Vaughan Williams Symphony No 9

[EdgeleyRob]

indeed, HS, re The Lohengrin Prelude and I thpought the 9th Symphony was rather well played! A good turn from Radio 3 this week on promoting the not so well known works of RVW!

Indeed BBM,Five Tudor Portraits this evening too,super stuff.
RVW 9 is just my favourite piece of music ever.

[Alain Maréchal]

My Everest copy of the 9th doesn't give a recording date, but it was issued in November 1958.

My CD reissue contains a spoken introduction with Boult lamenting that "our beloved friend" died 7 hours before they started the recording .. so, 26th August 1958.

[Pabmusic]

My CD reissue contains a spoken introduction with Boult lamenting that "our beloved friend" died 7 hours before they started the recording .. so, 26th August 1958.

Yes. It was the final session of seven in which Boult also recorded Mahler 1, Shostakovich 6, the Hindemith Symphony in E-flat and the Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes of Weber. The sessions were August 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 26. The venue was Walthamstow Assembly Hall.

[PJPJ]

Yes. It was the final session of seven in which Boult also recorded Mahler 1, Shostakovich 6, the Hindemith Symphony in E-flat and the Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes of Weber. The sessions were August 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 26. The venue was Walthamstow Assembly Hall.

Wonderfully recorded by Bert Whyte for Everest, these recordings and others have just been remastered for itunes, and will, I understand from the company, be ultimately available on release as SACD and as high resolution files.

http://evereststereo.com/

http://evereststereo.com/album/sdbr-300/

[seabright]

When Stokowski's Carnegie Hall performance of RVW9 appeared on Cala Records, Michael Kennedy raved about it in the Sunday Telegraph: "A noble interpretation of a work now acknowledged as a crowning masterpiece. The opening of the first movement has never sounded so monumental and Stokowski finds throughout the work a ferocity that is often underplayed. Each of the four movements is accorded some special insight and the playing is magnificent, strings especially. Stokowski's treatment of the Scherzo has a wonderfully macabre quality." As it happens, the Scherzo is on You Tube, so click the link for a 'taster' of the whole performance. One thing is certain, he had a wonderful trio of saxophonists and a great percussion section ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3DApLXA0ww

I seem to recall Alan Sanders giving the Sargent RVW9 on Pristine Audio a much better review in 'Classical Recordings Quarterly' than is suggested by Roy Douglas's quoted comments but I don't have that review to hand at the moment!

[Beef Oven]

ER's championing of this symphony elsewhere on these boards caused me to give it a whirl (4 times in the last 48 hours). I never got on with this work. Hadn't played it repeatedly since about 1993 (!?). I still don't get it

I have been playing the EMI Boult. Will try the Decca Boult, see if that goes any better. If it doesn't, I may not bother getting the Handley off the shelf.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

ER's championing of this symphony elsewhere on these boards caused me to give it a whirl (4 times in the last 48 hours). I never got on with this work. Hadn't played it repeatedly since about 1993 (!?). I still don't get it

I have been playing the EMI Boult. Will try the Decca Boult, see if that goes any better. If it doesn't, I may not bother getting the Handley off the shelf.

I love the Ninth, but have the same reactions you describe about the Eighth, BeefO. I keep trying it in different recordings, but as yet ...

Funny old world, innit (or, as RVW is reported as having replied to an American journalist who asked him what he thought about Music, "It's a rum go"!)

[Beef Oven]

I love the Ninth, but have the same reactions you describe about the Eighth, BeefO. I keep trying it in different recordings, but as yet ...

Funny old world, innit (or, as RVW is reported as having replied to an American journalist who asked him what he thought about Music, "It's a rum go"!)

I struggle with 8 too. Maybe the fact that I've never been to a concert performance of either 8 & 9 may have something to do with it (?). Although having said that, a zombie-like performance of 7 under AD a few years back didn't put me off it!

[Petrushka]

The 9th was the first RVW symphony I heard live and possibly the first I'd heard at all (Halle/Loughran, 1976). I loved it from the start and immediately bought the Boult on LP. Must seek out the Stokowski as that sounds like my kind of interpretation.

Now the one I have real problems with is the Sea Symphony. Purchase of a complete cycle means another Sea Symphony I'll never want to hear. Not greatly enthused by the London either but thereafter it's one masterpiece after another.

[Beef Oven]

The 9th was the first RVW symphony I heard live and possibly the first I'd heard at all (Halle/Loughran, 1976). I loved it from the start and immediately bought the Boult on LP. Must seek out the Stokowski as that sounds like my kind of interpretation.

Now the one I have real problems with is the Sea Symphony. Purchase of a complete cycle means another Sea Symphony I'll never want to hear. Not greatly enthused by the London either but thereafter it's one masterpiece after another.

I had the Handley recording of the Sea Symphony, a Penguin Guide Rosette award, but didn't enjoy the work. Bought the Boult cycles, EMI & Decca, and fell in love!

[seabright]

^^^ If you care to listen to a great American orchestra under a great French conductor in RVW8 you might possibly change you mind about the work! Charles Munch and the Boston SO's live 1958 performance is on Pristine, as per this link, the latest CRQ's review of the CD declaring it "an extraordinary reading, quite unlike any other on record ... the Boston strings sound wonderfully ardent in the Cavatina. The finale, superbly played, is a joyous riot" ...

http://www.pristineclassical.com/LargeWorks/Orchestral/PASC368.php

Similar comments come under the You Tube upload of the same recording ... "The most persuasive performance I've ever heard" ... "A vigour and punch that is so lacking in most performances" ... "What a find ..." ... "Fantastic ..." etc. ... Someone comments that "Munch is a wonderful conductor of Vaughan Williams's music" so it's pity that he and the Bostonians didn't record a complete cycle ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Two4qjxmw

[Alain Maréchal]

Yes. It was the final session of seven in which Boult also recorded Mahler 1, Shostakovich 6, the Hindemith Symphony in E-flat and the Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes of Weber. The sessions were August 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 26. The venue was Walthamstow Assembly Hall.

I managed to pick up quite a few of the Everest CDs when they appeared in the 1990s, and I'm glad I did, because it appears that the more recent reissues are poorly produced.
I think highly of Boult's Mahler 1 (but then I think highly of Boult's everything): I don't appear to have the Hindemith/Weber. A pity.

[seabright]

I managed to pick up quite a few of the Everest CDs when they appeared in the 1990s, and I'm glad I did, because it appears that the more recent reissues are poorly produced.
I think highly of Boult's Mahler 1 (but then I think highly of Boult's everything): I don't appear to have the Hindemith/Weber. A pity.

According to the Boult discography in John Hunt's "Musical Knights," the Hindemith 'Weber Metamorphoses' was recorded but has never been issued in any format. Only the Symphony in Eb came out, making it at 29 minutes one of the shortest CDs that Everest ever released.

[Barbirollians]

I have always wondered why , when RVW was so thrilled with Glorious John's interpretation and premiere performance of the 8th that he did not give the work to him to conduct .

My door into RVW was the HMV Treasury coupling of RVW's 4 and Barbirolli's 5th from the 1940s .

[Pabmusic]

I have always wondered why , when RVW was so thrilled with Glorious John's interpretation and premiere performance of the 8th that he did not give the work to him to conduct .

My door into RVW was the HMV Treasury coupling of RVW's 4 and Barbirolli's 5th from the 1940s .

The first performance was at the Royal Philharmonic Society concert in 1958. Sargent was conductor of the RP Society, so it was inevitable. The question I don't know the answer to was why it was premiered at that concert - was it a Royal Philharmonic Society commission?