Customer Reviews

The Film Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams [Collectors Edition]

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Each of the three CDs in this box was issued previously as a single which received very positive reviews here at Amazon and elsewhere. Film Music of Vaughan Williams 1, Film Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Vol. 2. Chandos has included the complete booklets from the previous issues and put the three CDs in slim jackets so that the whole thing takes up very little shelf space. The performances are simply magnificent. In the 'Scott of the Antarctic' music we get quite a bit of music that has never been recorded before. (Most people are familiar with this music as it was rearranged by RVW for his Seventh Symphony, the 'Sinfonia Antartica', but a lot of the Scott music was left out of the symphony.) A number of the scores in these three discs are in their recorded premieres: 'The People's Land' (for a National Trust film; based on folksongs,it was cut from the film; RVW in his pastoral vein); a suite from '49th Parallel' edited by Stephen Hogger [who did much of the editing and arranging on these discs]); 'The Dim Little Island' (also RVW pastoral); 'The England of Elizabeth' (arranged by Hogger and somewhat similar to the suite previously recorded by André Previn in his set of the complete RVW symphonies; the music is suitably Tudor-sounding); 'The Loves of Joanna Godden' (lyrical, pastoral); and 'Bitter Springs' (suitably harsh for this film about a trek in the Australian outback). Previously recorded music includes 'The Story of a Flemish Farm' and 'Coastal Command Suite' but in better performances than heretofore, and in much better sound. All the works on these three discs are in superior performances and up-to-date recorded sound.

This is a must-have for fans of Vaughan Williams's music.

Scott Morrison