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Last Modified : 9-2-2008
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Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music · Five Mystical Songs · Fantasia on Christmas Carols...
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JazzDigger Home > W - Jazz Artists > Roger Williams > Item 5
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Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music · Five Mystical Songs · Fantasia on Christmas Carols...
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by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Matthew Best, Thomas Allen, Nobuko Imai, and English Chamber Orchestra
Sales Rank: 29480
Price:$23.98
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Album Details
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1. Serenade To Music
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2. Serenade To Music: Five Mystical Songs - Easter
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3. Serenade To Music: Five Mystical Songs - I Got Me Flowers
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4. Serenade To Music: Five Mystical Songs - Love Bade Me Welcome
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5. Serenade To Music: Five Mystical Songs - The Call
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6. Serenade To Music: Five Mystical Songs - Antiphon
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7. Serenade To Music: Fantasia On Christmas Carols
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8. Serenade To Music: Flos Campi
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Listener Reviews & Comments
The best thing about this recording is the composite selection of this music on a single disc. The Corydon Singers, and particularly Thomas Allen (he of legendary career!) are quite fine, though quirkily I prefer John Shirley-Quirk's version of 'Five Mystical Songs' with Kings College Choir, especially his 'Love Bade Me Welcome' with its magnificent rendering of the last words "and I did sit and eat", which once heard will never forsake your memory. The spare yet intensely textured sound of the Corydon Singers is best suited to the diaphanous 'Serenade to Music'. Vaughan Williams' ability to set a text like no one else is a perfect partner to Shakespeare's arching mastery of the English language! It's a superb piece basically ignored in this country, as are most of VW's symphonies except for the ubiquitous No. 2. When have you heard an American orchestra perform the inventive Eighth or the redemptive Fifth? I agree that Boult's recordings of VW's music are a fine standard, &his 'Serenade' is especially fine, but this recording flourishes. Matthew Best gives space and reason to the beautiful ambience of the score. Flos Campi is well done here with Nobuko Imai's viola playing free of affectation as always, displaying an unpretentious mastery of the score. The 'Fantasia' (one of VW's favorite musical motives, even when not properly so called!) demonstrates Vaughan Williams' true veneration of the English hymn tune, a fetching gift that annointed all of us throughout his composing career, and perhaps more than anything secured for him a place in the pantheon of great composers. This is a successful disc of masterworks of an often misunderstood and certainly under-performed composer. The English Chamber Orchestra enjoys one subtle triumph after another in this recording - the strings are beautifully recorded, as is the singing. If it had been designed as a 2-disc effort and included 'Benedictus', the 'Mass in G', 'Sancta Civitas', and 'The Lark Ascending', we'd have close to a set of VW's essential choral and smaller orchestral works in one package!
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Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music · Five Mystical Songs · Fantasia on Christmas Carols...
by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Matthew Best, Thomas Allen, Nobuko Imai, and English Chamber Orchestra
Price:$23.98
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|
