# Ralph Vaughan Williams - What is everyone's opinion on him?



## Axter (Jan 15, 2020)

Recently I have become, almost to a fanatic level, fond of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
His 4th - 9th Symphonies, specially the 8th are among my frequently visited pieces.

I specially like the recordings of Sir Adrain Boult with LondPhilO / NewPhilO on Warner Classics with improved sound quality, much better than previous releases.

Since we have so many "Williams" threads recently, I thought I open one for the _other_ Williams from the other side of the Atlantic. 

Whats everyone's opinion on his music?

I love this live performance specifically from 1972. Symph 8. LPO with Sir Adrian Boult, who was semi-retired and visibly very frail when he conducted it, God bless his soul...


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

https://www.talkclassical.com/3452-ralph-vaughan-williams.html?highlight=Vaughan+Williams

https://www.talkclassical.com/32253-vaughan-williams-symphonies.html?highlight=Vaughan+Williams
Related topics in Composers section


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Axter said:


> Whats everyone's opinion on his music?


Just fantastic - RVW paints extraordinarily vivid pictures with sound that remain so unique to me. Sir Mark Elder's third symphony is wonderful.


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

Wrote some marvellous stuff. What’s not to like unless you are wedded to the doctrine that the 20th century music must be discordant?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Handelian said:


> Wrote some marvellous stuff. What's not to like unless you are wedded to the doctrine that the 20th century music must be discordant?


With the fourth he wanted and tried to write more in an atonal style.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Symphony No. 3: I. Molto moderato · Hallé · Sir Mark Elder


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

I'm very appreciative of Vaughan Williams' music. The symphonies are really great works, and often really subtle as well and therefore difficult to pull off successfully. There is so much music by this composer that is totally not in the repertoire - how often does one hear the violin sonata? I was only recently listening to it for the first time (Hephzibah and Yehudi Menuhin playing) and enjoying it a lot. _Sir John in Love_ I also discovered last year. Recently I listened to the _Sea Symphony_ again for the first time in ages and it was simply breathtaking.

I categorically refuse to believe in the division between the "avant-gardists" and the "traditionalists" - for me good stuff is always good stuff. I'm happily a fan of Vaughan Williams and Boulez (Though didn't Boulez eventually admit to Vaughan Williams being interesting? Or do I remember incorrectly...) at the same time.


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## Axter (Jan 15, 2020)

janxharris said:


> Symphony No. 3: I. Molto moderato · Hallé · Sir Mark Elder


Thank you for this recommendation. Just listened to it. Wonderful performance.


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## Axter (Jan 15, 2020)

Janspe said:


> how often does one hear the violin sonata?


Not enough I guess...
Talking of violins, I cannot disregard The Lark Ascending from any lists on the same subject.



Janspe said:


> I categorically refuse to believe in the division between the "avant-gardists" and the "traditionalists" - for me good stuff is always good stuff.


Agree.


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## Baxi (Jan 14, 2021)

I like him very much. His symphonies are great.
He was a writer a lot, his work is relatively large.

Getting to know him is definitely worth it.

The displayed box gives a good overview of his work. Unfortunately, the box has been deleted from the range, but with a bit of luck you can get it used somewhere.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Axter said:


> Thank you for this recommendation. Just listened to it. Wonderful performance.


All the other movement are available on youtube. Also available on spotify.


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

janxharris said:


> With the fourth he wanted and tried to write more in an atonal style.


So something for everyone!


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I think RVW was one of the greats. He bucked a lot of trends in music and went his own way - and what glorious music he left for us! It's regrettable that the symphonies get played so little in the US, other than no. 2, even then it's not all that common. His legacy of writing for church is tremendous. That's something about RVW that I've always admired: he never looked down at the masses: he could write high-falutin works for the cognoscenti but also music for everyone to use whether in brass bands, church, or even the movies. Great composer.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

I'll put a word in for a work that's almost never heard of, let alone played and yet is fantastic, the 'Five Tudor Portraits'. Scored for full orchestra, chorus and soloists and based on the poetry of John Skelton. There is some of the best music he ever wrote in this work imv and it's well worth getting to know.

Highlights include Drunken Alice in the bawdy ale house song that is the first movement and the grief stricken Romanza on the death of Jane Scroop's cat with subsequent funeral procession by all the birds. 
Here's a sweet movement, 'My Pretty Bess' with RVW in typical melodic vein. This version is not a patch on the Willcocks/LSO version which I heartily recommend, but it's all I could find on YT.


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## mparta (Sep 29, 2020)

Try as I might-- musical wall paper.


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## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

I actually just listened to him for the first time a couple days ago with the Piano Quintet in C Minor, which I loved but is probably an unusual introduction to him


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

My opinion: Vaughan Williams takes a rightful place among composers who were great symphonists, who composed 8 or more symphonies and all within the 20th century. The list would include Shostakovich (#1!), and also Prokofiev, Roy Harris, William Schuman, Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, Alan Hovhaness, Rautavaara (and I'd put Rautavaara's first name in if I could spell it). Probably Bax and Myaskovsky would be included too, or that's how I understand it, even though I'm not really familiar with their cycles.

I think that there are two Vaughan Williams'. One Vaughan Williams is the one who concentrates on English folk songs, and comes to them with a big, burly, English attitude that is somewhat reigned in and polished by his French master, Maurice Ravel, but still retains a rustic manner. This Vaughan Williams is the composer of _Thomas Tallis_, _Dives and Lazarus_, _Fen Country_, and of course, _Greensleeves_. Then there's the other Vaughan Williams who is very original, somewhat adventurous in terms of style, but basically very tonal and listenable. The _Symphony #4_ or the spectacular, _Sinfonia Antarctica_ (an early favorite of mine), might be an example of this. At times the two Vaughan Williams converge within the same work as with the _Symphony #3 "Pastorale"_ which, if doesn't incorporate English folk song directly, certainly seems to imply the mood of the English countryside.

As an English composer who came after the fallow period when the likes of Byrd, Gibbons, and Purcell, were many years gone by; I'd place Vaughan Williams a little higher than Elgar and Delius who were at least able to England back in the game. Elgar and Delius were good (and Delius' _Florida Suite_ is even one my favorite works); but Vaughan Williams was able to speak with a more original voice that was also unmistakably English. Even so, I'd place Vaughan Williams a bit lower than Benjamin Britten just because in a repertoire dominated by Italian, French, German, and Russian vocal music, Britten was able to compose so well for the English language, and along with his contemporary in America, Samuel Barber, make the English language sound lyrical and beautiful.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

He is unequivocally one of the two greatest composers England has ever produced -and by far the nicer-natured of the two as a human being, too.

There is simple humanity in his music -a kindness, a humility- which I love very much.

The Five Tudor Portraits have been mentioned above: the David Willcocks, Bach Choir, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Elizabeth Bainbridge (alto), John Carol Case (baritone) recording from 1969 is a must-have for that. (The first performance of the piece was the occasion on which RVW told the orchestra to behave as they were kicking up a fuss having to play the other great English composer's new composition _Our Hunting Fathers_. Britten seldom had a good word to say about RVW; the same was not true in reverse).

Sir John in Love is a _great_ opera. In my view, it easily as good as Verdi's effort on the same subject. But Vaughan Williams actually wrote several operas, none of which survive in the standard repertoire, but three of which really ought to: Hugh the Drover, Riders to the Sea and The Pilgrim's Progress. I can see why Pilgrim's Progress is not an opera-house staple -but it is certainly makes for a dramatic audio journey. Boult's 1970 recording is the must-have there.

I'd also want to plug 'Hodie', his late Christmas cantata; and his Three Shakespeare Songs, which are perfect settings of the words.

His hymn tunes should warrant him a place in the history books by themselves. His Mass in G minor is wonderful (to sing, and to hear): perfectly proportioned and beautifully understated. It supports the liturgy, not overwhelming it.

On Wenlock Edge and Songs of Travel are wonderful song-cyles, up there with anything Britten could produce, I feel.

And then there are the symphonies... well, bluntly, England never had a better symphonist. 2,3,4,7 and 8 are standouts. Number 5 is simply a masterpiece.

The _breadth_ of Vaughan Williams' musical achievement is astonishing. That he was as inventive in his 80s as he was in his 40s is a wonder. He will always be dismissed by some as 'cowpat' music, of the folksong and Morris Dancing variety -but only those who haven't really _listened_ to his music would ever say that about him with a straight face.

A great man, a great composer. No doubt about it in my mind.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

He is with Benjamin Britten, Henry Purcell and Edward Elgar among the greatest composers Britain has produced. 

I think he is alright, a good symphonic and vocal composer who wrote a bunch of nice symphonies. He was No. 25 in my list between Vivaldi and Rachmaninoff and ahead of Elgar (No. 27). I think he is probably more accessible to a newcomer than the other three Englishmen cited above and easily more so than his contemporary Elgar.

I best like his Symphonies 3-5 and Job A Masque for Dancing along with some of his shorter works -- the Norfolk Rhapsody, English Folk Song Suite, Greensleeves and the Tallis Fantasia.

I have long thought his 4th symphony is to the conflicted 20th century what Beethoven's 5th was to the romantic 19th century. I don't know why this parallel isn't obvious to everyone.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Great composer, a favorite of mine...the symphonies are very fine...lots of great works already mentioned - I'd add his excellent works for wind ensemble- English Folksong Suite, Toccata Marziale, Variations for Band....more favorites of mine - Job, and the Aristophanic Suite "The Wasps"...not just the overture(which is very cool!!)...I also love the Tuba Concerto.

I've performed symphonies 1, 2 (a couple of times) and 6....I wish there had been more....always wanted to play #s 4 and 8....that wonderful little March mvt in #8 stands by itself very well as a separate piece for winds.
VWms is one of those 20th century composers like Sibelius and Prokofieff who really explored the sonorities of the bass instruments of the orchestra - he wrote juicy parts for bassoon, trombone, tuba, low horns and clarinets...fun to play!!


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

The splendid images of England's natural landscapes have stayed in my mind's eye ever since I visited Britain years ago. They have been inseparable from the many wonderful passages I have enjoyed from Vaughan Williams' compositions. Chief favorites include...

Symphonies 3 and 5
Oboe Concerto
Phantasy Quintet
Suite For Viola and Orchestra
English Folksong Suite
The Lark Ascending
Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus
In the Fen Country


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

RVW has long been a favorite of mine. I would not want to be without the 2nd, 4th, and 5th symphonies, for sure. _The Lark Ascending_ and _Dives and Lazarus_ and _Thomas Tallis_ and _Wasps_ Overture ... so much great music. Whether it is orchestral music or chamber music, RVW doesn't fail to please. And as a devoted theatre person I greatly admire his operatic treatment of J.M. Synge's play _Riders to the Sea_, long a favorite drama to read, act in, direct, or design for.

I would suggest that for newcomers to this composer, the _Lark Ascending_ or the _Tallis_ or the Fifth Symphony would be places to start. Any one of those pieces should "sell" the composer. After that, one will be in a nirvana of exploration, discovering more and more of a uniquely beautiful and meaningful sound world as he or she dives deeper into the oeuvre of this great English monument.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I admit that I don't like everything I've got by RVW but by and large I would put him down as a fine all-rounder - of all the categories he composed for opera seems to have been his only weak spot, at least in terms of critical appreciation down the years.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

A composer who excelled in all the classical forms, especially symphonies and choral music. He holds a special place in my preferences since he was the first English composer I stumbled upon discovering classical music. My introduction to his works was *A London Symphony*. I instantly loved that piece. I had to hear more by this composer, so the other symphonies came next.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

OT: The worst centre forward we ever had. Oh hang, I take that back, we had Lee Bradbury.

NB: but he could knock out some decent tunes, though (I don't mean Lee Bradbury).


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Axter said:


> Recently I have become, almost to a fanatic level, fond of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
> His 4th - 9th Symphonies, specially the 8th are among my frequently visited pieces.
> 
> I specially like the recordings of Sir Adrain Boult with LondPhilO / NewPhilO on Warner Classics with improved sound quality, much better than previous releases.
> ...


I am so glad to hear that someone else really likes VW's 8th. It's not grand and epic, or structurally complex or harmonically innovative. But it's charming and it's happy. And sometimes that's what we need.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

And furthermore, I think VW has suffered somewhat from being best known for a limited and not necessarily representative group of works. The two String 4tets are fascinating, Flos Campi is extraordinary and the Partita for Double String Orchestra deserves to be as well known as his Tallis Fantasia. And Hodie is quite something.


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## Axter (Jan 15, 2020)

I am really happy to see many TCers like Vaughan Williams. I agree with already mentioned posts on Lark Ascending and 5th symphony. Truly beautiful. Its a shame his masterpieces are not on regular concert programs as much as they should be, specially outside of UK.

Another of my favourite performances, from this 2020 Proms, without audience, LSO with Sir Simon Rattle.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

GREAT composer. (I speak for his symphonies) His piano concerto is mediocre. For me (with William Wallace) the most important composers GB's.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

An excellent composer that took me a while to get into - at first I found his music boring and was turned off by all the pentatonic scales, but there is more to him than that. My favorite works of his are the 2nd and 5th symphonies, Tallis Fantasia, the underrated piano quintet, Hodie (a great Christmas work), and this gorgeous gem, which never fails to bring me to the verge of tears:


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## Ich muss Caligari werden (Jul 15, 2020)

Sob, no one ever mentions his "Folksongs of the Four Seasons," a delight to sing and to hear.


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

As it happens, I've been revisiting my favorite works/recordings of RVW these past few weeks …

*"Bredon Hill"* (from _On Wenlock Edge_) (1909)
:: Partridge (tenor), Music Group of London (piano quintet) [EMI '70]
Pastoral beauty is here distilled/refined until it seems to float in the mist of the rarefied country air, sounding at once earthly and ethereal.

*Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis* (1910/13/19)
:: Barbirolli/Sinfonia of London [EMI '62]
One foot in the Renaissance, one in the 20th Century …

*Merciless Beauty* (1921)
:: Langridge (tenor), Endellion Quartet minus viola (string trio) [EMI '86]
"Those strange cold Chaucer Rondels," as Simona Pakenham describes them, are indeed strange and cold, especially by Vaughan Williams standards, but they are beautifully strange and cold.

*Symphony No. 3 "A Pastoral Symphony"* (1921)
:: Ritchie (soprano), Boult/LPO [Decca '52]
"It's really wartime music-a great deal of it incubated when I used to go up night after night in the ambulance wagon at Ecoivres and we went up a steep hill and there was wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset. It's not really lambkins frisking at all, as most people take for granted," says stretcher-bearer, ambulance driver, and eventual artillery officer Ralph Vaughan Williams, who had volunteered for service at the outbreak of the war at age 41. "A bugler used to practise and this sound became part of that evening landscape and is the genesis of the long trumpet cadenza in the second movement of the symphony." [The trumpeter is instructed to play without valves to better emulate/suggest the bugle.]

*Mass in G minor* (1922)
:: Roger Wagner Chorale [Capitol/Angel LP '60]
The decidedly American Roger Wagner Chorale makes no attempt to sound English yet puts the decidedly English Mass, the choral counterpart to the _Tallis Fantasia_, across with sovereign authority and eloquence. This is the ultimate cult recording of the Mass in G minor.

*Flos campi* (1925)
:: Aronowitz (viola), Willcocks/Choir of King's College, Cambridge & Jacques Orchestra [EMI '68]
_Flos campi_ is an odd duck, what with its _Song of Songs_ inspiration and slightly unwholesome wordless choir, often sounding like _The Lark Ascending_ on a mild acid bender. Even Holst had trouble coming to terms with the work.

*Job ~ A Masque for Dancing* (1927-30)
:: Boult/BBC SO [HMV '46]
_Job_'s nine scenes comprise an array of 17 or so related, however tenuously, musical sections that reflect as many facets of RVW's style, mostly in the form of various and sundry olden dances: pavane, saraband, minuet, galliard, etc. Whether close or contrasting in character, the sections work together in a complementary way that furthers the underlying dramatic narrative and comes across as more symphonic than suite-like in nature.

*Symphony No. 5 in D major* (1938-43)
:: Koussevitzky/BSO [radio broadcast '47] Guild
"Koussevitzky" might not be one of the first hundred or two names that spring to mind when thinking of RVW conductors, but it's really not so surprising that such a great Sibelius conductor would have an affinity with this, the most Sibelian of RVW's symphonies. This is the ultimate cult recording of the Fifth.

*Symphony No. 6 in E minor* (1944-47/50)
:: Boult/LPO [Decca '53]
The playing here is sturdier and more deliberate, less impetuous and immediately engaging than usual, but focus & concentration is unsurpassed and tension is unflaggingly maintained, yielding a performance of great cumulative impact that grows on you.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Great composer, perhaps not for me, but I do greatly admire some of his works, especially the Pastoral Symphony, the 8th, the Tallis Fantasia, and Dona Nobis Pacem. Others leave me cold: the 5th and the London symphonies, for example, but I keep trying with these and everything else from time to time. I'm sure the problem is with me.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

flamencosketches said:


> I'm sure the problem is with me.


Not really. I can't be doing with the _Sea Symphony_. You just _know_ it's a great work and probably one of the favourite RVW works of many people, but it doesn't chime with me at all. We all have our blind (or is that deaf?) spots.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

elgars ghost said:


> Not really. I can't be doing with the _Sea Symphony_. You just _know_ it's a great work and probably one of the favourite RVW works of many people, but it doesn't chime with me at all. We all have our blind (or is that deaf?) spots.


I haven't even listened to that one in full. Too much loud choral singing for my tastes.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

elgars ghost said:


> Not really. I can't be doing with the _Sea Symphony_. You just _know_ it's a great work and probably one of the favourite RVW works of many people, but it doesn't chime with me at all. We all have our blind (or is that deaf?) spots.


I'm so disappointed EG..
It happens to be one of my favourites. I actually feel as though I'm mentally spanning time and space in the last meditative movement, which never fails to move me, especially on the solo sopranos line.."Oh daring joy, but safe are they not all the seas of God". That high Bflat on the word "joy" turns me into an emotional wreck.

Anybody know 'An Oxford Elegy'? that's another neglected gem.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

That's the conundrum - choral works are an integral part of RVW's output, but the _Sea Symphony_ is the only one of that category which I can't get on with.

EDIT: I really do like _An Oxford Elegy_ - it gave me an earworm when I was there last year.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

mikeh375 said:


> I'm so disappointed EG..
> It happens to be one of my favourites. I actually feel as though I'm mentally spanning time and space in the last meditative movement, which never fails to move me, especially on the solo sopranos line.."Oh daring joy, but safe are they not all the seas of God". That high Bflat on the word "joy" turns me into an emotional wreck.
> 
> Anybody know 'An Oxford Elegy'? that's another neglected gem.


Only in the recording by David Willcocks, Choir of King's College, Cambridge, John Westbrook (speaker), and the Jacques Orchestra. Bit of an odd one: the narrator's part always makes me think of Philip Glass' _Akhnaten_ for some reason! But charming overall, agreed.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

elgars ghost said:


> That's the conundrum - choral works are an integral part of RVW's output, but the _Sea Symphony_ is the only of that category which I can't get on with.
> 
> EDIT: I really do like _An Oxford Elegy_ - it gave me an earworm when I was there last year.


You should try sight-reading the Sea Symphony in a performance some time!

I found the tenor part really rather challenging. And my site reading skills improved as the night wore on, by virtue of necessity more than anything else! It was, however, great fun.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> You should try sight-reading the Sea Symphony in a performance some time!
> 
> I found the tenor part really rather challenging. And my site reading skills improved as the night wore on, by virtue of necessity more than anything else! It was, however, great fun.


...reminds me of my time in College. I didn't play an orchestral instrument and was therefore drafted into the tenor section. Oh good grief, the embarrassment of the 5 of us (3 of which where poor non-singing saps like me), being sectionally rehearsed in front of orchestra and choir by Nicholas (or was it Stephen?) Cleobury for a performance of 'A Child of Our time' still haunts me.
We burnt down the houses and a good deal of the music too. Fortunately, on the night some pros where drafted in to bolster what may have been the worst tenor section in the history of my alma mater..


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I don't know enough about his work to have an opinion, really. In my younger days Mahler and Sibelius took up so much of the "symphonist" space that I overlooked others. I'm just now coming to an appreciation of Bruckner so maybe Vaughan Williams will be next.


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