Concertgebouw to hear its first VW 5
OrchestrasWe understand that next Wednesday’s concert of the Tallis Fantasia and Fifth Symphony will be the first time the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams has ever been performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra.
(Possibly excepting the odd matinee of the Lark Ascending).
Credit to conductor Andrew Manze for bringing off this act of enlightenment to the slow-moving Dutch.
Programme here.
UPDATE: We were misinformed about the absence of VW at the C’bouw. However, this will be the first time his 5th symphony is performed there.
As a regular concert -goer in Israel from the late 80th, I also can’t recall a performance of any VW symphony by the IPO. I am a recent concert to this great music, it is really time for orchestras outside the UK to start performimg them regularly: I think many of them are appropriate listening for our troubled times.
They’ve played the RVW Tuba Concerto – and recorded it
This is not true, the Tallis is played very often and also the symphonies 3 and 6 are performed, as well as the Tuba Concerto
It was still funny 😉
What a naive article. You really should do some research before you publish this. VW’s music was played by the CG Orchestra under Monteux, Bould, Van Beinum, Krips, Haitink, Norrington, etc
In 2019 they performed the Vaughan Williams Tuba Concerto, with principal tubist Perry Hoogendijk and conducted by Dima Slobodeniouk. They recently released this on a digital download on their RCO Live label.
1924 Pierre Monteux conducted the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis with the RCO.
1925 Adrian Boult conducted Ouverture ‘The wasps’ with the RCO
1925 Pierre Monteux conducted
Symfonie nr. 2
A London symphony with the RCO
1947 Adrian Boult conducted
Job
masque for dancing with the RCO
1948 Eduard van Beinum conducted the 6th Symphony with the RCO.
2004, Roger Norrington conducted the Pastoral Symphony with the RCO
The Tuba concerto has been performed.
Seriously? This is absolute nonsense! Check the concert archive on the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s website! I counted over 30 concerts featuring music by Vaughan Williams going back to 1924 when Pierre Monteux conducted the Tallis Fantasia. The list of works that have been performed there is not exclusive to his hits such as the Fantasia and The Lark Ascending. The orchestra has also performed Job, a masque for dancing, The Wasps overture, In Windsor Forest, the London Symphony to mention just a few.
If anything it’s surprising they haven’t performed his music more often considering how much Haitink championed his music (and recorded the complete symphonies with the LPO). Here he is conducting that orchestra in a performance of the Tallis Fantasia at the Concerrtgebouw back in 1973 https://ntr.nl/NTR-ZaterdagMatinee/88/detail/NTR-ZaterdagMatinee—uit-het-archief/RBX_NTR_546299
This is total nonsense. If you had looked for a second in the archives of the Concertgebouw Orchestra you would have seen that this is not true. They played the 2nd Symphony with Monteux in 1925. More recently the 3rd Symphony with Norrington was on the program. And a few years ago they played the tuba concerto. Next time, look here first: https://archief.concertgebouworkest.nl/nl/archief/zoeken/ There you will also see that they have never played The Lark Ascending.
As a follow up to my last comment, they released a recording of the Tuba Concerto in June this year!!!
https://dima-slobodeniouk.com/recordings/vaughan-williams-tuba-concerto/
It would be interesting to see how often UK orchestras have performed the symphonic works of say Hendrik Andriessen, whose music certainly brings to mind Vaughan Williams.
This was released earlier this year. Not sure recordings count, but it certainly is Vaughan Williams.
https://www.warnerclassics.com/release/vaughan-williams-tuba-concerto
This is not the first VW performed by the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. On June 21, 1925 Adrian Boult conducted the Wasps Overture. On January 29 and 30, 1947 he conducted Job. Information obtained from Nigel Simeone’s excellent book “Ralph Vaughan Williams and Adrian Boult.” There were probably other conductors too.
A cursory glance at the Concertgebouworkest archive (https://archief.concertgebouworkest.nl/en/archive/search/) reveals that the music of Vaughan Williams has been performed in 32 concerts since Pierre Monteux conducted Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis in 1924, almost 100 years ago.
Well, not really….from Pierre Monteux in the 20s, over Van Beinum, Boult, Krips ,Haitink(a great VW interpreter!!!), Vandernoot to Norrington( whose Pastoral Symphony i remember hearing on the radio)…..,Vaughan Williams has been played over the years more often by the RCO than by the Berlin or Vienna philharmonic.
Andrew Manze recently (23 June) conducted VW5 with the WDR Orchestra in Dortmund. Perhaps he is on a crusade to promote VW to European orchestras?
And his wonderful music is certainly not a clapped-out version of the old peoples’ car – the most mean, unsafe, uncomfortable containment unit with lawn-mower engine that was ever invented. Except, perhaps the Trabant. At least the latter knew what it was; it had no aspirations about actually being a car. More like a school science project.