Vaughn William's Symphony No.9
JAMES, HIBBARD
MUSIC By Hibbard James Vaughn Williams's Symphony No. 9 RALPH VAUGHN WILLIAMS, who died in August 1958, was truly one of the titans of British music. If he remained typically British throughout...
...While some of his most enduring works made full use of native folk tunes, he used them with thorough-going technical mastery and sophistication...
...Anyway, his triumphant reception by both the orchestra and the audience should assure him that he has come into his own at last, as far as the Philharmonic is concerned...
...I understand, has also been recorded and is slated for release...
...9 in E Minor—was completed som.e months before his death...
...9 is abundantly endowed with the qualities that made him the ranking English composer of recent centuries...
...Above all...
...It would have been exciting to hear Barbirolli do the Symphony No...
...Boult lacks perhaps a little of the understanding and authority that Barbirolli brings to the work, but Boult is using a fine orchestra well...
...9. He knows how to write a tune and the tunes he invents are used with restraint and imagination...
...In his hands, the Symphony No...
...Between the spate of performances and records available and anticipated, I hope you will get to hear the Symphony No...
...to say the least, whimsical as may be gathered from this extract from the composer's program notes: "In the orchestra it (the fliigelhorn ) will be obliged to sit up and play straight...
...But it has been heard only recently in this country, both in concert and on records...
...S. Perhaps the emotional stress of facing the Philharmonic for the first time since his unhappy resignation some 15 years ago made him chose the more familiar work...
...If he remained typically British throughout his 86 years, he nonetheless managed to let a breath of European air into the rather stuffy English musical scene...
...I have never been a fervent admirer of Williams as a symphonic composer but duty and curiosity led me to listen to this work and 1 liked it well enough to want to hear it again...
...And it is quite apparent that Barbirolli thoroughly understands what Williams wants and knows how to get it from the orchestra...
...These virtues are generously present in his Symphony No...
...I was delighted to hear Barbirolli conduct the Symphony No...
...I was much impressed by the fact that he made the Washington and the Philadelphia orchestras sound very much alike, a feat which will be appreciated by those who are familiar with the widely divergent styles of the two orchestras permanent conductors...
...9 was a fitting tribute to the composer's memory...
...The saxophones, also, are not expected, except possibly in one place in the scherzo, to behave like demented cats, but are allowed to be their own romantic selves...
...This is not only apparent in his orchestration, which calls for rather unorthodox instruments (such as three saxophones and a fliigelhorn I. but also in his use of these instruments...
...9 with so great an orchestra as the New York Philharmonic, but...
...9 in Houston late last year, with Leopold Stokowski and the Houston Symphony...
...I have only heard the monaural disk, but both the quality and the performance are fine...
...Otherwise the orchestra is normal and is, the composer hopes, sound in wind and strings...
...It is...
...Nevertheless, there are many sections of real beauty and Barbirolli manages to make the most of them...
...he is not afraid of honest emotion...
...His last major work—the Symphony No...
...The American premiere of the Symphony No...
...Sir John has become much more polished since 1 heard him on his last visit to the U. S. a few years ago...
...H to him I. Thus...
...It will be interesting to compare this with the other performances...
...Williams had a number of virtues which are conspicuously lacking in many contemporary composers who are more mind than heart...
...curiously enough, he chose to play Williams's Symphony No...
...Sir John Barbirolli, who is making a triumphal tour of the U. S. and Canada, has been one of the most ardent champiims of Williams's music as well as one of its ablest interpreters (a fact the composer recognized by dedicating his Symphony No...
...An excellent recording of this work, performed by Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic, is now also available on the new Everest label (both on monaural— Everest 6006—and on stereo—SBDR- 3006...
...This last symphony conceals its technical polish beneath a warm, mellow glow...
...9. While Williams does not rank among the all-time musical greats, his gifts were such that he stands as a giant among many modern musical pygmies and his Symphony No...
...It is a real pleasure to meet up with a composer who can make us luxuriate in beautiful sounds which are too artfully contrived to show their art...
...9—once with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington and again with the Philadelphia Orchestra...
...What may place this symphony eventually in the class of excellent rather than truly great works is Williams's puckish humor, so often part of the make-up of elderly English gentlemen...
Vol. 42 • January 1959 • No. 4
