Vaughan Williams - Symphonies 4, 5 & 6

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)

Symphony No. 5 in D major
(First Recording)

The Hallé Orchestra / Sir John Barbirolli

(HMV, recorded in the Houldsworth Hall,
Manchester, February 17, 1944 in
association with The British Council)

Symphony No. 5 in D major

Philharmonia Orchestra / Sir John Barbirolli

(Angel-EMI, 1962)

Symphony No. 4 in F minor

New York Philharmonic / Dimitri Mitropoulos

(originally recorded by Columbia, 1956)

Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
for Double String Orchestra

The Strings of the New York Philharmonic
Dimitri Mitropoulos

(originally recorded by Columbia, 1958)

Symphony No. 6 in E minor
(First Recording)

New York Philharmonic / Leopold Stokowski

(originally recorded by Columbia, 1949)

(compilation, Sony, 1993)

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The Fifth Symphony of Vaughan Williams was written at the height of World War II and is flanked by two highly contrasting works - the Fourth (1935) and the Sixth (begun 1944).

I'm aware that it might not be such "good form" ("manners", "PR", "PC" or whatever...) to remind people of things they'd probably rather just escape from with some good Mozart (or whatever else one prefers) by bringing up the matter of the state of "endless war" we find ourselves immersed in.

While it's necessary to escape now and then - it's also not bad to occasionally "face the music", so to speak. There are no more composers like Vaughan Williams to write for us a symphony such as the Fifth - to help us, as it were, to envision an end to the endlessness. In short: if these works don't speak to us now, it's possible that they never will.

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The notes which accompany the Fourth and Sixth Symphonies concerning what "intentions" Vaughan Williams may or may not have had with his "trilogy" are definitely worth some thought.

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Note: The transfer of the 1944 recording of the Fifth is a new one with many hours of work behind it. In the meantime (after uploading the previous version), I've acquired a new stylus which has allowed me to reach a result much closer to my original idea.

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Transfers of LP, 78 rpm and digital material. Includes covers, labels and notes.