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Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 2, Serenade to Music [Hybrid SACD, SACD]

Rochester Philharmonic (Artist), Ralph Vaughan Williams (Composer), Christopher Seaman (Conductor), Compilation (Performer) | Format: Audio CD
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product details

  • Performer: Compilation
  • Conductor: Christopher Seaman
  • Composer: Ralph Vaughan Williams
  • Audio CD (5 Mar 2012)
  • Please Note: Requires SACD-compatible hardware
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Format: Hybrid SACD, SACD
  • Label: Harmonia Mundi Usa
  • ASIN: B006OGSS3U
  • Other Editions: MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 48,685 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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1. A London Symphony - Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra
2. Serenade to Music - Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra

Product Description

Product Description

As a young conductor I received a great deal of support and encouragement from Sir Adrian Boult, who had been a friend of Vaughan Williams and one of his favourite interpreters. He and his wife regularly listened to my BBC broadcasts and often wrote with comments and suggestions. One of my most treasured possessions is the following letter, written after a broadcast of A London Symphony, a work often associated with Boult himself. CHRISTOPHER SEAMAN Dear Christopher, May the old Boults send a humble bravo for the V.W. London this morning? It was delightfully lively and right . We did enjoy it so did Ursula V.W. she has just told me on the telephone. Hope you flourish, Yours ever, Adrian C Boult To mark the close of an outstanding 13-season tenure as Music Director of the Rochester Philharmonic, Christopher Seaman leads his orchestra in a programme of music which he holds especially dear: Vaughan Williams' London' Symphony and the Serenade to Music', the latter with singers from Mercury Opera Rochester. Henry Wood commissioned Vaughan Williams to compose the Serenade to be premiered at a concert marking Wood s 50th anniversary on the podium. Vaughan Williams dedicated it to Sir Henry, in grateful recognition of his services to music. This recording presents it in its original form for 16 solo singers and orchestra, as Wood requested. In her biography of Vaughan Williams, his second wife, Ursula, recalled the period of the Serenade s premiere, when Europe was once again teetering perilously on the brink of war. But on that evening, in the Serenade, she wrote, night in the garden at Belmont laid its balm of starry words and moonlit music on the audience gathered to celebrate the man whose work had meant so much to musicians and public alike during the last 50 years.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Straight in at Number One, as they used to say. . . 19 Mar 2012
By Garth Winter
Format:Audio CD
Well, I didn't see this one coming! Seaman's long tenure with the Rochester Philharmonic, now coming to an end, has given us this late bloom, and it's a really fabulous account of the London. Not the least recommendation is the SACD recording quality, startling even to a hardened listener like me. Seaman's painstaking attention to every detail of the score is matched by the engineering: I'm struggling to think of any other version on record (and I think I've got them all) where literally everything is clearly audible, from the opening basses -- usually just a dull rumble, but here you can hear bows on rosin! -- to the dying away of the Epilogue. However, the conductor has clearly also spent a huge amount of time studying the score and deciding how each and every phrase should be rendered, and his reading often deviates quite sharply from what we are used to. That is not a criticism -- everything convinced me, especially the rhythms of unprecedented perkiness in the scherzo, and in the shimmering string beats in the second movement, the emotional heart of the symphony, which often blend (pleasingly, it must be said) into one legato line, but are here very deftly given as separate quiet pulses. But there are telling details like this all the way through. Forgive the schoolboyish enthusiasm, but I feel this is the version of the London I have been waiting for, and I really recommend it to new listeners and old Vaughan Williams lags alike. I wouldn't be without the Hickox recording of the original version on Chandos, but this one is a cracker.
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