Vaughan Williams - Symphony 6 [Previn-London Symphony Orchestra]Again here's Vaughan Williams's Sixth Symphony, i admit that i have been a late developer to this Symphony, only in the last two years have i really listened to it, and i'm still not that greatly familiar with the work, so it's a nice revelation to hear something fairly 'new' each time i hear this work.
My thoughts are directed at the last time i reviewed this Symphony with Davis a few months ago [20th February 2010], and the same feelings i've had on this listen, however this time i was very impressed with the opening of the Symphony, it's composed in E Minor, but the whole thing is somewhat ambiguous, it doesn't want to settle anywhere, it seems all the elements of the orchestra are warring with each other, strings/woodwind/brass/percussion seem to all want to stamp out their own tune at the expense of everyone else, certainly a movement of chaos, it starts off loud and brash, something to shock you out of your seat [0:00-1:23], the strings try to carve out a melody, but end up in a war with the high brass, the middle brass has some nice 'stabbings' [0:29+ & 0:38+], while the lower brass mumble out and mirror the string tune [1:06-1:23], what an opening!, full of chaos, it's like a zoo, but all the animals are in the same cage!, then after a link comes the jolly disjointed galloping theme [1:45-5:04], basically in three parts, all of the orchestra fight it out, but the first is mainly given to the woodwind [1:45-3:08], the second to the strings [3:14-4:32], and the third to the brass [4:33-5:04], towards the end there's a nice pastoral moment [6:09-7:24], it starts on the saxophone [6:09+], the harps strum in [6:17+], and the lower strings sing out this doleful yet peaceful tune [6:20-6:54], and the higher strings send the music into powerful realms [6:54-7:24], a very inventive and revolutionary movement from RVW that i'm coming to terms with.
Here's Adrian Boult conducting the opening movement on YouTube.
