to it:
the flesh? it was melted away,
the heart burst out, dead ember,
tendons, muscles shattered, outer husk dismembered,
yet the frame held:
we passed the flame: we wonder
what saved us? what for?
With its opening haunting, horn-call motif, the symphony asks these same questions and spends its remainder trying to answer them with affirmative beauty. Given the horrific midst in which it was written, the composer cannot say for sure what the outcome will be—only express faith in the momentary assurance it offers. There is an undeniable cinematic quality to this music as it plays upon heartstrings and appeals to heroism. Today, it still moves audiences as much as it did back in 1943 when concert-goers and radio listeners first heard it. The third movement, marked "Romanza," is sublime.
To give you some idea of the inspirational power and salutary immediacy of this music at its time of completion and premiere, I am sending its first recording by Sir. John Barbirolli, made for HMV on February 2, 1944, with the Halle Orchestra, which he had recently taken over as director and was rebuilding as one his country's premier ensembles. The remaster is taken from a 2-CD collection of historic recordings of Williams music released by England's Pearl Records 20-or-so years ago. Again, I urge you to lend your ears to this magnificent and ultimately triumphant music. Imagine yourself hearing this on a radio in America and feeling how inextricably your fate is intertwined with Europe's. At WeTransfer for a week.
https://we.tl/t-eP5nukti3n
Thanks, David, for your wise words and for the recording.
DeleteHmm, I can't get it. (Perhaps already unavailable? Perhaps my security programs are stepping in-between?)
DeleteI think I already have the Barbirolli in some file or other.
I guess the RVW broadcast is lost but would love to hear it, even in the worst sound imaginable.
Charlot - I will reupload it later today.
DeleteSorry about the delay. Here is a link to the VW recording of the Serenade to Music:
Deletehttps://mega.nz/file/nFtSRIhb#X5nzXsHzBnr1LWhc-ENViLYtS9Z1OK9OkynOm9Q4WO8
Sheila Armstrong, or Margaret Price?
ReplyDeleteJAC - Margaret it is! I must have been distracted by Sheila's beehive. Thanks for the correction.
DeleteNew link with corrected soprano attribution:
ReplyDeletehttps://mega.nz/file/PIdEQRLa#ltj6MEKa3Swqf7y5Ysn2ACzG4OZ7BrMfmHG5YP5z9jM
Thank you for this, Buster, especially as I cannot find my record with my Vaughn Williams LP's. I know I have it.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks indeed, Buster for these super VW recordings with Sir Adrian.
ReplyDeleteThanks, gents, for the comments!
ReplyDeleteYou were there on 9/11? I didn't know that! How did you manage to get home, did you drive? I remember friends of mine at a convention in Vegas weren't able to make it home for a week or so. I was far, far away at the time, yet somehow felt it as strongly as I think anyone who wasn't there could. I've since visited both Ground Zero and the memorial at the Pentagon, and I hope someday to visit Shanksville. I can't bring myself to go in the museum at Ground zero though, it still seems to fresh in my head. Whenever I stumble across a memorial unawares, it makes me sad.
ReplyDeleteErnie - It wasn't easy to get home. We finally found a car to rent at Teterboro Airport in NJ with a wink-nod promise that it would be a two-way rental. (The car rental places soon dropped that requirement.) The biggest problem for me (other than no one knew what was going on) was that I could not reach my wife (cell service was down), who thought I was in the city and really didn't know where our Manhattan office was located (Midtown, as opposed to lower Manhattan where the Towers were located). So she was frightened.
DeleteI quite agree with you Buster: LP has a different approach of the sound (less distant, warmer, all attacks in winds as well as strings are more natural and incisive...). And thanks for that new transfer of this fantastic musical association Vaughan-Williams/Boult.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Jean!
DeleteI thoroughly enjoyed both of these compositions and the sound is rich and warm.
ReplyDeleteIn connection with the Pastoral there is a famous Sir Thomas Beecham, Bart. story. (There always a famous Beecham story about everything, in my experience.) Beecham was notoriously unsupportive of English composers, except for Delius who was not so very English.
One version goes:
[At the Leeds Festival Premiere in 1928] In the first movement, Beecham, conducting without a score, had an all-too-obvious memory-lapse and was only saved from having to call a halt by quick thinking on the part of the leader, Willie Reed, who kept the orchestra on track. For the rest of the performance Beecham used a score. To some, the incident seemed, if not divine, then certainly musical retribution, for at the final rehearsal, keen to score a point off a composer for whose music he did not care that much, Beecham had deliberately continued to beat time after the work had reached its peaceful conclusion. ‘Why aren’t you playing?’ asked Beecham, who had conducted the whole rehearsal from memory. ‘Because it’s finished,’ said Reed. ‘Thank God,’ said Beecham. The orchestra enjoyed the joke, but others present thought it in dubious taste. Not that Beecham cared. Vaughan Williams would always resent Beecham’s lack of interest in his work. In the course of his career Beecham conducted four performances of the Vaughan Williams Pastoral in all. At the end of the last one, given at a studio concert in 1951 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he is reputed to have leant down to the leader, Paul Beard, and commented, ‘A city life for me.’
I have seen a version in which he was said to have not just continued beating but actually gave a huge downbeat.
Sir Tommy's gag got a laugh but, honestly, it seems malicious, mean-spirited, and unfair to a lovely work. No wonder that Toscanini dismissed him as a clown albeit a talented dilettante.
Charlot - Beecham was a hoot, but his jabs sometimes were in dubious taste. I am preparing a Delius post that does not involve him, which may be a first.
Delete