Customer Reviews

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5, etc.

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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This is the definitive recording of the Vaughan-Williams Concerto. John Fletcher's playing is absolutely amazing.

The Tuba Concerto by Ralph Vaughn Williams has always been wonderful piece. This recording by John Fletcher gives this piece due credit. The amazing musicianship portrayed by John Fletcher really shows. His thick vibrant, tone sings from the orchestra.
The 5th symphony is also a good recording. I bought this CD for the tuba concerto, but after listening to the symphony, I went out and bought the rest of the Previn/LSO symphonies.

Wow...will there ever be another genius like Ralph Vaughan Williams, savior of English tonality? And to think, I was only interested in the Tuba Concerto (which is the pinnacle of writing for the instrument!)!

A beautiful recording in every way! Andre Previn totally hit a climatic stage here, and is also in my opinion one of the greatest recordings in this modern era!! Symphony 5 is one of the most beautiful classical works ever written, full of passion and the longest yearning for love. Do not sleep until you find this awesome music!!!

This disk makes a splendid introduction to Vaughan Williams.
The symphony is more concise than many of his other sypmhonies, so those new to VW can develop their patience slowly. And the accompanying works are probably worth the price of the disk by themselves. I need not say much about the Tuba Concerto, as others have "trumpeted" its merits here already. But my favorite pieces here are the Elizabethan Portraits. Like the symphony, they are concise, short, and very exciting!.
The symphony is well done, like the rest of Previn's cycle. I prefer Vernon Handley's recording for the symphony, but the Previn is more than acceptable.
Few combinations as diverse and satisfying like this exist. Grab it!
The disk is also now available in a boxed set, Amazon ASIN # B00011MK74, for a phenomenal price.

Yes, the Tuba Concerto is a great piece by RVW. This piece was originally released on RCA Victor Red Seal LSC-3281 with the "Pastoral" Symphony (Symphony no. 3) in 1972. Andre Previn and the LSO did a fantastic performance in bringing the Symphonies of Vaughan Williams to life. Too bad that RCA didn't release the complete Symphonies to CD, for this would have been a great collection to all.

I love the London Symphony orchestra and Tuba's, what a striking match! These Tuba concerto's are the only reason I bought this CD. And it was well worth the $10. I love Vaughan Williams exspecially his tuba concerto Prelude. As a Tubist I know how difficult this piece is, and I understand how well the tubist played it.

Vaughan Williams' 5th Symphony is not meant to be for casual listening. In this symphony Vaughan Williams gets really personal, and he drags the tears forcibly out of your eyes. As with the 4th and 6th symphonies, people have puzzled a great deal over just what the composer was trying to say in this work. On my part, I always like to imagine that he was setting to music the story of the life of the Buddha. This actually need not be that far-fetched an idea in view of the fact that Gustav 'The Planets' Holst, one of Vaughan Wiliams' closest friends, was a great enthusiast with respect to Hindu thought and literature; some of the enthusiasm might have rubbed off on Vaughan Williams, for all you know.

If we grant the idea of a musical biography of the Buddha our indulgence, the first movement will have to be a depiction of the youth of Prince Siddhartha. One could really hear in the dark-sounding chromatic theme the Prince's sightings of the ills of old age, disease and death. The movement ends in a triumphantly affirmative clarion call that ebbs into silence -- perhaps the Prince's resolution to deliver all sentient beings from suffering. The second movement could be thought of as a meditation on the transitoriness and evanascence of all conditioned phenomena, how all things arise and pass away in endless flux like a shadow-play; again the dark-sounding (and somewhat coarse) chromatic theme sneaks in -- I fancy this is the human ego, sunk in delusion -- and it eventually blares up angrily and makes a big mess before dying away with the music flowing on as before.

The third movement is perhaps emotionally the weightiest of all. Here is spiritual longing and suffering at its near-unendurable extreme. (Everytime I listen to this movement, I cry.) One thinks of the Prince's six-year-long spiritual quest. The fourth movement starts quietly but builds up to a really happy climax before being momentarily overcast with fear, the darkness being resolutely driven away as the music passes through a brief moment of quiet before mounting up to an absolutely colossal restatement of the opening theme of the symphony. Surely this is the Buddha's Supreme Enlightenment! The music calms down, and you are lifted into a realm of warmth and radiance far removed from this vale of tears...

I really don't consider the 'Three Portraits of Elizabethan England' (also included in this album) to be Vaughan Williams at his best (nor his 'Sea Symphony'). The movement 'Poet' features a jaunty violin solo, but 'Explorer' and 'Queen' are really a bit too 'lumpy and stodgy', to use the composer's own words. The 'gallumphing oom-pah' is... well... not very good music...