" A COMPLETE TRAVEL AROUND THE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC BY ONE OF BRITAIN'S MORE IMPORTANT COMPOSERS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ".
Ralph Vaughan Williams ( 1872 - 1958 ) may be considered as one of the protagonist of British music's renovation in the Twentieth Century. He contributed to the liberation of this music from the germanic influence felt along the Nineteenth Century, using the British folk tunes and the Tudor period's music as his inspiration sources. In this double CD there are eleven orchestral masterpieces all of wich prove the talent of this longevous and prolific composer.
I should signal these pieces: The famous Fantasia on Greensleeves , composed by Vaughan Williams as a interlude between two scenes from the Act IV by his opera Sir John in love ( 1929 ), arranged by Ralph Greavesfive years after; the light and luminous Oboe Concerto ( 1944 ), where Celia Nicklin's work shines, and isn't bassed on folksongs, like the anterior piece; the Concerto Grosso, composed in 1950 for the Rural Music Schools Association, who demonstrates the composer's concern for musical education and amateur music-making, and his capacity to create masterpieces with reduced mediums; The Lark Ascending, a subtile, concentrate and rhapsodic piece, composed in 1914, revised in 1920 and first performed in 1921, where Iona Brown's violin stands out; the Partita for double string orchestra ( 1946-1948 ), full of effects of sonority and contrast between the two string groups; and, finally, the Fantasia on an Theme by Thomas Tallis ( 1910 ), surely one of Vaughan Williams' best pieces, a spiritual and mysterious work, and very important, because " it liberates the British music from the Germanic dominium, and gives back to its Age of Gold " ( Marc Vignal ). This piece implies a creative reinterpretation by a Thomas Tallis' hymn tune - Thomas Tallis was a period Tudor's composer, who composed the original hymn used by Vaughan Williams in this piece for Archbishop Matthew Parker's Psalter (1567 ) -.
Finally, the perform of these works concerns to prestigious British orchestras, like the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, conducted by its habitual director, Neville Marriner; the New Queen's Hall Orchestra, conducted by Barry Wordswordth; and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult ( who performed for the first time some of Vaughan Williams ' works, like the Partita ). These are good reasons to buy this double CD. Don't miss it !!
