Ralph Vaughan Williams

Christmas Works by Ralph Vaughan-Williams

[IMG]http://*******.info/avaxhome/f2/38/000a38f2_medium.jpeg[/IMG]

1965 | Classical Music | MP3 Variable Bit Rate -V 2 (Standard) | 104,6 MB


Two Christmas works by Ralph Vaughan-Williams. The best know is the "Fantasia on Christmas carols". The other one is more unknown and is called "Hodie".


TRACKLIST
1 - Prologue: Nowell! Nowell! (3'44)
2 - Narration: Now the Birth of Jesus Christ (4'31)
3 - Song: It was the winter wild (4'41)
4 - Narration: And it came to pass in those days (2'10)
5 - Choral: The blessed son of God (2'34)
6 - Narration: And there were in the same country (6'39)
7 - Song (The Oxen): Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock (3'11)
8 - Narration: And the shepherds returned (1'08)
9 - Pastoral: The shepherds sing (3'10)
10 - Narration: But Mary kept all these things (0'36)
11 - Lullaby: Sweet was the song the Virgin sang (2'48)
12 - Hymn: Bright portals of the sky (3'41)
13 - Narration: Now when Jesus was born (3'10)
14 - The March of the Three Kings: From kingdoms of wisdom (7'46)
15 - Choral: So sad thought his soul affright (2'59)
16 - Epilogue: In the beginning was the Word (6'13)

Total duration: 71'24

Dame Janet Baker (mezzo-soprano), Richard Lewis (Tenor), John Shirley-Quirk (baritone)
The Bach Choir - Chorister of Westminster Abbey
London Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Sir David Willcocks

17 - Fantasia on Christmas Carols

John Barrow (baritone)
Choir of the Guildford Cathedral - String Orchestra
Conductor: Barry Rose



DOWNLOAD LINKS

Code: 

Download Link

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony"

[IMG]http://*******.info/avaxhome/09/cb/0010cb09_medium.jpeg[/IMG]

Bernard Haitink, London Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir, Felicity Lott (soprano), Jonathan Summers (baritone)
XLD | Apple Lossless (.m4a-tracks) | No Log/cue-sheet | Coverart Embedded & High-def JPEG | ~325 Mb
Classical | EMI CDC 7 49911 2 (1989)



A Sea Symphony is a choral symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams, written between 1903 and 1909. Vaughan Williams's first and longest symphony, it was first performed at the Leeds Festival in 1910, with the composer conducting. The symphony's maturity belies the composer's relative youth when it was written (he was 30 when he first began sketching it). One of the first symphonies in which a choir is used throughout the work and is an integral part of the musical texture, A Sea Symphony helped set the stage for a new era of symphonic and choral music in England during the first half of the 20th century.

In an interview haitink once stated that "one should drink wine only in the country where it was made." Hence the choice for the LPO for these recordings.


Tracklist:
1. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - I. A Song for All Seas, All Ships: Behold, the sea itself
2. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - I. A Song for All Seas, All Ships: Today a rude brief recitative
3. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - I. A Song for All Seas, All Ships: Flaunt out, O sea, your separate flags of nations!
4. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - I. A Song for All Seas, All Ships: Token of all brave captains
5. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - I. A Song for All Seas, All Ships: A pennant universal
6. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - II. On the Beach at Night, Alone: On the beach at night, alone
7. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - II. On the Beach at Night, Alone: A vast similitude interlocks all
8. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - III. Scherzo: The Waves
9. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - IV. The Explorers: O vast Rondure, swimming in Space
10. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - IV. The Explorers: Down from the gardens of Asia descending
11. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - IV. The Explorers: O we can wait no longer
12. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - IV. The Explorers: O thou transcendent
13. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - IV. The Explorers: Greater than stars or suns
14. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - IV. The Explorers: Sail forth
15. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 1, "A Sea Symphony" - IV. The Explorers: O my brave Soul!



DOWNLOAD LINKS

Code: 

Download Link

password: haitink

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 2, "A London Symphony"

[IMG]http://*******.info/avaxhome/0c/cb/0010cb0c_medium.jpeg[/IMG]

Fantasy on a theme by Thomas Tallis, Bernard Haitink, London Philharmonic Orchestra
XLD | Apple Lossless (.m4a-tracks) | No Log/cue-sheet | Coverart Embedded & High-def JPEG | ~233 Mb
Classical | EMI CDC 7 49394 2 (1987)


The symphony was composed from 1912 to 1913. It is dedicated to Vaughan Williams's friend and fellow composer George Butterworth (1885-1916) who was killed by a sniper on the Somme during World War I. It was Butterworth who had first encouraged Vaughan Williams to write a purely orchestral symphony. The work was first performed on 27 March 1914 at Queen's Hall, conducted by Geoffrey Toye. The performance was a success, but shortly thereafter the score was lost after being sent to the conductor Fritz Busch in Germany at almost the same time as the outbreak of World War I. The composer, aided by Toye, Butterworth and the critic E. J. Dent, reconstructed the score from the orchestral parts, and the reconstruction was performed on 11 February 1915 under Dan Godfrey. The symphony went through several revisions before reaching its final form. Vaughan Williams revised it for a performance in March 1918, and again in 1919–20. This second revision became the first published version and was recorded for the gramophone in 1941 by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Eugène Goossens. While he was working on his fourth symphony in 1933, Vaughan Williams made time to revise A London Symphony yet again. He regarded this version, which was published in 1936, as the definitive one, and it is this version that entered the repertoire, being played in concert and on record by many conductors.

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, also known as the Tallis Fantasia, is a piece of orchestral music by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It was composed in 1910 for the Three Choirs Festival, and was one of the first major successes for Vaughan Williams. He revised the work twice, in 1913 and 1919. Performances of the work generally run for some 16 minutes. The work takes its name from the original composer of the melody, Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585). Vaughan Williams took much inspiration from music of the English Renaissance and many of his works are associated with or inspired by the music of this period. In 1906 Vaughan Williams included Tallis's Third Tune in the English Hymnal, which he was then editing, as the melody for Joseph Addison's hymn When Rising from the Bed of Death.


Tracklist:
1. Symphony No. 2: Lento – Allegro risoluto
2. Symphony No. 2: Lento
3. Symphony No. 2: Scherzo (Nocturne)
4. Symphony No. 2: Finale – Andante con moto – Maestoso alla marcia – Allegro – Lento – Epilogue
5. Fantasy on a Theme by Thomas Tallis


DOWNLOAD LINKS

Code: 

Download Link

password: haitink

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 3, "A Pastoral Symphony" • Symphony No. 4

[IMG]http://*******.info/avaxhome/de/cb/0010cbde_medium.jpeg[/IMG]


Bernard Haitink, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Amanda Roocroft (soprano)*
XLD | Apple Lossless (.m4a-tracks) | No Log/cue-sheet | Coverart Embedded & High-def JPEG | ~316 Mb
Classical | EMI (1996)


Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 3, published as "A Pastoral Symphony" and not numbered until later, was completed in 1922. Vaughan Williams's initial inspiration to write this symphony came during World War I, after hearing a bugler practicing and accidentally playing an interval of a seventh instead of an octave; this ultimately led to the trumpet cadenza in the second movement. The work is among the least performed of Vaughan Williams' symphonies, but it has gained the reputation of being a subtly beautiful elegy for the dead of World War I and a meditation on the sounds of peace. Like many of the composer's works, the Pastoral Symphony is not programmatic, but its spirit is very evocative. None of the movements is particularly fast or upbeat, but there are isolated extrovert sections to be found.

The Symphony No. 4 in F minor by Ralph Vaughan Williams was dedicated by the composer to Arnold Bax. Unlike Vaughan Williams's first three symphonies it was not given a title, the composer stating that it was to be understood as pure music, without any incidental or external inspiration. In contrast to Vaughan Williams's previous compositions, the symphony is characterised by a severity of tone. The British composer William Walton admired the work greatly, speaking of it as "the greatest symphony since Beethoven", and the score certainly contains many innovations. Speaking about this work, Vaughan Williams said, "I don't know whether I like it, but it's what I meant." The work was first performed on April 10, 1935 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Adrian Boult.


Tracklist:
1. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 3, "A Pastoral Symphony" - 1. Molto moderato
2. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 3, "A Pastoral Symphony" - 2. Lento moderato
3. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 3, "A Pastoral Symphony" - 3. Moderato pesante
4. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 3, "A Pastoral Symphony" - 4. Lento
5. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 4 - 1. Allegro
6. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 4 - 2. Andante moderato
7. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 4 - 3. Scherzo (allegro moderato)
8. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 4 - 4. Finale con epilogo fugato (allegro molto)


DOWNLOAD LINKS

Code: 

Download Link

password: haitink

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 • The Lark Ascending* • Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1

[IMG]http://*******.info/avaxhome/19/cb/0010cb19_medium.jpeg[/IMG]

Bernard Haitink, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sarah Chang (violin)*
XLD | Apple Lossless (.m4a-tracks) | No Log/cue-sheet | Coverart Embedded & High-def JPEG | ~293 Mb
Classical | EMI (1994)


Symphony No. 5 by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was written between 1938 and 1943. In style it represents a shift away from the violent dissonance of the Fourth Symphony, and a return to the more romantic style of the earlier Pastoral Symphony. Many of the musical themes in the Fifth Symphony stem from Vaughan Williams' then-unfinished operatic work, The Pilgrim's Progress. This opera, or "morality" as Vaughan Williams preferred to call it, had been in gestation for decades, and the composer had temporarily abandoned it at the time the symphony was conceived. Despite its origins, the symphony is without programmatic context, and is in the form of an extended development of musical themes taken from the morality rather than an attempt to cast it directly into symphonic form.

The Lark Ascending is a popular piece for violin and orchestra, written in 1914 by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It was inspired by George Meredith's 122-line poem of the same name about the skylark. It was dedicated to Marie Hall who gave the first performance with piano accompaniment. Contrary to the popular imagination, Vaughan Williams actually wrote sketches for it whilst watching troop ships cross the English Channel at the outbreak of war. A small boy observed him making the sketches and, thinking he was jotting down a secret code, informed a police officer who subsequently arrested the composer! Thus, although the piece appears to be a pastoral idyll, at its heart it is a nostalgic work about England and the loss of innocence that the First World War brought.
The composition is intended to convey the lyrical and almost eternally English beauty of the scene in which a skylark rises into the heavens above some sunny down and attains such height that it becomes barely visible to those on the ground below. The First World War halted composition, but the work was revised in 1920 and it was premiered under conductor Adrian Boult on 14 June 1921, again with Marie Hall as soloist.

The small orchestral gem "Norfolk Rhapsody" No. 1 (1906, rev. 1914) has been included on this beautiful CD.


Tracklist:
1. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 - 1. Preludio: Moderato
2. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 - 2. Scherzo: Presto
3. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 - 3. Romanza: Lento
4. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5 - 4. Passacaglia: Moderato
5. Vaughan Williams: Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1
6. Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending


DOWNLOAD LINKS

Code: 

Download Link

password: haitink

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 6 • In The Fen Country • On Wenlock Edge

[IMG]http://*******.info/avaxhome/47/cb/0010cb47_medium.jpeg[/IMG]

Bernard Haitink, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Ian Bostridge (tenor)
XLD | Apple Lossless (.m4a-tracks) | No Log/cue-sheet | Coverart Embedded & High-def JPEG | ~290 Mb
Classical | EMI (1998)



Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony in E minor, published as Symphony No. 6, was composed in 1946, during and immediately after World War II. Dedicated to Michael Mullinar, it was first performed by Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in April 1948. Within a year it had received some 100 performances. Vaughan Williams, very nervous about this symphony, threatened several times to tear up the draft. At the same time, his programme note for the first performance took a defiantly flippant tone. The composer never intended the symphony to be programmatic, but it was inevitable that his post-war audience should associate its disturbing and often violent character with the detonation of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He is widely quoted as having said, "It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music" in response to these questions. In connection with the last movement, the composer did eventually suggest that a quotation from Act IV of Shakespeare's The Tempest comes close to the music’s meaning: "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on; and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep."

The Symphony is noteworthy for its unusually discordant harmonic language, reminiscent in approach if not in technique of his F Minor Symphony from over a decade earlier, and for its inclusion of a tenor saxophone among the woodwinds. In several respects this symphony marks the beginning of Vaughan Williams’s experiments with orchestration that so characterise his late music. The symphony is in four linked movements (i.e. the movements lead straight into one another with no pause between them), and includes a number of ideas that return in various guises throughout the symphony, for example the use of simultaneous chords a half-step apart, or the short-short-long rhythmic figure.

The CD is completed with recordings of "In the Fen Country" for orchestra (1904) and the suite "On Wenlock Edge" (originally for tenor, piano and string quartet) with Ian Bostridge as the soloist.


Tracklist:
1. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 6 in E minor - 1. Allegro
2. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 6 in E minor - 2. Moderato
3. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 6 in E minor - 3. Scherzo: Allegro vivace
4. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 6 in E minor - 4. Epilogue: Moderato
5. Vaughan Williams: In the Fen Country
6. Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge - 1. On Wenlock Edge
7. Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge - 2. From far, from eve and morning
8. Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge - 3. Is my team ploughing?
9. Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge - 4. Oh, when I was in love wIth you
10. Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge - 5. Bredon Hill
11. Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge - 6. Clun


DOWNLOAD LINKS

Code: 

Download Link

password: haitink

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 7, "Sinfonia Antartica"

[IMG]http://*******.info/avaxhome/87/cb/0010cb87_medium.jpeg[/IMG]

Bernard Haitink, London Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir, Sheila Armstrong (soprano)
XLD | Apple Lossless (.m4a-tracks) | No Log/cue-sheet | Coverart Embedded & High-def JPEG | ~178 Mb
Classical | EMI CDC 7 47516 2


Sinfonia Antartica ("Antarctic Symphony") is the Italian title given by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams to his seventh Symphony. Vaughan Williams provided the music for the film Scott of the Antarctic in 1947, and was so inspired by the subject that he incorporated much of the music into a symphony. The piece was begun in 1949, and composition concluded in 1952. The first performance took place in 1953 in Manchester with Sir John Barbirolli conducting the Hallé Orchestra. The work is scored for a large orchestra including three flutes doubling piccolos, two oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, four percussionists (playing side drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, gong, bells, xylophone, glockenspiel, vibraphone, and wind machine), celesta, harp, piano, organ and strings. There is also a wordless three-part women's chorus and solo soprano, which sing only in the first and last movements.

Sometimes it almost seems as if the symphony was written specifically with Haitink in mind. The reading truly brings out the cold sense of otherworldliness the score needs - and of course the London Philharmonic players respond with magisterial playing, fully realizing the various bleak colors and changes in atmosphere (in particular in the last two movements). Sound quality is excellent as well.


Tracklist:
1. Prelude: Andante maestoso
2. Scherzo: Moderato
3. Landscape: Lento
4. Intermezzo: Andante sostenuto
5. Epilogue: Alla marcia, moderato (non troppo allegro)



DOWNLOAD LINKS

Code: 

Download Link

password: haitink

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 8 • Symphony No. 9

[IMG]http://*******.info/avaxhome/09/cc/0010cc09_medium.jpeg[/IMG]

Bernard Haitink, London Philharmonic Orchestra
XLD | Apple Lossless (.m4a-tracks) | No Log/cue-sheet | Coverart Embedded & High-def JPEG | ~311 Mb
Classical | EMI 57086


Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 8 in D minor was composed between 1953 and 1955. John Barbirolli conducted the premiere of the piece in 1956. It is the shortest of Vaughan Williams' nine symphonies yet is remarkably inventive, especially in the composer's experiments in sonority. Not only does he use a much-expanded percussion section, including "all the 'phones and 'spiels known to the composer" (as well as three tuned gongs, the same as were used in Puccini's Turandot), but the two central movements use only the wind section and string section respectively. Except for the slow movement and portions of the first movement, the overall mood of the symphony is light-hearted. The finale even carries this to the point of ending loudly: among his symphonies the Fourth symphony is the only other one to do so. The others all have quiet conclusions, often with the Vaughan Williams "fingerprint" niente.

The Symphony No. 9 in E Minor was written by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams from 1956 to 1957 and given its premiere performance in London by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent on April 2, 1958, in the composer's eighty-sixth year. It was subsequently performed on August 5, 1958 by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Malcolm Sargent at a Promenade Concert. It proved to be Vaughan Williams's last symphony: He died on the 26th of that August, the day that the symphony was due to be recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Adrian Boult.


Tracklist:
1. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 8 in d - 1. Fantasia (Variazioni senza tema): Moderato - Presto - Andante sostenuto - Allegretto - Andante non troppo - Allegro vivace - Andante sostenuto - Tempo I, ma tranquillo
2. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 8 in d - 2. Scherzo alla marcia (per stromenti a fiato): Allegro alla marcia - Andante - Tempo I (Allegro)
3. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 8 in d - 3. Cavatina (per stromenti ad arco): Lento espressivo
4. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 8 in d - 4. Toccata: Moderato maestoso
5. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9 in e - 1. Moderato maestoso
6. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9 in e - 2. Andante sostenuto
7. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9 in e - 3. Scherzo: Allegro pesante
8. Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9 in e - 4. Andante tranquillo


DOWNLOAD LINKS

Code: 

Download Link

password: haitink