Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5 in NJ!

What a lovely surprise! I just got an email yesterday from the New Jersey Festival Orchestra announcing its 2023-24 season, and what should be on the very first set of concerts, but Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5! My favorite Vaughan Williams symphony! (Also on the program, another Fifth Symphony by some guy named Beethoven.) Needless to say, I purchased my ticket immediately. There will be two performances, at St. Helen’s Church in Westfield (on Friday, October 6, at 7 pm) and Drew University Concert Hall in Madison (on Sunday, October 8, at 3 pm). David Wroe will conduct.

Vaughan Williams’ radiant Fifth Symphony was an unexpected beacon of hope composed during the darkest days of World War II (1938-1943). Some of the musical ideas were carried over from his work on the long-gestating opera “The Pilgrim’s Progress.”

The symphony is dedicated to another one of my all-time favorites, Jean Sibelius. When Sibelius heard the work in Stockholm, conducted by Malcolm Sargent, he wrote, “This symphony is a marvelous work… the dedication made me feel proud and grateful… I wonder if Dr. Williams has any idea of the pleasure he has given me?”

It’s interesting that Vaughan Williams, a self-professed agnostic (whose stance softened from a youthful atheism), often proved to be such a spiritual composer. Those in the audience at the symphony’s premiere, with the 70-year-old RVW conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, emerged from Royal Albert Hall fortified and prepared to face whatever challenges the future might throw their way.

I can’t wait to luxuriate in this masterpiece, which I have only heard in person twice over my decades of concert-going – with André Previn and the Curtis Orchestra in Philadelphia in 1995 and Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra at the Bard Music Festival in 2011. It was performed by the Chicago Symphony last season, but to fly to Chicago for a concert, for me, would have been an extravagance.

Interestingly, a couple of quick Google searches reveal performances of the Fifth this season with the Baltimore and Utah Symphonies. Perhaps others? As always, I ask that you keep your antennae up, and if you learn of any Vaughan Williams performances, especially within a three-hour radius of Princeton, please let me know!

Thank you, New Jersey Festival Orchestra!

For the complete NJFO season, look here:

https://www.njfestivalorchestra.org/concerts

September 2, 2023
Byron Adams on Vaughan Williams & Bard

I just concluded a lively 40-minute conversation with composer and musicologist Byron Adams, emeritus professor at the University of California, Riverside, and artist-in-residence at this year’s recently-concluded Bard Music Festival.

Byron, an authority on the life and music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, co-edited (with Daniel M. Grimley) the festival’s tie-in book of scholarly essays, “Vaughan Williams and His World,” issued by University of Chicago Press.

I thank him for his time and generosity in sharing a few of his thoughts, in so doing, allowing me a stronger foundation on which to construct an article about the festival for an upcoming edition of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal.

August 29, 2023
Leon Botstein on Vaughan Williams at Bard

Profoundest thanks to Leon Botstein, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra, founder and music director of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), and president of Bard College, very generous with his time this morning in discussing the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, along with a great many other things, in connection with an article I am preparing on this year’s Bard Music Festival.

Botstein is co-artistic director of the festival, which completed its 33rd season on Sunday. He possesses an enviable combination of traits and talents, not least of which include intellectual curiosity, clearness of purpose, and an uncanny ability to trace baroque lines of thought through a network of arabesques while somehow never losing sight of his conclusions. The whole process is rather breathtaking, I must say. He plants his landings like an Olympic gymnast.

He also seems genuinely interested in getting to know his interviewer. It’s not the first time we spoke, but I walk away feeling as if the conversation was nearly as much about me as it was him. Of course, I won’t be appearing in the article.

Thanks again, President Botstein. Looking forward to “Berlioz and His World” at Bard in 2024!

Fisher Center at Bard

August 15, 2023
Bard Music Festival Finale: Vaughan Williams & Falstaff

My long visit with Uncle Ralph is winding down. But still two concerts to go!

The final chamber concert of this year’s Bard Music Festival will commence at 11:00 this morning (with a pre-concert talk at 10:30). “Vaughan Williams’ Legacy” will include works by Ruth Gipps, Michael Tippett, Samuel Barber (who Vaughan Williams met while lecturing at Bryn Mawr), Peggy Glanville-Hicks, and Constant Lambert. RVW himself will be represented by his last major instrumental work, the Violin Sonata in A minor.

The festival will conclude this afternoon with a semi-staged performance of the Falstaff opera “Sir John in Love,” after Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” That’s the one for which RVW set “Greensleeves.” The opera begins at 3:00 (with a pre-concert talk at 2:00). “Sir John” will be livestreamed. If you’re interested, you’ll find information at the link.

https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/program-eleven-vaughan-williams-and-shakespeare-sir-john-in-love/

More thoughts soon. Last night’s concert, with the “Sinfonia Antartica” [sic], was a stunner!

Fisher Center at Bard

August 13, 2023
Bard Music Festival Serendipity: Vaughan Williams & More

Another serendipitous reunion at the Bard Music Festival: for Saturday night’s concert, who else should be sitting in my row, but Warren Cohen, music director of the MusicaNova Orchestra!

The orchestra is based in Phoenix, Arizona, but Warren makes his home in New Jersey, which is why he was able to make the trip down to the studios of Princeton University’s WPRB, to share with me his experiences with English composer Richard Arnell and his works (of which he has conducted many), for Arnell’s centenary in 2017. It was an all-Arnell morning, which featured several of Warren’s recordings with his orchestra. I feel comfortable stating that Warren is a huge advocate of unusual and neglected repertoire, with a special fondness for English music. Remind you of anyone?

Anyway, here we are during intermission on Saturday, Warren, holding a copy of the lavish Bard Music Festival program, and me, with this year’s tie-in volume of scholarly essays, “Vaughan Williams and His World,” published by University of Chicago Press.

The concert itself was a Vaughan Williams enthusiast’s dream, featuring “Job, A Masque for Dancing” (with projections of William Blake’s artwork), the Concerto for Two Pianos (with soloists Danny Driver and Piers Lane), and the turbulent Symphony No. 4. Leon Botstein conducted The Orchestra Now (TŌN). Good luck ever hearing “Job” in the United States, or the concerto anywhere!

The Bard Music Festival will resume this weekend at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, with a couple of special supplementary events taking place at Church of the Messiah in Rhinebeck on Thursday evening and Friday afternoon.

Impending highlights from Bard’s marathon programs will include Vaughan Williams’ “Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus,” “Flos Campi,” and “The Lark Ascending” (alongside works by Edward Elgar, Grace Williams, Peter Warlock, Frederick Delius, and Gustav Holst, on Friday evening), the String Quartet No. 2 (alongside works by Gordon Jacob, Robert Müller-Hartmann, Egon Wellesz, Arnold Bax, Howard Ferguson, Béla Bartók, Edmund Rubbra, and a Bach transcription by Harriet Cohen, on Saturday afternoon), the Symphony No. 8 and “Sinfonia Antartica” (alongside works by Elizabeth Maconchy, William Walton, and Jean Sibelius, on Saturday evening), the Violin Sonata in A minor (alongside works by Ruth Gipps, Michael Tippett, Samuel Barber, Peggy Glanville-Hicks, and Constant Lambert, on Sunday morning), and the Falstaff opera “Sir John in Love” (Sunday afternoon).

Some of the concerts will be livestreamed. You’ll find the complete schedule here:

https://fishercenter.bard.edu/whats-on/programs/bard-music-festival/

Fisher Center at Bard

Warren Cohen conducts Richard Arnell’s Symphony No. 4:

Warren joins me in 2017 to talk about Arnell on WPRB:

MusicaNova’s website:

https://musicanovaaz.org/

Who else will I encounter at Bard?

August 10, 2023

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