All products were chosen independently by our editorial team. This review contains affiliate links and we may receive a commission for purchases made. Please read our affiliates FAQ page to find out more.

Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos 3 & 4

BBC Symphony Chorus & Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins, et al (Hyperion)

Our rating

5

Published: February 20, 2020 at 10:52 am

CD_CDA68280_Williams

Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3 ‘Pastoral’; Symphony No. 4 in F minor; Saraband ‘Helen’ Elizabeth Watts (soprano), David Philip Butt (tenor); BBC Symphony Chorus & Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins Hyperion CDA68280 80:57 mins

Is Vaughan Williams’s Third simply an English Pastoral Symphony or a veiled requiem for the dead of Flanders Fields? A good performance can remind us that musical truth is rarely so categorical. And this is a really good performance. On one level Martyn Brabbins is superbly alert to the intricacies of the musical texture. After one hearing I got the score and listened again – so many details I’d hardly noticed before, but there they were. On another level I’ve rarely, if ever, been so aware of this symphony as a subtle but sustained emotional narrative. The soft, voluptuous beauty of the opening is gradually undermined by a sense of unease, turning to something more like grief in the finale. Is it therefore ‘about’ World War I and/or the irretrievable loss of the pre-war English pastoral idyll? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s very beautiful and very moving. Here at last is a thoroughly recommendable modern version for anyone who as yet remains un-persuaded by the Pastoral.

Brabbins’s Fourth has many of the same virtues, plus an egdy, uncomfortable intensity of its own. The slow second movement is superb – the uniquely desolate finale of No. 6 seems very close here. But it doesn’t quite match the stunning sense of shape of the Richard Hickox version, or the crash-and-burn momentum of Vaughan Williams’s own.

The recently rediscovered cantata Helen, possibly the beginnings of a larger unfulfilled project, has some beautiful writing, though the tenor solo writing doesn’t quite live up to the rest. It’s all excellently recorded.

Stephen Johnson

This website is owned and published by Our Media Ltd. www.ourmedia.co.uk
© Our Media 2024