Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Symphony No. 5 (1943)
Sinfonia Antarctica (No. 7) (1952)
A London Symphony (No. 2) (1913)
Symphony No. 8 (1955)
Margaret Ritchie (soprano); Lawrance Collingwood (organ)
Hallé Choir; Hallé Orchestra/Sir John Barbirolli
rec. studio, 1944-1957
Pristine Audio PASC759 [2 CDs: 159]

These three elements – Hallé, Barbirolli and HMV – belong together. Pristine obliges with a 2-CD collection where these principals are concentrated in one place. That’s a definite plus and an impressive one. The sound, from 81 to 65 years old, is well focused through Andrew Rose’s Pristine XR processing: the results are typically clean and full of emotive impact. Barbirolli did other Vaughan Williams: some commercial (like the Tuba Concerto with Philip Catelinet). some not, including the Sixth Symphony and the Tallis Fantasia but Pristine give us the symphonic RVW: four from the mountain range of Nine, written between 1913 and 1955. No need to struggle to collect them, Pristine have done that for us. It is a pity that there was not an archival Flourish for Glorious John to license and include; it’s a brief enough piece. If you hanker for that score then it can be had as part of Leonard Slatkin’s RVW 1990s cycle (RCA Red Seal 090266). JB’s Tallis Fantasia is also on Dutton.

Pristine deal largely in downloads and a truly awesome USB collection but they do offer a physical CD product and that is what I appraised: a card two-disc pocket; no need for two plastic roses when a card ‘pocket’ is more protective and commodious.

With a passing shudder that JB did not leave us a 3 or a 6 (there is one on M&A) or a 9 we can take strength in these four symphonic traversals. Symphonies 2, 5 and 8 are each in four movements. The Antarctica is in five and, for the avoidance of doubt, is without the spoken superscriptions that controversially graced some of the LP issues: Gielgud for the first Boult (ECS577) and Richardson for the somewhat later Previn (RCA SB6736). As I understand it these passages were not intended to be read aloud when the Seventh was performed. This is not Oxford Elegy.

A London Symphony (No. 2) reaches out and engages with the listener. It seethes with character, emotional freight and exciting details, little and not so little. There is nothing workaday about this. As to the Fifth Symphony it was recorded in February 1944 in the same hall (the Houldsworth in Manchester) that was used for the pioneering HMV-British Council recording of the Symphony No. 3 by Bax; JB’s Fand is worth seeking out. It seems that the producer for the Fifth was Walter Legge.  Pacing magically seizes the listener from the outset. There is that feeling of being in touch with the earth’s circadian rhythms. Invaluable and ineluctable. This for me is the crown of the set.

In addition, you can consult the set’s documentation if you want the fuller context beyond the sound of these interpretations.  We should not let slide that these recordings were all made during the composer’s lifetime and presumably in his presence. There are briefish notes and super-colourised photos of Barbirolli, and perhaps surprisingly, of Margaret Ritchie and Lawrance Collingwood; in any event very nice to have.

Symphony No 8 in D minor was the first of the symphonies which Vaughan Williams allowed to be given a number. As a work it has also been issued several times over (BBC ~ Aura ~ Dutton). JB coaxes lovely playing and the sound is commanding and seductive. As to the Antarctica (No. 7) from 1952, it too engages but the emotional arc is not as well sustained as in the Fifth. It is more an art gallery tour than an inevitably tracked pilgrimage of the soul. We are reminded that the Gothic interventions of the concert organ – icy and loomingly heavy – are in the hands and feet of  Lawrance Collingwood; I had not noticed his name before in this context. Apart from conducting some Elgar on record I otherwise know of him as the composer of a Poème Symphonique (1918) which was revived by the BBC and Lewis Foreman in 1995 as part of the Fairest Isle celebrations. It was at that stage given a studio outing by the BBC Concert Orchestra and Barry Wordsworth.

It is good to hear Margaret Ritchie (1903-1969) as the eerily vocalising soprano in Antarctica. It turns out she was also the voice on the soundtrack of the original 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic. Not to forget she also recorded Vaughan Williams’ lovely Three Vocalises; I rather hope that the RVW Trust will commission a suitable person to orchestrate the solo piano score as a sort of companion to Foulds’ Lyra Celtica. Beyond that Ritchie’s was the voice used when HMV recorded Nikolai Medtner’s Sonata-Vocalise.

I conclude with more praise for Pristine, whose professionalism and candour in documentation, make it patent that symphonies 7 and 5 are in ‘Ambient Stereo’. Antarctica and the Barbirolli-dedicated, ear-tickling and tuneful No. 8 are in true studio stereo. Everything sounds natural and reaches out to your ears.

Rob Barnett