Having broadcast his recordings with The English Concert for all these years, I’d always regarded Andrew Manze as a Baroque specialist. In fact, he studied violin with Ton Koopman and Simon Standage. How pleased I am, then, to see him blossom into such an ardent champion of the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose symphonies he’s recorded with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra for the Onyx label (though I confess I have yet to hear his interpretations).
Here’s an appreciation of RVW he wrote this week for The Guardian. So shameful that Vaughan Williams is receiving so little love in the U.S. during his sesquicentennial year.
“I have been lucky enough to perform his music outside the UK and see how it touches and speaks to musicians and audiences who know nothing of its cultural roots. The most common reaction to hearing one of the symphonies is a sort of bemused appetite for more: how many of these ARE there? Why didn’t we know them already?”