COMPOSERS: Vaughan Williams
LABELS: Sony
WORKS: Symphony No. 4 in F minor; Symphony No. 6 in E minor; Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
PERFORMER: New York Philharmonic/Dimitri Mitropoulos, Leopold Stokowski
CATALOGUE NO: SMK 58933 ADD (1957/58)
Committed American performances of Vaughan Williams’s music are not just a recent phenomenon, as this coupling of his two most uncompromising symphonies shows. The orchestra plays marvellously for both conductors. Mitropoulos’s Fourth is as tense and violent as could be wished. His Fantasia is a marvel of fine string playing, and the early stereo recordings are excellent. Stokowski’s (original version) Sixth, recorded the year he gave the US premiere, misses some of the mystery in the remote last movement but the trenchancy and power of the performance transcend the limitations of the mono sound. David Michaels
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 4 in F minor; Symphony No. 6 in E minor; Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Committed American performances of Vaughan Williams’s music are not just a recent phenomenon, as this coupling of his two most uncompromising symphonies shows. The orchestra plays marvellously for both conductors. Mitropoulos’s Fourth is as tense and violent as could be wished. His Fantasia is a marvel of fine string playing, and the early stereo recordings are excellent.
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:31 pm