Customer Reviews

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Vaughan Williams' opera of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress was a career-long project, begun in 1906 and completed in 1951. During this period, the work-in-progress served as both source and inspiration for several religious choral works and also his fifth symphony. Indeed, the Romanza movement of the symphony was extracted from the opera. This album includes these opera-derived pieces.

What is it about a fifth symphony among a long series? Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, among others, produced remarkably strong and well-developed fifths that are highlights of their symphonies. Vaughan Williams' own such symphony is lyrical and lush. Its suggestion of a contemplative theme is as evident as the body of Mahler's symphonic explorations. In the hands of Richard Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra, plus an engineering team to produce this excellent SACD recording, the symphony shines with romantic beauty. It has a largely quiet pastoral feeling. Although I admit that this is my least favorite Vaughan Williams symphony, I do enjoy the rich harmonic wash of sound, and that sound itself is wonderfully full and clear with a surround-sound system. The brief vocal and organ works are pleasant but essentially fillers, although thematically related. I particularly enjoyed the heavenly Twenty-third Psalm. In contrast to the previous soft, floating music, the album concludes with a bright and powerful Prelude and Fugue for orchestra with organ, an impressive way to leave the listener.

Vaughan Williams's 5th Symphony is easily laudable as one of his most beautiful works - practically bursting with sonic splendour. In this exquisite recording by the LSO, the symphony is given "the works" in terms of performance, atmosphere, and musical pathos. The LSO - as befits what is perhaps the world's greatest orchestra - never once seems strained by the music (as have some orchestras in other recordings), and the musicians seem intensely aware of just how much passion must be balanced with delicacy in this profound music. I recommend this recording with much delight!

Richard Hickox was an outstanding conductor and in the field of English music he had few rivals. You would naturally think that a conductor who excelled in English music would be a great RVW conductor well this isn't the case with this recording of Vaughan Williams' much-loved "Symphony No. 5." The problem I have with this recording is with Hickox not the London Symphony Orchestra.

As I have mentioned in my other reviews, you can have a great orchestra like the LSO who play great but if they misguided by the conductor than the performance isn't going to be worth your time. If there isn't a connection there, then you have nothing. All you have is a warm body up on a podium with baton pretending to be interested.

The general problem with this performance of the 5th is that he doesn't seem all that interested in the music. His attention to the details isn't there. This could have very well been an off day for him, but if that were the case I don't think it should have been released, because his heart isn't in this symphony. The famous "Romanza" section sounds completely uninvolving, which, in turn, makes it sound lifeless.

I own every recording of RVW's 5th symphony, so my opinion is not without experience. Hickox simply fails to capture this great work's elusive magic. He doesn't even come near Boult's (on EMI), Thomson (Chandos), Davis (Warner Classics), or Previn (Telarc). These are the best performances I've heard of the 5th. Compared to these performances, Hickox sounds unexpressive and disinterested.

The other pieces of this recording are filler and aren't that interesting even for an RVW fan like myself.

The audio quality is also sub-par and not up to Chandos' usual standards in my opinion. I'm not sure how it sounds in SACD, so I can't answer how this layer of the disc sounds.

Only the serious RVW collector will want to acquire this disc. I'm not going to part ways with it, but it will remain on shelf because I collect RVW's music. This is the only reason why I'm keeping it.