Sunday Classics: Vaughan Williams for a summer evening

by Ken

After the Fantasia on "Greensleeves" Friday night and the Serenade to Music last night, we've got some meat-and-potatoes Vaughan Williams today. We start with a work we already heard, in "Who can resist the 'elaborate' and 'extravagant' song of the high-flying lark?," the rhapsodic Lark Ascending for violin and orchestra. I noted back then how the work has been tending to spread over the years, as it has come to be played more often, and in this connection mentioned the two recordings conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, which reflect that trend: 13:20 in 1952, 14:41 in 1967 -- and the latter is rather an up-tempo pace by more recent standards.Here they are.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: The Lark Ascending

Jean Pougnet, violin; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 21, 1952
Hugh Bean, violin; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult, cond. EMI, recorded March 1, 1967

Setting aside the little "Greensleeves" Fantasia, surely Vaughan Williams' best-known work is the other fantasia, the one on a theme of Thomas Tallis. Given its deep, burnished beauty, this isn't hard to understand.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, André Previn, cond. Telarc, recorded July 6-7, 1988
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis, cond., recorded October 1990

To dispel any notion that Vaughan Williams wrote only in modes sultry and elegiac, here are the Overture and the "March Past of the Kitchen Utensils" from his "Aristophanic Suite" from The Wasps, incidental music written for the Aristophanes play. This music is not only jolly and jaunty but downright satirical (appropriately, for the subject), starting with the buzzing opening of the Overture. It all suggests, rather surprisingly, a sort of British Prokofiev.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: The Wasps: Aristophanic Suite

i. Overture

iii. March Past of the Kitchen Utensils

London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Adrian Boult, cond. Decca, recorded early 1950s

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