Search - Ralph Vaughan Williams, Adrian Boult, London Philharmonic Orchestra :: Vaughan Williams: Symphonies 8 & 9

Autumnal Vaughan Williams

NotATameLion | Michigan | 11/19/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In a way, Vaughan Williams' Eighth and Ninth symphonies are a microcosm of what happened to classical music in the second half of the twentieth century. They are move away from the epic (his London and Sea symphonies) and the beautiful (his pastoral symphony). In the place of these two elements we find complexity and invention.Please allow me to be a bit of a critical dinosaur for minute and make value judgment: I don't like where Vaughan Williams took his later music. There are still moments of intense beauty (try the beginning of the Eighth symphony's third movement for instance), but these pieces are lacking in vision--particularly that sense of something "Grand" that makes RVW's music special. Yet, these are some of Vaughan Williams' "autumnal" compositions, and as such maybe it is only appropriate that they are a bit scattered--like the falling of leaves.This particular disc, more than any other in Boult's second recording of Vaughan Williams' symphony cycle, shows that perhaps Boult had lost a step with age. For all the wisdom and insight Boult brings to other pieces in this cycle for EMI, his versions of the Eighth and Ninth sound a bit beleaguered compared to his earlier recordings of them for Decca. The scherzo of the Ninth is particularly impaired.For all that, this disc is still one of the best available of these pieces--all artists should be so blessed as to have such a dedicated and loving interpreter as Ralph Vaughan Williams had in Boult."