RSNO, 09/11/2019
Vaughan Williams : The Wasps Overture
Vaughan Williams : The Lark Ascending (Sharon Roffman, violin)
Stravinsky : The Firebird - Suite (1945)
Ravel : Pavane pour une infante défunte
Vaughan Williams (comp. Yates) : The Future (Ilona Domnich, soprano)
RSNO Chorus
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Martin Yates
This was a slightly odd concert. It's principal raison d'être was the resurrection of a previously unfinished work by Vaughan Williams, a cantata for soprano solo, chorus and orchestra. As it was initially composed around 1908, the rest of the programme revolves around that period, 1910 serving as a sort of fulcrum. So we ended up with two of Vaughan Williams's best-known pieces, the last of Stravinsky's suites of The Firebird, and Ravel's Pavane, which I presume was included because Ravel was briefly but tellingly Vaughan Williams's teacher over the winter of 1907-08.
Things got off to a cracking start with a very lively reading of The Wasps Overture, that touch of a brass rasp giving a tangy edge to the opening 'buzzing' scales, before the orchestra bounded off in cheerfully bucolic vein, with just the right hint of self-mockery. The nostalgic haze of The Lark Ascending was a nice contrast to the rustic bonhomie of The Wasps, and Sharon Roffman, who is one of the leaders of the RSNO, gave an attractive reading of it. However, I have heard wilder, sweeter-toned larks, and this particular performance verged on the chocolate-box, pretty but two-dimensional.
Stravinsky made three suites from his ballet score of The Firebird. His reasons were primarily commercial - Diaghilev held the rights to the complete score - but for the second and third versions, he also altered the orchestration, substantially reducing the numbers of winds, brass and percussion required, which made it an easier proposition for many orchestras. The 1945 version was mainly intended to secure the copyright on the work in the USA, which did not recognise any European copyright agreements at this point in time. Other than the reduced orchestration, however, it is also the closest to the original score, with the most music in it, bringing it to around half the duration of the complete ballet. Yates is a regular ballet conductor, notably with the Royal Ballet, and there was a good momentum to this performance, particularly in the last three movements, the Infernal Dance, Lullaby and Finale.
So to The Future. Left unfinished and unorchestrated, it's tonight's conductor who took it up and completed it. Vaughan Williams left only a piano score, but he was writing it around the same time as his 1st Symphony, which is also for chorus and soloists with a Walt Whitman text, and another choral work setting Whitman, Toward the Unknown Region, so it's on this last piece that Yates based his own orchestration, using the same forces. The end result is a large-scale, 35-minute work, on a poem by the Victorian poet, critic and educator Matthew Arnold, which evokes (amongst other things) the sea and nature, themes to which Vaughan Williams returned frequently throughout his career.
I may need to hear this piece a few times before really being able to assess it. At first sitting, I wasn't completely convinced, despite the undeniable quality of the performance. My primary impression was that it's almost ridiculously loud. Listening afterwards to ... Unknown Region, with which I was not familiar, I can see that the precedent is there, and certainly the Sea Symphony begins with a similar bang, so to speak. However, there's much more contrast in both those pieces than I felt here. I was getting strong overtones of Elgar at times, which was a little disconcerting for a piece of music at this stage in Vaughan Williams's métier. I was also somewhat perturbed by some of the line setting which, if the poem printed in the booklet appeared with its correct punctuation, was distinctly contradictory. However, orchestra, chorus, a fine soprano soloist and conductor certainly gave it everything they had, and if I'm not wholly convinced this is a rediscovered masterpiece, it's not from any lack of conviction on their part.
[Next : 23rd November]
Vaughan Williams : The Lark Ascending (Sharon Roffman, violin)
Stravinsky : The Firebird - Suite (1945)
Ravel : Pavane pour une infante défunte
Vaughan Williams (comp. Yates) : The Future (Ilona Domnich, soprano)
RSNO Chorus
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Martin Yates
This was a slightly odd concert. It's principal raison d'être was the resurrection of a previously unfinished work by Vaughan Williams, a cantata for soprano solo, chorus and orchestra. As it was initially composed around 1908, the rest of the programme revolves around that period, 1910 serving as a sort of fulcrum. So we ended up with two of Vaughan Williams's best-known pieces, the last of Stravinsky's suites of The Firebird, and Ravel's Pavane, which I presume was included because Ravel was briefly but tellingly Vaughan Williams's teacher over the winter of 1907-08.
Things got off to a cracking start with a very lively reading of The Wasps Overture, that touch of a brass rasp giving a tangy edge to the opening 'buzzing' scales, before the orchestra bounded off in cheerfully bucolic vein, with just the right hint of self-mockery. The nostalgic haze of The Lark Ascending was a nice contrast to the rustic bonhomie of The Wasps, and Sharon Roffman, who is one of the leaders of the RSNO, gave an attractive reading of it. However, I have heard wilder, sweeter-toned larks, and this particular performance verged on the chocolate-box, pretty but two-dimensional.
Stravinsky made three suites from his ballet score of The Firebird. His reasons were primarily commercial - Diaghilev held the rights to the complete score - but for the second and third versions, he also altered the orchestration, substantially reducing the numbers of winds, brass and percussion required, which made it an easier proposition for many orchestras. The 1945 version was mainly intended to secure the copyright on the work in the USA, which did not recognise any European copyright agreements at this point in time. Other than the reduced orchestration, however, it is also the closest to the original score, with the most music in it, bringing it to around half the duration of the complete ballet. Yates is a regular ballet conductor, notably with the Royal Ballet, and there was a good momentum to this performance, particularly in the last three movements, the Infernal Dance, Lullaby and Finale.
So to The Future. Left unfinished and unorchestrated, it's tonight's conductor who took it up and completed it. Vaughan Williams left only a piano score, but he was writing it around the same time as his 1st Symphony, which is also for chorus and soloists with a Walt Whitman text, and another choral work setting Whitman, Toward the Unknown Region, so it's on this last piece that Yates based his own orchestration, using the same forces. The end result is a large-scale, 35-minute work, on a poem by the Victorian poet, critic and educator Matthew Arnold, which evokes (amongst other things) the sea and nature, themes to which Vaughan Williams returned frequently throughout his career.
I may need to hear this piece a few times before really being able to assess it. At first sitting, I wasn't completely convinced, despite the undeniable quality of the performance. My primary impression was that it's almost ridiculously loud. Listening afterwards to ... Unknown Region, with which I was not familiar, I can see that the precedent is there, and certainly the Sea Symphony begins with a similar bang, so to speak. However, there's much more contrast in both those pieces than I felt here. I was getting strong overtones of Elgar at times, which was a little disconcerting for a piece of music at this stage in Vaughan Williams's métier. I was also somewhat perturbed by some of the line setting which, if the poem printed in the booklet appeared with its correct punctuation, was distinctly contradictory. However, orchestra, chorus, a fine soprano soloist and conductor certainly gave it everything they had, and if I'm not wholly convinced this is a rediscovered masterpiece, it's not from any lack of conviction on their part.
[Next : 23rd November]