BaL 6.04.24 - Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony

[DoctorT]

Good luck

Amazon promises to deliver it within 3 to 7 months… Can’t find it anywhere else sadly.
Correction: just spotted it on the Presto website

[Andrew Slater]

Well my comments about hardly any one listening was both wrong and has perhaps flushed quite a few forum listeners out. Could it be there are more listening than would be AM ? Surely not ….

I was sort of listening - filling the garden bin mostly within earshot of a speaker through the back door of the garage - far from ideal! I'll have to catch up properly later. I would have been more likely to have been in the house if it had been on at its old time.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I was sort of listening - filling the garden bin mostly within earshot of a speaker through the back door of the garage - far from ideal! I'll have to catch up properly later. I would have been more likely to have been in the house if it had been on at its old time.

Andrew : I think that’s one consistent theme from the posts. It’s become a side listen . I interrupted my listen with a walk and then listened to part 2 while watching Exeter v Bath on Discovery plus . Others like you did household tasks. When it was on AM I would usually be speed reading the Times at the same time but certainly concentrating more . We all count as listeners though however light the listening,

[visualnickmos]

Usual thing; too much waffle from AM, and the reviewer being tripped up and losing his flow. Not enough examples. I thought I would eventually become accustomed to the 2-person format, but am finding it increasingly more irritating. BBC Radio 3 seem to always be fixing things that ain't broke. I'm not going to bother listening anymore.

[Maclintick]

I’m a huge fan of the Sea Symphony & normally enjoy DON’s BALs, but on today’s prog a more-than-usually maniacal delivery from the reviewer caused me to question my enthusiasm for RVW’s work, alongside some leaden extracts from LSO/Thomson & Hallé/Elder. Leaving aside the chronology of Ravel/Debussy influences/correspondences, which weren’t really explored (probably not enough time in the format, TBH) DON failed to mention that RVW’s passion for Whitman had borne earlier fruit in the true forerunner of the Sea Symphony, his 1903 setting of Toward The Unknown Region. Also, I didn’t warm to the polished professionalism of the Leipzig Radio Choir in the winning version, which seemed out-of-kilter with Whitman & RVW’s all-embracing vision of humanity.

[jonfan]

Superb BAL. ’I’ll have what he’s having’ to not coin a phrase. Some reviewers on BALs should take even some of DON’s diet.

[edashtav]

Recommended version:
Geraldine McGreevy (soprano)
Tommi Hakala (baritone)
MDR Rundfunkchor
MDR Sinfonieorchester
Howard Arman (conductor)
Querstand VKJK0731

Not even in Alpie's list of available versions.
(We had visitors, so haven't listened yet; any comments?)

Well well! Quelle surprise: the winner is conducted by an expatriate with a German orchestra, a professional choir and 'international' soloists.Clearly, it's a thoughtful interpretation, well-recorded and, perhaps, a modern analogue of Boult's without the obvious organ pedal that underpins Boult's earlier recording. I've sung the piece often and it makes demands on amateur choirsmthat they can't always deliver. Arman's professionals are flexible, always in tune and their diction benefits from their sparsity of the numbers.

This SACD version is an expensive rarity in GB so the investor in me says 'I'm out'.

Afternoon record reviews do not suit me well. I've had to catch up on SOUNDS over a glass of wine late into the evening.

I warm to DON's enthusiasm and unpredictable, unprejudiced opinions even when his winner is as rare as hen's teeth.

An excellent BAL spoiled only, as others have noticed, by apparent ignorance of when RVW studied with Maurice Ravel and the composer's earlier, Parry-rich Walt Whitman setting 'Towards an Unknown Region'.

[Wolfram]

Amazon promises to deliver it within 3 to 7 months… Can’t find it anywhere else sadly.
Correction: just spotted it on the Presto website

I ordered the winner yesterday evening from Presto. I fully expect to get an email from them sometime on Monday or Tuesday saying “out of stock at the distributor”.

[Alison]

A bit disappointing that DON was only asked for his criteria for selection at the end of the review. These could have been established at the outset.

[Wolfram]

I didn’t quite follow that bit about the optional 56 bar cut in the last movement. Does Previn take the cut or not?

[HighlandDougie]

I ordered the winner yesterday evening from Presto. I fully expect to get an email from them sometime on Monday or Tuesday saying “out of stock at the distributor”.

Amazon.de - https://www.amazon.de/Sea-Symphony-M...al%2C81&sr=1-1

For around 20 euros, including 6 euros for postage

[LMcD]

Well well! Quelle surprise: the winner is conducted by an expatriate with a German orchestra, a professional choir and 'international' soloists.Clearly, it's a thoughtful interpretation, well-recorded and, perhaps, a modern analogue of Boult's without the obvious organ pedal that underpins Boult's earlier recording. I've sung the piece often and it makes demands on amateur choirsmthat they can't always deliver. Arman's professionals are flexible, always in tune and their diction benefits from their sparsity of the numbers.

This SACD version is an expensive rarity in GB so the investor in me says 'I'm out'.

Afternoon record reviews do not suit me well. I've had to catch up on SOUNDS over a glass of wine late into the evening.

I warm to DON's enthusiasm and unpredictable, unprejudiced opinions even when his winner is as rare as hen's teeth.

An excellent BAL spoiled only, as others have noticed, by apparent ignorance of when RVW studied with Maurice Ravel and the composer's earlier, Parry-rich Walt Whitman setting 'Towards an Unknown Region'.

'Quelle surprise' as in 'no surprise at all' (which is my understanding of the normal use of the phrase)?

[Ian Old Bean]

What - no Haitink? No Manze? No Hickox? How can this be a complete review of the best recordings of the VW Sea Symphony if these three recordings are hardly mentioned?

[Maclintick]

I've sung the piece often and it makes demands on amateur choirs is that they can't always deliver. Arman's professionals are flexible, always in tune and their diction benefits from their sparsity of the numbers.

The point I was rather clumsily attempting to make that
the use of a professional choir in this particular work strikes me as perverse, is that RVW and Whitman are
both celebrants of ordinary, flawed humanity - apostles of Everyman, or Bunyan’s Pilgrim, if you will, and that the all-embracing vision of poet and composer is better served by a large, warts & all amateur choir, than by the
well-modulated perfection of professionals.

In sum, I would no more wish to hear a pro chorus in this work, than hear The Ring performed by amateurs.

[edashtav]

'Quelle surprise' as in 'no surprise at all' (which is my understanding of the normal use of the phrase)?

When I used the words, I was ignorant that their use in an English context is more sarcastic than the idiom's meaning in French!