BaL 8.02.14 - Vaughan Williams Symphony no. 9

[jayne lee wilson]

If anyone is interested in downloading the 1958 Sargent/RPO performance, it can be found here:

http://themusicparlour.blogspot.fr/2010/07/malcolm-sargent-rpo-vaughan-williams.html

The correspondence below the download links is not exactly edifying, although it does shed some light on the otherwise obscurely acrimonious exchange contained in the 'Pristine Audio Favourites' thread elsewhere in this CD Review meta-thread

I'm glad I saw that correspondence, HD. Use your instincts over who to trust, right? I'll certainly never visit The Music Parlour again!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's a pity that neither Norrington nor Hickox recording the 9th as part of their incomplete surveys of the symphonies of RVW. I feel each would have had something of value to contribute.

Re the latter, I eroniously included him in the list.
Re the former, it isn't too late...

[Alison]

It was the particular combination of Sir Roger, the London Philharmonic and vintage Decca studio recording that was special and now so very unlikely to come together again.

[frankwm]

I'm glad I saw that correspondence, HD. Use your instincts over who to trust, right? I'll certainly never visit The Music Parlour again!

So 'glad' that I saw this, dahling: as, actually, I'm the one to trust...but keep him and his family from starvation, by all means (and I certainly won't miss you: presumably one of the 'Visiting Locusts'..!!!

[EdgeleyRob]

It's a pity that neither Norrington nor Hickox recording the 9th as part of their incomplete surveys of the symphonies of RVW. I feel each would have had something of value to contribute.

Indeed.

[EdgeleyRob]

One of those rare occasions when I have most of the versions mentioned.

I think the Bakels on Naxos is stunning,indeeed the whole cycle doesn't get the acclaim it deserves IM0.

Availabe for less than £13 new here http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Complete.../dp/B0017PB25Y

I should mention,for those who maybe don't know,that nos 1 & 4 are conducted by Paul Daniel.

[Nick Armstrong]

Is this a record? Six pages and 51 posts within 36 hours of Alpie's list and a week to go before the programme!

Almost alone of all his works, No 9 is a piece I have yet to 'get' although I have 2 or 3 recordings and heard it live at the Proms. I shall certainly be listening with keen interest.

[BBMmk2]

Cali, this is one reason why I like this programme! A work that doesn't seem to me, as you say, 'to get', is a really good way to 'get'!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Portuguese CD seems to be available as a download if this site is to be believed …

This seems solid enough for me.

And the Boult/LSO appears not to exist after all.

List updated, but still very short.

Incidentally, we may just be getting a full hour of this.

[EdgeleyRob]

Is this a record? Six pages and 51 posts within 36 hours of Alpie's list and a week to go before the programme!Almost alone of all his works, No 9 is a piece I have yet to 'get' although I have 2 or 3 recordings and heard it live at the Proms. I shall certainly be listening with keen interest.

That's the power of RVW 9 for you !!!

[Nick Armstrong]

That's the power of RVW 9 for you !!!

[Barbirollians]

I am sure I read somewhere that as it was a commission the commissioners chose Sargent but RVW was unhappy about it and very glad Boult was to record it. Barbirooli wrote to RVW praising the work but one does wonder had Glorious John give its premiere as he did the 7th and 8th whether it would have had a happier time with posterity.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes, I'm quite certain that the work's virtual disappearance in the 1960s had something to do with that.

[BBMmk2]

I thought it was rather a young critic which upset the apple cart, so to speak, with this work? Saying how dated it sounded(?), or some such comment?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I thought it was rather a young critic which upset the apple cart, so to speak, with this work? Saying how dated it sounded(?), or some such comment?

I don't think that, even in the late '50s, any single critic (and certainly not a "young" one) would've had the clout to turn an entire corpus of appreciation on its head, Bbm. Wasn't it more the lukewarm response from older critics who had been enthusiastic about RVW's earlier works that set the general response?

This isn't all that remarkable: the Ninth is a work whose subtle masteries cannot be immediately assimilated (especially if the only performance they had to build their response upon was one which didn't reveal those masteries completely) - critics with memories of the premiere of the Sixth (as well as the accumulation of insights into that work since its first performance) were bound to regard the Ninth as suggesting the composer's waning powers in these circumstances.