Here’s Ralph Vaughan Williams, looking as miserable as you would imagine, being serenaded by the tuba. The composer wrote the first ever concerto for the instrument in 1954. A late and unusual work, the piece was dedicated to Philip Catelinet, principal tubist of the London Symphony Orchestra. “Glorious John” Barbirolli conducted the premiere. These are the forces heard on the work’s first recording. Listen here, for a tubby start to your Friday.
BONUS! Vaughan Williams’ “Romance for Harmonica,” composed in 1952.
Vaughan Williams seemed often to be in search of unusual timbres in his later years. Rather ironic, since by then he was severely deaf, the result of prolonged exposure to heavy artillery during World War I. But he was a true composer, a master of his craft, who didn’t have to hear what he wrote in order to know the sound. Moreover, as a pupil of Maurice Ravel, he never lost his sense of color.
Take for example the exotic percussion in the outer movements of his Symphony No. 8, composed in 1953-54. (The second movement is scored for brass and the third for strings alone.) It’s heard here in a superb performance from perhaps an unlikely source, given the pervasive claims that the music of this quintessentially English composer does not “travel.” Nobody told Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Or the insinuating saxophones and mysterious harps in the valedictory Symphony No. 9, written in 1956-57. Vaughan Williams died on the eve of the first recording session, with Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Boult’s brief eulogy appears at the beginning of this world premiere recording.
It’s extraordinary that a composer in his 80s would remain so vital and so full of invention. (RVW was 80 back when 80 was REALLY 80!) His symphonies, in particular, are among the greatest of the 20th century. And he never repeated himself. All nine have such a distinctive character, and there’s not a weak link in the bunch. Would that more of our music directors would get to know them.
