Originally posted by Cockney Sparrow
View Post
It's first three broadcasts were in May 2008.
-
Unfortunately, I think edashtav's message was somewhat misleading. The film was last broadcast in July 2012 and has not been scheduled for further broadcast since:
It's first three broadcasts were in May 2008. -
Yes. Sorry, it was... and it fooled me until my wife exclaimed since when have you wanted to watch Love Songs at the BBC.Originally posted by Bryn View Post
I was quoting from an old newspaper under the impression that it was a current publication talking of a broadcast on the upcoming Friday, i.e. yesterday.
My expectations of new revelations were utterly wrong and muddle-headed.Last edited by edashtav; 13-02-21, 19:14.Comment
-
Thanks for the clarifications. It would have been something for there to be a new programme on Vaughan Williams so I hadn't really raised my hopes. This does, however, prompt me to express my longing for a repeat of this BBC produced programme (and the series....):
“MASTERWORKS: SIX PIECES OF BRITAIN”.
Each programme devoted to one composer – Turnage, Elgar, Birtwistle, Britten, Walton.
And most particularly – Vaughan Williams. Per the BBC Genome it was broadcast on BBC2 on Summer 1999.
The Vaughan Williams programme included a recording of the Tallis Fantasia with the BBCSO and Andrew Davis, recorded at night and using the empty space in Gloucester Cathedral with spaced out sections. I find this recording stunning, and thankfully it has been on You Tube for some years (and I do hope it stays there). I’ve revisited that, and the quality is better than I recalled.
The audio version was only ever released as a pairing with Walton's Belshazzar's Feast on volume 7, number 11 in the BBC Music Magazine's free cover CD series. An Ebay search of “Walton: Belshazzar's Feast Andrew Davis Willard White” will mostly throw up a copy – it has a cover image of the forces for the Walton in Leeds Town Hall. I first became aware, years ago, of this performance on a forum post, which said (I noted) :
“There is a DVD release of this and the entire RVW concert from which this is taken. This is ripped from it. However... as far as I know it is not on release in the UK. It was once available directly from the BBC and Radio 3 but seems to have been deleted from their lists. Time to start hassling them. But to be honest none of my enquiries to the BBC about music or video have ever borne fruit. They're quite useless”.
That’s tantalising – but I have only ever found a DVD of the Elgar programme when searching. I have to agree with the sentiment as to the futility of trying to get the BBC to respond, let alone re-broadcast the programme or the series……
Greater detail about the RVW programme and participants can be found here:
But the niggling doubt remains - I wonder if there is any chance of the BBC responding to a suggestion to give these programmes an airing again – nowadays they do have sections of the iPlayer with older material. As the forces here were BBC orchestras etc I would hope the rights would not be an issue. Producer/ Director was Peter Maniura (who has left the BBC) and the Host was Michael Berkeley.
Compared to Top of the Pops and filleted theme replays “love songs at the BBC”…etc etc this material deserve to be seen again!Last edited by Cockney Sparrow; 13-02-21, 21:12.Comment
-
Good to hear a recording of In The Fen Country on today's COTW by the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz -- though quite a leisurely affair compared to Boult & Haitink. BH's LPO version of this piece has been my favourite since it appeared twenty-odd years ago.Comment
-
I was astonished on hearing the settings of French poetry from 1903 on today's programme - demonstrating as they did that at even this early stage, RVW was conversant with Debussy's and Ravel's music, and, for me, answering in part questions I have long been asking myself: how aware of their music was the composer before making his decision in 1908 to go and study with Ravel? Already some of the imprints, or analogous ways of thinking, were apparent from having heard works preceding that year: the emerging modality in the harmony, the use of parallelism, possibly also attributable to the influence of folk tunes and dances. As regards the First String Quartet, the first work RVW composed following his return from France - which btw rarely gets an airing and of which was such a delight to at least hear part of today - I seem to recall reading or hearing somewhere that the "friend" referred to, who had commented that it sounded as if its composer had taken tea with Debussy, was in fact Elgar?Originally posted by Maclintick View Post
Clicking on the link below offers access to the entire 3-week long series of COTWs devoted to Vaughan Williams as part of his 150th celebrations.
Comment
-
Yes, S_A, fascinating stuff. I loved the “tea with Debussy” comment which I’d never heard before.
(Thread title expanded to include this impressive month-long survey)"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
Comment
-
-
Cockney Sparrow's references to YouTube a year ago caused me to check that amazing archive of historic programmes and sure enough "The Passions of Vaughan Williams" was uploaded there earlier this year ...
CS was also desperate to see/hear the Andrew Davis "Belshazzar's Feast" with Willard White and that's on YouTube too, and had been since 2018 ...
Moral: if you want to see or hear some TV or radio broadcast from the past that has never been transmitted since, check YouTube to see if it's on there! ... For example, that dreadful Ken Russell film about RVW is also on YouTube but in a Swedish version complete with subtitles. Poor Ursula got mixed up in this farrago but I bet she wished she hadn't! ...
Comment
-
Ooh I dunno - she showed herself to be a good sport for Ken's tongue-in-cheek, though for me the star of that documentary was his (?) granddaughter, as Russell treated her to some Vaughan Williams bedtime mythology! As for this week it's just got better and better as each programme has progressed and filled out more and more detail - Ceri Owen introducing more little know early work until recently, though I demurred somewhat on her findings of Dvorak and Brahms in the very early Serenade, when what the little we heard of it showed VW already trying to marry a modalism in which his diatonic, open sixth chord-dominated idiom - the one characteristic really distinguishing his idiom from those of the French composers about to come along. There was even a pre-echo at one point midway through of the late Oxford Elegy, reminding us that this composer by no means totally dispensed with his pre-Ravel period harmonic world - as would clearly be shown in the Fifth Symphony with its echoes of Elgar in the finale. All in all a wonderful exposition on Vaughan Williams, with so much still to go!Originally posted by seabright View PostCockney Sparrow's references to YouTube a year ago caused me to check that amazing archive of historic programmes and sure enough "The Passions of Vaughan Williams" was uploaded there earlier this year ...
CS was also desperate to see/hear the Andrew Davis "Belshazzar's Feast" with Willard White and that's on YouTube too, and had been since 2018 ...
Moral: if you want to see or hear some TV or radio broadcast from the past that has never been transmitted since, check YouTube to see if it's on there! ... For example, that dreadful Ken Russell film about RVW is also on YouTube but in a Swedish version complete with subtitles. Poor Ursula got mixed up in this farrago but I bet she wished she hadn't! ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ojZUkRfPnkComment
-
Is any learned person hereabouts familiar with the Three Shakespeare Songs?
We (choir) are currently rehearsing Over hill, over dale for our July concert.
The text is given in LiederNet as
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire
I do wander everywhere.
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
That's bad enough to get your tongue around at the speed it goes, but when RVW then changes the sequence to
hill, dale, flood, fire, park, pale, flood, fire
we wondered if there was a mistake in the OUP score.
In fact, from residual pencil markings, it looked as if a previous choir which had borrowed the copies had changed the words.
Any and all comments welcome!Comment
-
Actually, I really want to see the Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia re-broadcast - at broadcast quality. Recorded at night using the spaces in Gloucester Cathedral, its quite a powerful experience, even at the quality on You Tube.Originally posted by seabright View Post
(Nothing against the Belshazzars Feast, in general I would welcome the whole series re-broadcast. It must be that a cost is involved in a re-broadcast, given the utter dross they put out, some nights, on BBC4).
I have the BBC Music Mag. CD with both the Tallis and the Walton* as it gives better quality audio for the Tallis, should I want to listen without the visual element. *I mentioned the W.White Belshazzar as that's on the cover image - for use when searching on the well known auction site where copies regularly appear.Comment
-
We are also rehearsing them and spotted the same issue. We thought it was probably a misprint. (The same text is in both the OUP Madrigals and Partsongs book and the standalone copies we're using, but both are OUP so this isn't surprising.) Someone did a survey of commercial recordings and found that on both the ones where she could actually make the words out, they were singing what was printed - there were a couple of others where it was impossible to tell. I think we're likely to stick with the changed words (now we've learnt it) but you or anyone else manages to get a definitive answer about what VW actually wrote we'd be interested to hear.Originally posted by Pulcinella View PostComment
-
I did them with my octet quite a few times some years ago, inspired by the excellent Swingle II recording. We sang the text as printed in the score. I don't have the score before me, but recollect that the most challenging bits were in the parts running on in quavers with lots of repetitions of 'thorough'. I think we took it very fast, more or less from memory. Not sure if this is helpful!Originally posted by Pulcinella View PostComment
-
I found today’s episode particularly illuminating
not least thanks to DM’s guest https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/p...owen-ceri.aspx
It had never occurred to me that RVW was 3 years older than his temporary teacher Ravel… nor had the similarities between Bredon Hill and Vallée des Cloches ever struck me before. And interesting to hear two early orchestral pieces for the first time (with useful stylistic pointers by Dr Owen).
Radio 3 at its best."...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
Comment
-
It's in this section that the problem occurs. The most helpful conclusion I think is that unless you have a very clear acoustic nobody is going to be able to make out what words you're singing anyway.Originally posted by rauschwerk View PostComment
Comment