The Lark ascending

Elgar: Violin Concerto/Vaughan Williams: Lark Ascending, EMI Classics 7243 5 56413 2 8

Nigel Kennedy and Simon Rattle, with the CBSO really did a great version with this CD. Have a look at the reviews on Amazon.

I am sure there are other good versions, but of the ones I have this is easily my favourite. Charley Watts (Rolling Stones drummer) chose this version on his 'Desert Island Disks', perhaps the ultimate authority on things classical, but thought I would mention it.

I would also add, that if you are looking for more Vaughan Williams, the EMI Classics box set of Sir Adrian Boult's conducting of his complete symphonies is a very good buy too, but 'The Lark Ascending' on that does not match the above for me though.

I would note that I am not one of the groups 'extremely well educated classical fans', but I am a fan of Vaughan Williams.

I was going to suggest the version mentioned above with Boult conducting [on EMI]. For me it is only surpased by the old version Boult recorded [for EMI] in the late forties with Jean Pougnet, but that last appeared on Lps twenty odd years ago, so a cat in hell's chance of finding.

VW at his best IMO. George

Hi George

I particularly love Boult's conducting of 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis' and 'Symphony No. 5'. What are your highlights from the Boult recordings?

I also have Bernard Haitink conducting the London Philharmonic (yet again EMI Classics) with the third and fourth symphonies. I love these, particularly for the rhythmical feel he brings to these symphonies, rather than Boult's. Haitink seems livelier, although for slower and richer pieces, I do like Boult's interpretation.

The second movement of the third (lento moderato) seems to have a rolling triplet feel that Boult does not seem to play with, and the fourth symphony really thumps out the 'oom-pah' (Vaughan Williams description) in the final movement with a great deal of glee.

For a couple of reasons, my liking of the rhythmical qualities of Haitink, might be a personal slant on Vaughan Williams. I play drums (a percussive instrument), but not any musical instrument, and I come to classical after being into rock and jazz music.

quote:

Originally posted by JamieL:
Hi George

I particularly love Boult's conducting of 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis' and 'Symphony No. 5'. What are your highlights from the Boult recordings?

Exactly mine also.

Dear Jamie,

It is pecculiar because VW and Boult were great friends, but VW was just sometimes less than completely enthusiastic about Boult's performances of his music. Sometimes he was deeply impressed, such as when Boult recorded the Fourth Symphony [in 1948], but he also wrote to Sir John Barbirolli that at least he got the "full emotion of the music across ... " so I suspect Boult always produced well prepared and accurate perfomances if occasionally a little detached, emtionally.

VW had a fantstic rhythmic sense, and so did Boult, but he would swing Brahms far more freely than either Elgar or VW! I think you are quite right that though Haitink is generally slower [sometimes much slower] than Boult, he often makes the result feel freer, much more rhythmically lifted, and inevitably propelled.

Fascinating to read that your percussion playing informs your view! Lovely!

I remember once playing a concert as the only bass in a fairly small orchestra of fairly dim quality, and the conductor was a real plodder!

We were doing Pineapple Poll [Sullivan arranged .... might be MacKerras] and because it was dragging so tragically I lifted the bass rhyhtm [plucked two in a bar] in the manner of a quick Viennese Polka in one number! I did this in the concert and the whole orchestra woke up, and started to play really nicely! I had a friend playing the bassoon in that concert and we continued to mess about for the duration and got completely out of our trees in the pub later!

Even the conductor was beeming at the applause, but it was my bassoonist friend and me who were the naughty ones who "lifted" the rhythm. We laughed like mad in the pub afterwards about it! People so rarely understand how a tiny agogic push, or hestitaion over the beat actually makes the rhyhtm stronger and lighter all at the same time!

This was Klemperer's genius, for he always lifts the rhythm a little! Sometimes a lot!

ATB from George

Apologies to VZ for this digression, but talking of rhythm in classical/orchestral recordings, there are a couple of other particular recordings that stand out to me for their rhythmical qualities.

Coming from liking jazz, and Thelonious Monk's piano playing in particular, for me there is one conductor/pianist who's performances of Gershwin stand head and shoulders above the rest, and that is Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

He was the son of a friend of Gershwin, and grew up with his music, but has a very jazz feel to timings, for Gershwin's piano parts particularly. I have heard classical pianists play Gershwin, but for me (with my prejudices) they don't get the swing, or hit the off-beat jazz of Gershwin. (Gershwin The 1920's and 1930's Tilson Thomas CBS Masterworks Digital, (MK39699) Rhapsody in Blue, and the wonderful Second Rhapsody for Orchestra with Piano, as well as several other lovely pieces, is a special recording for me).

I have not heard Michael Tilson Thomas conduct any Vaughan Williams, but VW, does have a definite swing to some of his pieces, perhaps more in his film compositions - Battle of Britain Suite for example, which might well be brought to the fore by him. I do suspect the VW is not such a favourite outside the UK though, so might be rarely on the repertoire of the LA. Phil.

Briefly, the other recording that stands out for me for the tempo, and rhythmical qualities is Vladimir Ashkenazy, with what is just credited as the Philharmonia Orchestra, playing Beethoven Symphony no.7, (with Symphony No.5 Decca 448222-2). The second movement, is played so slowly, but with a driving rhythm behind it, that it seems to give it more majesty than any other recoding I have heard of the piece. Perhaps other just find this version too slow, but for me it hits a nerve.

(Must say, this forum is a fun place, there are not many places where you could discuss the rhythmic qualities of Vaughan Williams, and the hedonistic fun of catching Slipknot at a festival in one evening.)

Dear James,

You hit on one of the most important and least understood aspects of great style in performance.

The score gives a blue-print of the mechanical aspect, but no hint at all as to how much to, or even how to swing the beat. By swinging it the pulse rate become much longer, giving a bounding-foward feel, rather than a busy feel, where every beat is a pulse. As Edwin Fischer said of the triplets in the Santus of Bach's B Minor Mass, "They must feel like God making immense strides through the Universe!" By which he explained that he thought that they should bound along energetically with a tremendous swing! I have heard this done both on record and in concert, and after that a steady pulse of three feels like the plodding walk of mankind on a wet Friday afternoon in Lent!!

The easiest one for people to undestand is the Viennese Waltz, where the pulse is the first of each bar of three beats [the other two being much quieter, and fractionally displaced from their metronomic place, which feels like the first beat is a tad earl in practice], which is entirely different to the French Waltz [for example listen to the Serenade for Strings by Tchiakowki] where each beat is almost metrical [in a stylish performance] if not equally loud, and this gives a much more stately feel if one less filled with joyful Viennese abandon!

But VW has jazzy elements, as of course did William Walton also! Now the place to go with Walton is to his own performances, which catch the freedom and precisison of the music in a wonderful synthesis! Try the Portsmauth Point or Johanesberg Festival Overtures in his own performances to realise that it is the conductor who feeds this feel for swing and bounding pulse to an orchestra!

ATB from George

One of my favourite symphonies, Willian Walton's 1st, Leonard Slatkin's 'blast' through it. If you like Vaughan Williams, Walton is a good place to look next. This CD also has Porstmouth Point Overture.

My long term partner played viola in the Salomon Orchestra, and said Walton's first and Portsmouth Point were two of the hardest pieces she had played, as the timings were so tough.

Pity Walton was so plain lazy (form what I have read) that he only got around to two symphonies, still his Henry V suite is lovely.

I have never heard his own renditions of his works though, that is something I had not considered.

Thanks George.

VZ.
Back on topic, I noticed that the Nigel Kennedy/Simon Rattle recoding of The Lark Ascending is available on Amazon from £1.65 second hand, so probably worth a copy alongside any other recommendations.

Jamie and George,

Many thanks for the replies - and no apologies necessary for diverting the discussion - I am always fascinated to hear people enthuse about genres that I am sadly woefully ignorant about.
Jamie - thanks for the Amazon heads up - disc duly ordered!
George - fascinating to hear you apply what is to me the vital essence of Jazz to the Classics, but then I guess you are correct, the same applies to any and all music, and to systems as well - thats why I listen through Naim - it's the swing thing!