Page 457 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

done, but a moment of inattention from the principal cellist at the beginning
of the passage produces an F sharp where an F natural is required (and
against an F natural in the first violins!) What’s one wrong note in a 45-
minute symphony? Nothing much, I suppose, but it is horribly audible and
couldn’t occur at a worse moment. The work proceeds to a radiant, well-
managed close thereafter, but on repeated listening we wait with gritted
teeth for this unfortunate event.

Robert Spano/Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, 2006 (Telarc)
This performance is superbly well played and recorded, though some may
find a certain sheen to the strings almost approaching hardness. I wonder,
though, if this wasn’t also a reaction on my part to the performance as well.
One has the impression that the conductor is concerned to avoid any
accusation of pastoral meandering in the work. The result is that the faster
passages tend to work better than the rest. The most successful movement
is the scherzo, at least as far as the gorgeous string passage just before the
end which lacks the tenderness and yearning other conductors have found.
The opening of the finale is just right, the tempo perfectly judged and the
music smiling and slightly boisterous, a delightful effect. Later in the
movement, however, the conductor seems unwilling to relax, and the louder,
faster passages are forceful indeed, so that the Epilogue seems like
something tagged on, not at all the natural culmination of the piece,
beautifully played though it is. There is a nervousness in the pulse at the
opening of the symphony which creates a restless atmosphere which seems
at odds with the composer’s intentions. The middle section of this first
movement is rapid and strong but calm does not return with the opening
music as we expect it to. This is perhaps a valid view, as this music leads,
after all, to the main climax of the movement. Whether it will convince
Vaughan Williams enthusiasts is another question, which we might also ask
in respect of some massive holding back at climactic points in the following
passage. There are some strange changes of tempo and variations of pulse in
the Romanza too, and the conductor’s decision when the main theme
appears for the second time to ask his unison string players to play forte (at
least) when the marking is pianissimo seems perverse. Either way I don’t
hear the purity and devotion so typical of Bunyan and Vaughan Williams
here.

Martin Yates/Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, 2011 (Dutton
Epoch)
Martin Yates’s performance was announced as Vaughan Williams’s Fifth
Symphony, in a ‘New Edition’. Oxford University Press was engaged in a
major overhaul of its Vaughan Williams publications, cleaning them up and
correcting errors in the scores and performing material, and the Fifth was
one of the first works to receive this treatment. Differences are minor, and
most listeners will not notice them. I discuss in my original article the
copyist’s error in the slow movement where the timpani are placed a bar
adrift from the rest of the orchestra. I am still not convinced about this,