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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
BOTH ARE GOOD - NEITHER'S PERFECT, 21 Sep 2005
Boito took Shakespeare's Merry Wives, added a little Henry IV (e.g. the Honour Monologue) and shaped, moulded and cut them about to make a libretto that focused tightly on the Fat Knight and was absolutely perfect for what Verdi wanted. Out of it came one of the greatest of all comic operas.
With VW, you get something much closer to the Shakespearean original, teeming with richly drawn characters and all the variety of Elizabethan/Jacobean life bustling past. Falstaff is merely the primus inter pares among them, albeit a huge one. Out of it came a great comic opera. And one that has been too seldom performed, standing in the long shadow of its predecessor.Vaughan Williams, who was a great admirer of the Verdi piece, knew that comparisons would inevitably be made. (He would also have included his friend, Holst's, At the Boar's Head as another real rival from the Falstaff canon.) But comparisons are invidious. The VW and the Verdi operas are not comparable, either in their intentions or in their music. And both should be allowed to co-exist happily as companion pieces, not as rivals but as two great comic operas we're fortunate to have. Perhaps I protest too much. But the Vaughan Williams is such invigorating, life-enhancing, often ravishingly beautiful stuff that I'd hate to see it slip off the end of the shelf. Verdi is lauded as the great tunesmith, but how many tunes from Falstaff can you recall - Nanetta's last act aria, perhaps, a couple of snippets from Fenton, the final fugue maybe, or Sir John's 'Quand'ero paggio' which is so brief an aria that its original singer had to record it three times in succession to fill a 78 side. Perhaps that's why Falstaff is so badly represented on 78's compared to the other mature Verdi operas. Great music, yes, but singalongaFalstaff had, in his mature operas, ceased to be the composer's intention. In Sir John in Love, on the other hand, the tunes just pour out one after the other. Which are genuine folksongs and which are VW originals is often hard to tell without a score in front of you (where the composer comes clean). Just listen to the way Dr. Caius' 'Vray Dieu d'Amour' takes over the orchestra or how 'Lovely Joan' (the tune in the trio of the famous Greensleeves Fantasia) heralds Mistress Quickly's arrival and 'Greensleeves' in situ is even lovelier than in the Fantasia. But then listen to the gorgeous tune that accompanies Ann Page's entrance, the wonderful melody for Ford's plea for forgiveness from his wife or the magical chorus that accompanies the arrival of the real bride and groom in the final scene. Those are all VW originals and great ones, to boot. Choosing between the two performances of this piece on disc, it's a question of swings and roundabouts. This Chandos recording with Hickox at the helm benefits from his direction - a bit tauter, a little more spring to the rhythms than Davies and the choral contributions are as polished as you'd expect from a seasoned choral specialist. The Chandos recording, too, is a bit more up to date in terms of sound, a bit fuller and richer. EMI, on the other hand, probably has the superior cast with the likes of Robert Tear, Felicity Palmer, Helen Watts and Robert Lloyd seeing off their Chandos counterparts. Honours between the two Falstaffs are more even. Neither is ideal in the part. Herincx has the 'fatter' voice: Maxwell on this recording is the more characterful. But a piece like the gorgeous madrigal that Sir John sings before Ford/Brook's arrival needs more warmth and more steadiness than either of them provide (would Bryn ever consider it as a partner to his Verdi Falstaff?). It's a tough choice between the two versions. Choose the EMI for the cast (including, by a short head, Herincx's Flastaff). Choose this Chandos set for the conducting, the chorus and the more modern sound.
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![O Thou Transcendent - The Life Of Ralph Vaughan Williams [2007] [DVD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51116s0GLKL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
~ Donaldson Bell
~ Ralph Vaughan Williams
~ Ralph Vaughan Williams
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