Page 452 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

Ascending (which is also here) for years held court as the coupling on a
Boult-conducted LP of the Sixth Symphony. It can be heard in all its pristine
awe on CD9. Among the other chamber works there are two really good
readings of the two string quartets but each by different ensembles.

As I have implied, the Handley symphony cycle is soundly chosen and
imaginatively delivered. If the fancy takes you, alternative cycles worth
trying include the Hickox (largely achieved before that conductor’s death) on
Chandos. The individual Hickox CDs are worth tracking down as they include
neglected RVW fare and unfamiliar versions. These add-ons (not meant to
demean) are otherwise the section of the RVW catalogue done with much
spirit and style by Albion, Dutton and EM Records.

Symphony cycles now proliferate. Some are complete; others are en route
towards complete or are ‘in fragment’. I still find much to enthuse about
in Previn’s 1960s effort which was contemporary with Boult’s. Much later,
and as a purgative and fresh choice, try Rozhdestvensky on Melodiya if you
can find it. Easier to source is Leonard Slatkin’s cycle of nine on RCA-BMG.
Vaughan Williams spent much time in the USA and I would listen also to
some other US recordings: Abravanel’s wonderful Dona and Symphony 6,
Bernstein’s and Mitropoulos’s 6th and Stokowski’s Ninth. His Fourth is also
worth your ear-time as is that by the composer. Kees Bakels did not record
all nine but his Naxos set is not to be sniffed at and neither is Haitink’s.
Speaking of other discs (not the symphonies) I single out a very
miscellaneous and some would say ‘bitty’ but thoroughly beguiling set from
the early 2000s from Chandos.

Sargent's Tallis Fantasia is now approaching 65 years old. However, it sounds
fine and while it lacks Barbirolli's rapt intensity and ecstatic concentration it
is no mean thing … if slightly hurried. Tempi can be an issue with Sargent but
he has a sumptuous way with symphonies 6 and 9 - the latter of which he
premiered in 1958. Try to hear the new Somm CD of those two symphonies.
If you catch the RVW-Sargent ‘bug’ then you are catered for by the Sargent
box which has an abundant slice of “studio” RVW on CD11 in Warner’s
Icon boxed set: The Wasps: Overture; Greensleeves Fantasia, Tallis
Fantasia, Serenade to Music, Toward the Unknown Region (an early foray
into Walt Whitman that used to be found on a very early CFP LP) and
the Harmonica Romance written for Larry Adler. Sargent’s pioneering 1920s
extracts from the ballad opera Hugh the Drover (a feeble work once issued
on a Pearl LP) are side-stepped. Speaking of the operas the Poisoned
Kiss (actually very entertaining and winsome) can only be had on Chandos
(Hickox) but Pilgrim’s Progress is there complete in the New Edition (and the
old), as is Sir John in Love - a most comely work which often
outpoints Pilgrim which in any event is less an opera and more of ‘A morality’
as the composer termed it. A shame that nothing can be done to realise
RVW’s Thomas The Rhymer which was left incomplete on the composer’s
death.

Barbirolli recordings of several of the symphonies (2, 6 and 8 amongst them)