Originally posted by ucanseetheend
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No not her, I was referring to Marcelo Lehninger, the Brazilian conductor, here he is conducting the first movement of No.2.Originally posted by Northender View Post
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Perhaps it is just me who loves No. 8. Anyone else?Originally posted by Extra Vaganza View Post
Then again I'm the strange kind of bloke who would put Arnold in the Brits list, somewhere around the Walton level -- certainly above Bax and Britten. To hear his Symphony No. 7 live at the Proms would be an absolute delight!Comment
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The comment about RVW having a fairly limited musical language, could be applied to many other composers; Elgar, Sibelius, Shostakovich, Mendelssohn for example. It is about how you work within these self-imposed limitations and how you successfully achieve variety inspite of this that matters and that is why composers such RVW, Shostakovich and Sibelius are great symphonists as they do just this.
I love all the RVW symphonies including no 8 (the 1st movement is structually fascinating). The other important British symphonists for me are: Elgar, Arnold, Simpson, Rubbra, Bax, Brian, Walton & Tippett. I also admire Alwyn, Stanford & Parry and the symphonies of Cipriani Potter shouldn't be overlooked either. I'm looking forward to listening to all but one of Hoddinott's symphonies and all of Daniel Jones's during my symphonic survey too to see how they compare. What is fascinating about British composers is the sheer variety of individual styles they evolve, each composer from Britten to Holst to RVW to Bax is clearly and instantly recogniseable.Comment
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No, you're not alone. I love 8. The one I dislike is the Sea Symphony.Originally posted by mrbouffant View PostComment
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Critics and specialists may comment on the technical failings of British composers, but I feel that what marks out Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Holst Walton and Britten is the memorability of their ideas, even when their styles are so different. On the other hand there are admirable composers like Rubbra, artists who had fine craftsmanship but rarely came up with ideas that attach
themselves to the listener.Perhaps the symphonies of Bax have some arresting oratory, but none of them have the imagination of his symphonic poems to my mind.
I'm probably out on a limb on this one, but I do think that trained musicians can recognise a certain worthiness of aim in composers like Rawsthorne, Berkeley and Alwyn that simply seems a grey uniformity to listeners like me. It is of course possible to be fascinated by difficulty, I'm a bit like that with Tippett, although I find him approachable in many ways
Life is short, and I have been listening and exploring for a long time, but I find myself returning to the undisputable best, of which there is plenty.Comment
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What I find a bit odd here (and elsewhere) is the idea of taking a particular musical form - the symphony - which arguably in the 20th century loses a lot of the precision as a description that it had in previous times (as can be seen in another thread), and arranging composers in order of how good they were at doing it, whatever "it" is deemed to be by the person doing the ranking... I mean, one of the most important developments in twentieth-century compositional thinking was that the structure of a piece, at all levels, could be just as much a means of musical expression as anything else, that is to say (using a common analogy) that there was no longer any need for "old bottles" because every new wine could have a specially-shaped bottle of its own. Personally I wouldn't judge a piece on its qualities "as a symphony" as somehow separate from its other qualities, so whether a composer is a "symphonist" or not doesn't play much of a role.
"What is fascinating about British composers is the sheer variety of individual styles they evolve, each composer from Britten to Holst to RVW to Bax..." I guess that depends on your standpoint - they all wrote tonal music for mostly conventional 19th-century forces in mostly conventional 19th-century forms (symphonies, operas etc.), often with a tendency towards modality derived from British folk-music, and so on. Remember that RVW's Ninth Symphony was premiered a week after Stockhausen's Gruppen!!!
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I disliked the Sea Symphony for a long while, and even now I'm not sure if I can stick it all the way through.Originally posted by Roehre View Post
However, the opening is absolutely splendid, which has caused me to revisit this from time to time. Possibly worth all of us persevering with this one. Also number 9 I find tough, and I find 3 bearable rather than enjoyable, but maybe I need to give it more time.Comment
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Local coz has had my box set of RVW with Haitink for TOO LONG. Never a lender or a borrower be, even to family.Comment
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As did a number of other non-British composers at that time, such as Nielsen, Sibelius, Shostakovitch etc. Plenty of composers have used older forms and deliberately looked back to earlier composers and earlier forms for inspiration (Haydn's Creation inspired by the Messiah e.g.). Are we saying that only composers who alter the musical language in some radical way are of interest? Then we shall be losing an awful lot of music.I guess that depends on your standpoint - they all wrote tonal music for mostly conventional 19th-century forces in mostly conventional 19th-century forms (symphonies, operas etc.),
Personally I am not so interested in whether a composer is conventional or radical in his or her musical language but that the music has a recognisably individual style, that it is clearly and unmistakably the music of that composer. And that to my mind is certainly the case with Vaughan Williams. I thought it was an excellent Prom and I've been very impressed with Manze as a conductor (I prefer his work here to his work as a soloist, which is unusual).Comment
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I only "discovered" Arnold when he died in 2006 and they showed that documentary about his life on TV. I immediately ordered the Naxos Symphony box which is most rewarding.Originally posted by EdgeleyRob View Post
I love them all.
I must be strange too as I agree about Malcolm Arnold.Comment
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It's a treasure chest of wonderful music, I agree gurnemanzOriginally posted by gurnemanz View Post
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