Search - Ralph Vaughan Williams, Andre Previn, London Symphony Orchestra :: Vaughan Williams: Symphony Nos. 3 & 4

Vaughn Williams' most interesting

06/11/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"While known for more pastoral pieces like "Fantasia on Greensleeves," "Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis," and "Lark Ascending," VW's symphony no. 4 is quite different. It's bullish and a brute. It grunts and growls, but that's not to say that it isn't a top notch piece of music. It was the first piece I ever heard by VW. I had fallen asleep and woke up to the driving fourth mvmt. playing on NPR. I was hooked immediately and couldn't wait for the DJ to say who it was. I went out that night and bought it. It is one of my favorite pieces now. The sweetly pastoral no. 3 symphony is a nice contrast and you get to see two different sides of a genius on one disc."

A Chinese landscape painting in the form of music

K. T. Ong | Singapore | 04/09/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Commentators have said of Vaughan Williams' Pastoral Symphony that it was too English for any other people to appreciate. Well, I'm Asian and I love the symphony; indeed Vaughan Williams sometimes uses melodic motifs that strike me as surprisingly Oriental. It's a very slow symphony (except near the end of the third movement, which makes you think of little hamsters and chipmunks scuttling about); unlike Beethoven's Pastoral (it seems Beethoven always has to make some point in his music), Vaughan Williams just invites you to wander among misty mountains without any thought of returning home. It's like stepping inside a Sung Dynasty landscape painting and contemplating the vast panorama without end. Massive storm clouds seem to build up slowly and ominously in the third movement. And a wordless (yes, wordless) soprano solo can be heard in the sorrowful final movement; the effect is surprising but simply beautiful.The Fourth Symphony depicts a very different world from that of the Pastoral; here is unrelenting terror and violence. One would have thought, as many did, that the symphony was a depiction of the horrors of war, which the composer himself actually experienced, having served for a time in the army. It is strange in this respect that Vaughan Williams should have been anxious not to let his Fourth Symphony be interpreted in this way. I think Paavo Berglund conducts this symphony the best; other conductors, such as Previn, just don't seem to charge the first movement with the same frenzied urgency as Berglund does.On the whole, a great album."