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In case you missed it, August 26 is the 50th anniversary of the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Spread the word.

Michael Eastep

mbeastep wrote:In case you missed it, August 26 is the 50th anniversary of the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Spread the word.

Michael Eastep

The Philharmonia Orchestra (under Richard Hickox), among others, are celebrating Vaughan Williams throughout the year by playing a large percentage of his ouvre.

There are two concerts in early November that will, for example, include six of his symphonies, plus the Tallis Fantasia.

I will be there. A friend and fellow RVW fan was visiting in the Spring. He's a member of the RVW Society and had heard of the program, and when we realized that all our (different) favorite works were covered in those two concerts, my wife chimed in with "Let's go." I have plane tickets, concert tickets, renewed passports, and room reservations (about as modest as it gets in London and still have a bathroom en suite). In between the two concerts we'll be cramming in the usual sights--the British Museum, Buckingham Palace (maybe), Westminster, Stonehenge, etc. Maybe even Leith Hill and Dorking.

There is also a recently released video of the life of Vaughan Williams which I have reported here before. Except for two brief sets of scenes where they overemphasize, in my opinion, the effect of war images on RVW's thinking, reinforcing their point with needlessly grisly scenes of war most of which occurred after his death (?!), it is excellent and recommended. The name of it is "Oh Thou Transcendent" and is generally available (Google it). No, there's no mention of the tuba concerto, but there are a couple of scenes of a student orchestra tuba player (on a 981/2-like instrument) and a professional orchestra tuba player on a front-action C. One had two tuba players, though I didn't know any Vaughan Williams work required two tuba players. Go get the video.

Rick "a fan of RVW before ever hearing the Tuba Concerto" Denney

Click here for some interesting thoughts from the "O Thou Transcendent" filmmaker, Tony Palmer.

The Philharmonia Orchestra (under Richard Hickox), among others, are celebrating Vaughan Williams throughout the year by playing a large percentage of his ouvre.

There are two concerts in early November that will, for example, include six of his symphonies, plus the Tallis Fantasia.

That sounds like the place to be. I envy you. Since we hardly ever do any anything of RVW besides Greensleeves, the Folksong Suite (no tuba in the orch. version!) and the occasional Lark Ascending, I have to make do with recordings.

In trying to find a CD version of an old LP favorite, Boult's LSO recording of Job, a Masque for Dancing, I found the only way I could get it was by getting an EMI boxed set of Boult conducting all the symphonies and a lot of shorter orchestral works. I did this with some trepidation, because many of these older recordings don't sound very good. I was delighted with this one, though. Not only does the Job sound like an idealized version of the one I love (no surface noise when soft) but every one of the eight discs sounds wonderful. Thanks to EMI for a great job of remastering. At $45 Canadian, it's a real bargain.

Rick Denney wrote:One had two tuba players, though I didn't know any Vaughan Williams work required two tuba players.

If it is the clip I have seen, that is the National Youth Orchestra which is a double size orchestra with two players doubling each wind/brass part (except solos)