Vaughan Williams's Veranda

[Robert]

I love all the Handley,and Previn. The  Bakels (7th) Boult 9 (everest)

[Sergeant Rock]

The only Haitink I've heard is the Pastoral and the Fourth, and it is mighty good.

Haitink's Seventh is magnificent, too; it's arguably the greatest recording ever of this fascinating piece. It deserved that Gramophone award (best orchestral record of 1986).

Sarge

[Robert]

Haitink's Seventh is magnificent, too; it's arguably the greatest recording ever of this fascinating piece. It deserved that Gramophone award (best orchestral record of 1986).

Sarge

Sarge,
I do not own any Haitinks VW. I cannot say its the greatest recording..I will have to listen for it as the seventh is one of my favs.....On the other hand, I  do not put much credibility into anything gramophone recommends...

[Sergeant Rock]

Sarge,
I do not own any Haitinks VW. I cannot say its the greatest recording..I will have to listen for it as the seventh is one of my favs.....On the other hand, I  do not put much credibility into anything gramophone recommends...

I don't either (if you don't know my history, I'll tell you: I'm one of the Gramophone bashers )...but I have to say, when they're right, they're right.

Sarge

[Harry]

Haitink's Seventh is magnificent, too; it's arguably the greatest recording ever of this fascinating piece. It deserved that Gramophone award (best orchestral record of 1986).

Sarge

I think I bought a good set!

[Thom]

Haitink: indeed a great set and as I remember a cheap buy, in the Netherlands, that is. But I caný say that Bernard beats Vernon Handley's set (EMI Eminence).

X

[Harry]

Haitink: indeed a great set and as I remember a cheap buy, in the Netherlands, that is. But I caný say that Bernard beats Vernon Handley's set (EMI Eminence).

X

It is a totally different approach, and it is good to have them both, instead of comparing. They can live happily together.

[Thom]

Right you are!

[vandermolen]

Yes, Haitink's Antartica is without narration. Boult has the traditionally used poems that RVW put in the original score. Leppard (Indianapolis SO) has a very fine recording with an alternative narration of excerpts from Scott's diaries, which I think works better. Allegedly, Leppard discussed this idea with RVW personally.

Boult's EMI version of No 7 does not contain the spoken superscriptions before the music.

[MishaK]

Boult's EMI version of No 7 does not contain the spoken superscriptions before the music.

The Boult Decca recording (the only one I have) has Gielgud reciting the poems.

[vandermolen]

The Boult Decca recording (the only one I have) has Gielgud reciting the poems.

Yes, but Boult dispenses with them in the later recording on EMI.

Handley's recording of No 9 has the best harps at the end...a great moment, which I find very moving.

[tjguitar]

Besides the 3 Chandos film music CDs, I only have:




I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but what I like about the packaging of this box is that all the cd's are in individual jewel cases instead of sleeves in a box that most seem to be released in these days.

[Don]

Besides the 3 Chandos film music CDs, I only have:




I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but what I like about the packaging of this box is that all the cd's are in individual jewel cases instead of sleeves in a box that most seem to be released in these days.

Wouldn't that make for a very wide box that wastes storage space?

[tjguitar]

Wouldn't that make for a very wide box that wastes storage space?

Well you don't really need the box as all the jewel cases have front and back liner notes of their own....

[btpaul674]

Which is the best RVW?

ALL OF IT! 

Well I am partial to the 8th, which is my favorite piece of music of all time.

As far as his obscure music is concerned,
The Romance for Harmonica, Strings and Piano is excellent, I love his String Partitia, His Piano Concerto, his Oboe Concerto, His Tuba Concerto, all excellent!

There is something about his modal use, his distinct sense of rhythms through the symphonies, his undying passion for folk music, and his sense of classicism that makes his music really stick out to me.

One of my favorite quotes from Vaughan Williams Studies by Alain Frogley is "the counterbalancing belief in things of the spirit," which is one of the themes presumed to be found in all Vaughan Williams' symphonies. This I believed is really capped in the 8th symphony.

Currently I am reading Vaughan Williams and the Vision of Albion by Wilfrid Mellers.

[btpaul674]

Another little Gem I found today...

Vaughan Williams' The Death of Tintagiles based on a play by Maurice Maeterlinck of the same name (La Mort de Tintagiles)

[karlhenning]

Well, it is official:  I like A London Symphony, which means that I now like all the set of nine.  Not sure who the performers were in the recording I heard a couple of years ago.

So, with this favorable acquaintance with No. 2, and the love-at-first-hearing audition of Job, I feel that the Handley set has done its work.  Yet more than that, though, the recordings of Nos. 7, 8 & 9 in this set are even better than the Bakels Naxos recordings, which first 'sold' me on those pieces.

[karlhenning]

Vaughan Williams' The Death of Tintagiles based on a play by Maurice Maeterlinck of the same name (La Mort de Tintagiles)

Dang! Maeterlinck strikes again! 

[Harry]

Well, it is official:  I like A London Symphony, which means that I now like all the set of nine.  Not sure who the performers were in the recording I heard a couple of years ago.

So, with this favorable acquaintance with No. 2, and the love-at-first-hearing audition of Job, I feel that the Handley set has done its work.  Yet more than that, though, the recordings of Nos. 7, 8 & 9 in this set are even better than the Bakels Naxos recordings, which first 'sold' me on those pieces.

That makes me really glad mijn vriend!

[karlhenning]

Probably the next Vaughan Williams 'blindspot' I need to attend to is the Mass in G Minor.