Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Symphonies Nos 1-9
Concerto Accademico for Violin and Orchestra in D Minor  (1925)
The Wasps: Overture (1909)
Three Portraits from The England of Elizabeth
Concerto for Bass Tuba and Orchestra in F Minor
London Symphony Orchestra/André Previn
rec. 1968-72, Kingsway Hall, Holborn, London. ADD
RCA 88875 126952 [6 CDs: 320]

Since the appearance of this set of Vaughan Williams’ symphonies fifty years ago, time has confirmed it as some of André Previn’s finest work with the LSO; my colleague John Quinn very favourably reviewed it in 2004. It is by no means the only recommendable collection; one from Handley and two from Boult (the first in mono but remastered into Ambient Stereo by Pristine, and the second in stereo for EMI – missing the Ninth but for which we have the orphaned recording for Everest) have equal claims and there are half a dozen more complete sets of merit  – but this from RCA has now assumed something of the status of a reference recording.

My own conversion to these symphonies came relatively late but I now have several versions of each symphony on my shelves. However, I am considering this set in terms of someone who wants them all in one, neat budget box without picking and choosing among individual recordings.

The first disc presents the Sea Symphony; the sound is good but not spectacular, with a hint of fuzziness or distortion in loud passages and balance somewhat favouring the orchestra, but still very immediate.  Rhythmically, everyone – choir, soloists and orchestra – involved is very crisp and accurate and there is never any sense of lethargy in a symphony whose structure can come across as quite loose and episodic. Both those soloists are splendid: Shirley-Quirk is firm and resonant, his words always pellucid; Heather Harper takes a little while to warm up but soon produces bright shimmering tone.  The last four minutes of the first movement are especially impressive – drenched in salt sea-spray, soloists and choir singing their hearts out, the peroration crowned by a splendid top C from Harper who then descends into her lower register and graces the grand, mysterious ending with a poised top A. Shirley-Quirk is magnificently steady and hieratic in the second movement and Previn keeps things moving without seeming too rushed. The Scherzo has real spring and energy and again, builds wonderfully to its abrupt, percussive conclusion. The huge, half-hour finale is Mahlerian in scale and mood – RVW is much more concise in his later symphonies – and Previn controls its unfolding in masterly fashion, moving through its seven sections with great grip and assurance. The orchestral playing is heartfelt, the singing dedicated; the extended, central duet is especially beautifully done – some of the loveliest singing I know. The haunting final chords point forward to Vaughan Williams’ preference in some of his future symphonies for avoiding bombastic endings. There are no notes in this set, just cardboard sleeves, so you will need to access Whitman’s verse text somewhere else.

On CD 2, the London Symphony has long been accounted one of the best in this set. Despite a little background hiss, the sound is full and detailed and the playing of the LSO nuanced and delicate – you get the sense, across the span of fifty and more years, that this orchestra loved playing under Previn. That magical opening is as atmospheric as any I know and there is a kind of Schwung to the music-making which is infectious – except that’s the wrong word; there is nothing “Germanic” about its execution because it reeks of Billingsgate Market and jellied eels! RVW’s soundworld is unique and somehow Previn tuned into it, despite his Broadway background. Apart from the satisfying big moments, so much of the quiet playing is subtly handled and like all great recordings, this renews your appreciation for the genius of the music; I feel like punching the air at the end of just the first movement, even before the rest. The Lento second movement is similarly sensitive and as JQ remarks, the climax is so effective – a great wash of sound – before the long, drawn-out etiolation of the musical substance, fading away into infinity in another typical RVW ending – simply lovely. The Scherzo is first light and airy, but with an underlying urgency which increases towards the end, before yet another of those reflective, ambiguous conclusions. The finale is executed on a grand scale – massive, dignified and somehow rather other-worldly; that Vaughan Williams trope of the restrained ending is perfectly realised.

On the same disc are the Concerto Accademico and The Wasps overture. I fear that well-played though it is, the former does absolutely nothing for me, whereas the latter is a celebrated concert piece and good fun, the outer sections played here con brio and with a real sense of  humour, the central section indulgently lyrical. It is essentially a Scherzo and treated as such – a good joke – and as if signalling that, for once RVW ends with a conventional crash-bang-wallop.

The Third and Fourth symphonies are paired on the third disc. Although as a whole the performance of the Pastoral is quite slow, its first movement is taken quite briskly and Previn brings out strongly the unsettling undercurrents inherent in its harmonies which disturb its superficial serenity; as such it is as much a lament as a bucolic idyll; that starkness negates any suspicion of the old “cow looking over a gate” accusation. The many instrumental solos are expertly negotiated – and a glance at their names, credited below, will explain why that is so. The Lento moderato second movement is again characterised by restraint and first-rate soloists on the first horn and the natural trumpet; the Scherzo is quite rightly rather more rumbustious, the brass cheerfully raucous and the mood reminiscent of Holst in “country landscape” mode. The finale is mysterious and remote, a mood instantly established by the purity of Heather Harper’s distant, wordless melisma. The ensuing rhapsodic section for full orchestra has much of the French school of Debussy and Ravel about it – after all, RVW did study with the latter – but it is still unmistakably in his own voice and it is played without the “mimsiness” which sometimes afflicts British folk music – full-blooded and passionate, culminating in the richly scored restatement of the main theme before subsiding into the ethereal coda over the strings’ sustained A.

The shocking blare of the opening of the Fourth Symphony provides a wrenching contrast to that cool, tranquil conclusion. This is raw, powerful playing – not comfortable listening, akin to Shostakovich’s more turbulent effusions, and the LSO is fully up to the demands of the music, which often struts and crows as Satan does in Job. There are fleeting passages of lyricism but the tension rarely abates and nothing about the Andante moderato second movement provides comfort. Balances among the different instrumental groups are very good here; the individual lines all emerge clearly. The Scherzo bristles with manic energy and again the orchestra copes admirably with the constant rhythmic changes. The restless finale concedes a moment of relative tranquility at 2:53 but no one is really relaxing; there is always an undertow of menace and the sardonically braying LSO brass bring the movement to a close in thrilling style.

The Fifth Symphony is undoubtedly the jewel of this collection; it is generally accounted one of the finest versions ever recorded – if not the best – and it is the recording I would employ to demonstrate the allure of this set, especially as it is my own favourite of the nine and surely the greatest English symphony alongside Elgar’s. I refer you to JQ’s review linked above as I could hardly improve upon his encomium of it. The playing is simply glorious – moving beyond words. While of course it employs themes and ideas lifted from Pilgrim’s Progress which had long been in gestation, it is astonishing that so transcendental and spiritually comforting a work should mostly have been written and then performed during the dark days of war.

The Sixth Symphony here has been the subject of some critical complaint: insufficiently violent, too fast and deficient in mystery, patchy sound including a lack of bass resonance. I can’t say I hear any of those problems there; in fact, I am instead impressed by how skilfully Previn welds such rhythmically and harmonically disparate music into a cohesive unity and I certainly hear no lack of dread in the eery central section of the Moderato second movement. His application of graded dynamics is telling and the playing of the LSO per se is superb, as is the bleak, sinuous cor anglais solo concluding the movement, which moves straight into the frenetic fugal Scherzo – aggressive, brutal and nihilistic, again in a manner which recalls Shostakovich. The bleak, glacial finale somehow for me conjures up a mental picture of whirling snowflakes softly kissing the frozen ground – suggestions of a post-atomic void don’t seem so fanciful. Its strange, low-key conclusion, fading away into oblivion, reminds me of why concert organisers might be reluctant to programme it – or if they do, where do they put it? Before an interval hardly seems appropriate and to end an evening’s “entertainment” with it seems dismal. Perhaps a recording is the best way to listen to it…

The Ninth has also been considered a “problematic” work ever since its premiere, its mood to some degree a continuation of that of the Sixth; 20C Angst is never far away and Previn and the LSO capture that persistent unease without sacrificing tonal beauty. In parts, I find it thematically too diffuse to engage me fully but it could hardly be played better than here. Again, the grand, monitory chords at 6:12 are reminiscent of Job and even Bartók’s Bluebeard, before the beautiful violin and saxophone solos; the atmosphere of those closing minutes is chilling. That spills over into the Andante in a work which is almost unrelievedly pessimistic – rather like so many of Hardy’s novels, Tess of the d’Urbervilles having fuelled Vaughan Williams’ imagination; that grimness is readily apparent in the oxymoronic appellation of the third movement: Scherzo pesante (It. “heavy, depressing”). Its nightmarish tenor is that of depicting the Sorcerer’s Apprentice as a crack addict in a basement. The finale does little to lighten the mood, despite some ostensibly lyrical interludes; no wonder the first critics to hear it were confused and divided. It might not exactly delight as a work but it is a monumental, starkly impressive end to a great symphonic career and Previn’s recording is one to stand alongside Boult’s equally imposing account (review) – and for once we are granted the climactic ending we are so often denied in Vaughan Williams’ symphonies.

The final disc presents the contrasting double bill of the Seventh and the Eighth Symphonies. Some people seem to be very exercised by the “intrusive” inclusion of the spoken superscription to each of the five movements eloquently delivered by Sir Ralph Richardson; I really don’t see that it much matters and enjoy his contribution; I am more concerned that the recording itself seems rather close and immediate, lacking something of the gauzy distancing we hear in, for example, the Handley version, and I wonder if the combination of that closer recording and Previn’s attack works against creating a suitably glacial atmosphere, but it is grandly delivered; the depth and sonority of the LSO’s playing are remarkable. Heather Harper, once again, and the women’s chorus are ideal – and the wind machine is not overdone. For some reason, there is a bit of crackle on the tape at the start of the third movement, Landscape, which has not been – cannot be? – edited out and I agree with JQ and other reviewers that the electronic organ employed is decidedly weedy compared with the mighty cathedral instrument required, so there are flaws, here, in what nonetheless remains a fine recording. “Film music” it may be – but it is very skilful and affecting music, too. There is a stark grandeur to the closing pages of the Epilogue which is most absorbing.

The Eighth makes a relatively lightweight pendant to the set. I confess that it is my least favourite in the RVW canon but that is no obstacle to my hearing how well it is played here. Clearly, at its centre is the Cavatina, which has many of the hallmarks of RVW’s best music without quite piercing any putative emotional heart. Throughout this series of recordings, the LSO could not be more alive and responsive to Previn’s direction.

The symphonies are so absorbing that perhaps it seems churlish to complain that the fillers are of considerably less interest to me. I would much preferred to have heard Job, for example, but unfortunately Previn never recorded it; the fact that its dedicatee Sir Adrian Boult did so five times perhaps discouraged him from doing so, as de trop. The bonuses here are Muir Matheson’s brash orchestrations of the Three Portraits from The England of Elizabeth, which do not sound much to me as if they belong to RVW’s subtle soundworld – weirdly, they keep reminding me of Turandot – while the Concerto for Bass Tuba, while very well executed, is surely not one of the composer’s major works and I cannot say that I am captivated by the idea of devoting the medium to that instrument – although the Romanza has some unexpected charm.

All in all, while not perfect, this is a set which has triumphantly withstood the test of time.

Ralph Moore

Help us financially by purchasing from

Performance details
Sea Symphony: Heather Harper (soprano); John Shirley-Quirk (baritone); London Symphony Chorus
Pastoral Symphony: Heather Harper (soprano); William Bennett (flute); Roger Lord (oboe); Anthony Camden (cor anglais); Gervase de Peyer (clarinet); Anthony Halstead (horn); Osian Ellis (harp); John Georgiadis (violin); Alexander Taylor (viola); Douglas Cummings (cello)
Sinfonia Antartica: Heather Harper (soprano); The Ambrosian Singers; Sir Ralph Richardson (speaker)
Concerto: James Oliver Buswell IV (violin)
Concerto: John Fletcher (bass tuba)
rec. Kingsway Hall, Holborn, London; Sea, 1970; London 1972; Concerto Accademico, 1969; Wasps, 1971; Pastoral, 1971; No. 4, 1969; No. 5, 1971; Three Portraits, 1968; Concerto for Tuba, 1971; No. 6, 1968; No. 9, 1971; Antartica, 1968; No. 8, 1968.

Prefatory readings in the Seventh Symphony:
1. Prelude:
To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite,
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night,
To defy power which seems omnipotent, …
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent:
This … is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free,
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.
(Shelley, Prometheus Unbound)
2. Scherzo:
There go the ships, and there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein. (Psalm 104, Verse 26)
3. Landscape:
Ye ice falls! Ye that from the mountain’s brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain —
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! Silent cataracts!
(Coleridge, Hymn before Sunrise, in the vale of Chamouni)
4. Intermezzo:
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
(Donne, The Sun Rising)
5. Epilogue:
I do not regret this journey; we took risks, we knew we took them, things have come out against us, therefore we have no cause for complaints.
(Captain Scott’s Last Journal)