A couple of weeks back, I decided to listen to the Shostakovich String Quartets in order, all fifteen of them. It took me a weekend, but was a very rewarding project. Perhaps I'll post about them someday. Instead, the subject of this post was my very next listening project: to revisit the symphonies I know better than any others - the nine of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Between this past Friday evening and Sunday night, for the first time in about 25 years, I listened to all of Andre Previn's cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra from the 1970s, in order.
Previn's recordings of 3,4,6,8, and 9 were probably my first exposure to each of those symphonies. Shortly after after hearing them, however, other conductors' versions caught my ear. For some reason, I basically abandoned listening to Previn's set somewhere around 1998. They remain highly regarded among Vaughan Williams fans, though, so I felt it high time I revisited them.
The biggest take aways:
1. This version of A Sea Symphony (No 1) is truly great. I was riveted from beginning to end. It's clear Previn really knew Vaughan Williams's music comprehensively - he draws out thematic ideas that return throughout the composer's complete works, symbolically, perhaps better than any other version I've heard. It's not often a conductor can change my opinion of any of these pieces, I've lived with them and studied them so long, but Previn and the LSO managed moved the needle for me on the Sea Symphony - I no longer believe it to be a "prelude to greater works" or "final apprentice piece" of RVW: instead, it's in the discussion for the greatest of his works, and the foundation for the rest of his career. It's a real watershed moment; a "coming into his own" more like Beethoven's Eroica in terms of its importance in his career.
2. Back in the '90s, my absolute favorite from this cycle was the Pastoral Symphony (No. 3). Something about Previn's lingering lushness, where the outside world seems to disappear, really hit well with me then. It's very specific: rather than emphasizing the counterpoint (as Boult might), Previn focuses on color and blending - and by blending, I mean a really serious effort to create a sound world that is unique and subtle. It's still a very good recording, but it didn't blow me away, and that was a bit of a shocker. Also, the "pastoral era" of Vaughan Williams didn't strike me as Previn's strength in this cycle. The recordings are great, don't get me wrong, masterful even - but his versions of the London Symphony (No. 2) and Symphony in D major (No. 5) aren't the strongest. Interestingly, he re-recorded 2 & 5 in the 1980s with the RPO (and those are fantastic).
3. I remembered his F minor Symphony (No. 4) and E minor Symphony (No. 6) being excellent, but this weekend they were even better than I'd thought. The balance between counterpoint and color in #4 is nearly perfect. The orchestra responds with fire, but also with something monumental quality. Previn doesn't unleash the orchestra entirely, instead imbuing it with a statuesque quality, emphasizing (once again) sound and tone color. I think this annoyed me in my younger years - I craved the violence of Slatkin's interpretation especially - but with age I can appreciate Previn's vision.
Previn's #6 was excellent. I've sometimes been unconvinced by the 4th movement of this piece, but here it was incredible. It's essential that conductors realize this piece is the fulcrum to all of RVW's works - it begins in what we might call RVW's "middle style", but by the end, we've reached something of a different world, much as WWII ended one world and began another. Many people dislike the late symphonies of RVW - they want the pastoral, warm works of the 1920s and '30s. The last three symphonies are darker, more challenging to the ear. The final tipping point happens in #6. After the glorious, broad theme of the first movement, seemingly of triumph, the darkness descends. The second movement has the tension of a bombing raid, the third sounds like the orchestra will tear itself in two, and the forth seems like an aural depiction of desolation itself. Previn gets all of this. I don't know why we as human beings want music like this. Perhaps it's because we need to face certain truths we were prefer to avoid. Yet it fills a need, in the way the ancient tragedies did.
4. The recording of Symphony No 8 in this cycle might be my favorite. There are certainly other approaches one might take than Previn's, but this is really marvelous. Reading VW's symbolism becomes very important in these pieces - it's not just about execution - a conductor who doesn't know RVW's symbolic phrases can mow right over them and lose all the meaning - but Previn seems to know what is going on, and delivers. I can go into greater depth another time...the 8th is more important than most folks think.
5. The Sinfonia Antartica (No. 7) is likewise a great recording - Previn understands what is going on in the score, symbolically. He must have known RVW's choral works and operas quite well too, because this hits all the spots...and makes the work terrifying. If one doesn't know the correlation between the 'Glory to God' of Hodie and the Leviathan music of #7, they're going to miss something - likewise the keening of the Irish women in 'Riders to the Sea' becomes prominent in this symphony, coupled with the Apollyon music from The Pilgrim's Progress. If you don't know this, the symphony might be wrongly dismissed as a collection of climactic moments and eerie sound effects. Yet, if you are familiar with all that surrounded this piece in Vaughan Williams's output, the symphony becomes a massive and terrifying symbolic world - a heroic warning smacked down in the middle of the century. Previn hits those spots; activates that symbolism.
6. The 9th. What can I say about this recording of the 9th? I was disappointed. But I'm often disappointed in renditions of the 9th. The 9th is the type of work that can disturb one's sleep and haunt a person without giving satisfactory recompense. Very few match the depth and meaning of Sir Adrian Boult's recording with the London Philharmonic for Everest, the morning after the composer's death. Previn is in good company here though - not many conductors can get anywhere near Boult on the Ninth.
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