Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music; The Lark Ascending; Fantasia on Greensleeves; English Folk Song Suite; In the Fen Country; Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 CD by
Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music; The Lark Ascending; Fantasia on Greensleeves; English Folk Song Suite; In the Fen Country; Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1
Music Style :
General
Record Label :
EMI Classics
Release Date :
1991-10-11
Store Price :
$10.98
Artistopia's Price: $9.99
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CD Tracks/Songs
Disc 1
1. Serenade to Music ('How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!') for 16 soloists (or soloists & chorus) & orchestra 2. English Folk Song Suite, for orchestra (orchestrated by G. Jacob): No. 1, March in F minor (Seventeen come Sunday) 3. English Folk Song Suite, for orchestra (orchestrated by G. Jacob): No. 2, Intermezzo in F minor (My bonny boy) 4. English Folk Song Suite, for orchestra (orchestrated by G. Jacob): No. 3, March in B flat major (Folk Songs from Somerset) 5. Norfolk Rhapsody for orchestra No. 1 in E minor 6. Fantasia on Greensleeves, for harp, flute & strings (arranged by R. Greaves; from the opera 'Sir John In Love') 7. In the Fen Country, symphonic impression for orchestra 8. The Lark Ascending, romance for violin & orchestra
Customer Reviews of This Album/CD
It has given more pleasure than any recording I own... Submitted on: 2009-09-18
I have owned 4 copies of this recording since the early 1980's-- the first on cassette (pre-CD) and three in CD format. One for the car, one for the house, and one just in case it ever went out of print-- though it never has. And I've given several as gifts.
I enjoy classical music as an amateur, but I am neither an expert nor an audio wonk. Simply stated, this CD has given me more unalloyed pleasure than any of the other 750+ CDs I own. I have several other recordings of The Lark Ascending, but nothing comes close to this beautifully serene reading, which I listen to on headphones as a meditation. (Years ago, I used it in the hospital, with therapeutic effect.) All other selections are of similarly high caliber. The pre-digital recorded sound bears a lovely aural patina, without a trace of "digital edge" or jarring hyper-realism. It bears repeated-- indeed, hundreds of-- listenings.
When I bought the cassette version in the early 1980's, I think it was about $10-- which would probably be about $40 today-- and worth every cent. This CD is a joy and a bargain that I cannot recommend highly enough.
For every fan of Rafe Vaughan Williams Submitted on: 2009-07-11
Every true fan will love this CD. All of his most well-known pieces are represented here, played beautifully and recorded faithfully, along with a few less frequently heard offerings. The exuberance of the "English Folk Song Suite" is delightfully energetic, and the dark, surging mysteries of the "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" will not fail in their ability to generate goose pimples. It sends the mind to places of imagination and wonder, and is rendered on this disk with all the color, richness and depth it deserves. "The Lark" fairly ascends before one's eyes in this particularly representative piece and like all of Williams' work, leaves the listener deeply satisfied. Enjoy.
a few facts and my opinion about these recordings Submitted on: 2009-05-22
First, the facts: this CD is a welcome compilation of VW recordings made by Adrian Boult between 1967 and 1970, and culled from various LPs where they served as fillers or flip sides to collections. By chronological order, The Lark Ascending completed the 6th Symphony in 1967, Norfolk Rhapsody # 1 came with the 4th Symphony in 1968, In the Fen Country served as a filler for Symphony No. 3 that same year, Serenade to Music was the complement to the Fifth Symphony in 1969. Finally, Fantasia on Greensleeves and English Folk Song Suite came with Elgar's Enigma Variations in 1970. Three of Boult's customary orchestras are involved: London SO ('67 and '68), LPO ('69) and New Philharmonia ('70). TT on this CD is 65:42 and its good to have these tidbits (which were left out when EMI reissued the symphonies in the early days of the CD) gathered on a single disc.
The compositions span roughly the first half of VW's compositional career, from 1904 (In the Fen Country, the first work he allowed to remain in his catalog, although in a version and instrumentation subsequently revised) to 1938 (Serenade to Music). Stylistically, they can be divided between VW's early impressionistic and atmospheric style, very much smacking of Delius and even Sibelius at times (In the Fen Country, Norfolk Rhapsody #1 from 1906), his lighter Folk-Song inspiration (English Folk Song Suite, originally written for military band in 1923 and here given in Gordon Jacob's arrangement for orchestra), and the pastoral and sentimental style of his middle years (The Lark Ascending, 1914 revised in 1920 and Serenade to Music, 1938), both with the typical, wailing solo violin (but I guess I've entered the realm of opinions, now)
Opinions, then: interpretively, where comparisons are available to me, these versions from the older Boult (he was 78 in 1967) are a mixed bag. His Serenade to Music his commendable for being true to the original version and request of conductor Henry Wood for his Jubilee, with 16 vocal soloists, and for its superb cast, starting with the truly stellar soprano Norma Burrowes - an advantage over Bernstein, who also did the original version in 1962 (THE ROYAL EDITION - Vaughan Williams: Symphony 4 / Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis / Fantasia on 'Greensleeves' / Serenade to Music). Boult is also to be lauded for not over-sentimentalizing, unlike Bernstein through the adoption of an excessively slow opening tempo. But Bernstein's orchestra is much more present and dramatic at the climaxes; Boult misses many opportunities for bite, and his orchestra is at times distant, as if it had been recorded independently from the soloists, with the two later mixed together. That said, the layout I prefer is the one adopted by Malcolm Sargent, with four soloists and chorus (Vaughan Williams:Overture 'The Wasps'/Fantasia on 'Greensleeves'/Fantasia on a Theme by Tallis/Serenade to Music/ Toward the Unknown Region): the chorus has a silk in the softer passages and a power in the climaxes that, whatever their merits, 16 soloists simply cannot match, and the interplay between "ripieno" (soloists) and "continuo" (full chorus) comes out with much more drama.
Unlike in the Serenade, it is not VW's original version that Boult plays in the Greensleeves fantasia but the arrangement by Ralph Greaves, which substitutes two flutes to the solo violin. I prefer the original for strings alone (with harps), because of its baroque Concerto Grosso flavor, with dialogues of ripieno and continuo. The original version is what Bernstein plays. Although here again Boult adopts an animated beginning tempo which avoids over-sentimentalizing the music (which doesn't need it), another questionable feature of his reading is his adoption of a very moderate tempo in the middle section (an elaboration of a Norfolk folk-tune), which robs it of any contrast with the framing Greensleeves theme and makes the piece into some kind of continuous, brooding dirge.
Norfolk Rapsody # 1 (in case you wonder about # 2 & 3, the composer withdrew them) illustrates VW at his most impressionistic and atmospheric. The version by Normal Del Mar heading the City of Birmingham SO (Toward the Unknown) is slightly more animated than Boult's, rhythmically more precise and sonically more spacious. Contrary to some other reviewers, I prefer this recording of The Lark Ascending with Hugh Bean to Boult's earlier one, made in 1954 with Jean Pougnet (Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 6 in E minor/ A Song of Thanksgiving/ The Lark Ascending or Vaughan Williams: Dona Nobis Pacem and Other Works): the incomparably better sonics, Boult's extra spaciousness and Bean's silky tone make a significant difference.
These interpretive comments are meant for those who really care for these niceties. As they are, Boult's readings do not betray the compositions nor (except perhaps in the middle section of Greensleeves) give a distorted view of the music. The music remains enjoyable and entertaining, if not manifesting a striking compositional originality (one can only dream of what Britten might have done with Shakespeare's text in Serenade to Music), and given his strong association with the composer any Vaughan Williams recorded by Boult will be of significance. In my case, though, since I'm desperately trying to make shelve-room, the only reason for me to keep this disc is for The Lark Ascending and for the stellar cast in Serenade to Music - although I'm not very interested in the composition itself, which, despite its beautiful solo melismatas, I find excessively sentimental and cloying, and derivative in its language (of Wagner, Debussy's Pelleas, and I hear whiffs of Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony or of Griffes" "The Pleasure Dome of Kublai Khan" as well).
Short but informative liner notes
Voughn Williams Lark Acending Submitted on: 2008-10-21
Not quite what I expected and not as good as I had hopped for.
My Fault - not theirs
absolutely wonderful Submitted on: 2008-09-26
Many have already reviewed this CD very positively, so just a brief word. This is probably the most attractive intro. you could have to Vaughan Williams - all the works, whether well known or not so well known, are most beautiful, the recording is excellent and the performances under Boult, who knew exactly how to get the beauty and the poetry out of VW without losing sight of the structure, could not be better. You just can't go wrong - it's a glorious CD.
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It has given more pleasure than any recording I own...
a few facts and my opinion about these recordings
Voughn Williams Lark Acending