- Performer: Hickox; London So;
- Composer: Butterworth; Vaughan Williams;
- Audio CD (Feb 9 2005)
- SPARS Code: DDD
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: Chn
- ASIN: B00005B54X
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #51,699 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Product Details |
Track Listings
| 1. The Banks Of Green Willow |
| 2. A London Symphony: I. Lento-Allegro risoluto |
| 3. A London Symphony: II. Lento |
| 4. A London Symphony: III. Scherzo (Nocturne): Allegro vivace-Andantino |
| 5. A London Symphony: IV. Andante con moto-Maestoso alla marcia (quasilento)-Allegro-Andantino ma sostenuto-Tempo primo-Allegro-Lento-Epilogue: Andante sostenuto-Lento |
Product Description
From Amazon.co.uk
Penned between 1911 and 1913 and first heard in May 1914, Vaughan Williams's A London Symphony was dedicated to the memory of George Butterworth (whose ravishing 1913 idyll The Banks of Green Willow opens proceedings here). It's this original version that Richard Hickox and the LSO champion so eloquently on this sumptuous-sounding Chandos issue--and a very different beast it is from VW's final revision of 1933. For starters, there's more than a quarter-of-an-hour of extra material, much of it genuinely inspired and brimful of wondrous poetry. VW's scoring, too, was never more colourful and it's surely not too fanciful to detect many a foreshadowing of Holst's The Planets in particular. More significantly, the work takes on a darker, tragic dimension (nowhere more potently perhaps than in the slow movement) and there's an astonishing passage in the expanded epilogue that even anticipates the opening movement of the 1921 Pastoral Symphony. In hindsight, VW made all the right decisions (the scherzo's second half, haunting though it is, pales next to the shuddering intensity of the revised coda) but no one should miss the opportunity to experience his original thoughts in all their epic sweep and tingling vitality. Utterly compulsive listening then and a "must buy" if ever there was one. --Andrew Achenbach
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Blowing the dust off excellence,
By skyline (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: London Symphony/ the Banks of (Audio CD)
If you're even a casual RVW fan, this disc is a must-buy. This recording proves RVW's original version is brilliant and he should have left well enough alone. (Especially in regards to the final movement).This disc represents the perfection of modern recording and performance. Honestly, if I were to recommend five classical discs to an audiophile who had never heard classical music, this disc would be one of them.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very pleasant surprise,
By Robert J. Cruce (Muskogee, OK United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: London Symphony/ the Banks of (Audio CD)
I am very familiar with this symphony in its later revision so I knew just where all the older material came in. Very fine music making. It is amusing, though, to read in the liner notes that this earlier version of the symphony was approved by "Mrs. Vaughn Williams" for recording only (not for regular concert performance). The conductor obviously wishes it were otherwise. Talk about respecting the composer's "final wishes" are hogwash. VW probably would have revised this symphony again endlessly had he lived. The first version would become the standard version if the public were to be sufficiently exposed to it. So by all means grab this magnificent disc.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Original & beautiful thoughts,
By Evan Wilson (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: London Symphony/ the Banks of (Audio CD)
If you like the music of Vaughan Williams at all, you MUST get this disc because it is likely to be the only performance of the original version of the composer's 2nd symphony. Fortunately, the perfomance and sound are terrific so it is a worthy document.As for whether the additional 20 minutes of music Vaughan Williams later cut is worth the effort, that depends on what you're hoping to hear. If you're looking for incredibly beautiful music, you'll find it here. If you're looking for a coherent piece of music, you might want to stick with the 1936 revision available elsewhere which, although not perfect, pulls things together much more effectively than we hear here. Personally, I'll listen to both versions depending on my mood. I'm certainly glad to have this version which offers an incredibly nostalgic and beautiful coda which comprises one-third of the running time of the final movement. Further, the added repetitions in the slow movement of certain lyric passages are welcome. The second trio from the scherzo is a fascinating piece of music, but it's completely out of place with what surrounds it, so it's easy to understand why Vaughan Williams excised it. Given the fact that the listening public has grown used to the ramshackled musical structures of people like Elgar and Mahler, it's easy to understand how someone could contentedly wallow in this piece. Occasionally, however, I want a little more coherence, so from time to time I find it worth hearing Vaughan William's second thoughts about the 2nd symphony. For that, I turn to Barbirolli or Boult. (Both available at mid-price.) If I could only have one version of this, though, I suppose it be this one. Do try, though, to get this and the later revision, because Vaughan Williams wasn't wrong to think that the original version is a bit unwieldy.
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