Vaughan Williams: Fantasies; The Lark Ascending; Five Variants

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Marriner's evergreen 1972 recording of favorite shorter works by Vaughan Williams has yet to be surpassed for warmth of conception and smoothness of execution. The soloists in these accounts (among them William Bennett in the Greensleeves Fantasia and Iona Brown in the Lark Ascending) are all first-rate, and the Academy's strings play with polish and great beauty of sound. The analog recording is excellent, and Marriner's remarkable empathy for the music comes across effortlessly. Some listeners may prefer the richer sonority and arrestingly mystical manner of Marriner's 1993 digital remake of the Tallis Fantasia for Philips, but this disc offers the most desirable coupling of other works and remains a first choice for those interested in getting to know the composer's finest short essays. --Ted Libbey

Vaughan Williams: Fantasies; The Lark Ascending; Five Variants, Music, Kenneth Heath, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, William Bennett, Skaila Kanga, Stephen Shingles, Iona Brown, Trevor Connah, 20th/21st Century Orchestral Music, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Concerto, Orchestral, Violin Concerto

Vaughan Williams: Fantasies; The Lark Ascending; Five Variants
Average customer rating:

Iona Brown was very special

Superb

this England!

tallis and lark

smooth as silk

Vaughan Williams: Fantasies; The Lark Ascending; Five Variants

Manufacturer: Decca
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works

ASIN: B000004CVM
Release Date: 1990-10-25

Tracks:

Fantasia On A Theme By Thomas Tallis
Fantasia On Greensleeves
The Lark Ascending
Five Variants Of 'Dives And Lazarus'

Amazon.com

Marriner's evergreen 1972 recording of favorite shorter works by Vaughan Williams has yet to be surpassed for warmth of conception and smoothness of execution. The soloists in these accounts (among them William Bennett in the Greensleeves Fantasia and Iona Brown in the Lark Ascending) are all first-rate, and the Academy's strings play with polish and great beauty of sound. The analog recording is excellent, and Marriner's remarkable empathy for the music comes across effortlessly. Some listeners may prefer the richer sonority and arrestingly mystical manner of Marriner's 1993 digital remake of the Tallis Fantasia for Philips, but this disc offers the most desirable coupling of other works and remains a first choice for those interested in getting to know the composer's finest short essays. --Ted Libbey

Customer Reviews:

Iona Brown was very special.......2007-06-11

The Iona Brown recording of "Lark" here is famous in Britain and justifiably so. Brown, who died in 2004, grew up in the English countryside and had a deep experience of what Vaughan Williams was trying to capture. The rest of the CD is lush, crisp and wonderful -- the Academy's renowned strings at their early 70s peak. It's an analog recording (1972) and the sound is terrific. I don't think this recording has ever been out of print -- how many thousands of us owned the LP and bought the CD as soon as it came out.

Superb.......2007-03-16

This is an essential recording for any classical music collection. I've probably played this CD a thousand times, and I never grow tired of it. Wonderful music beautifully played - buy it.

this England!.......2006-12-14

It is perhaps impossible to hear Vaughan Williams' short works performed more beautifully and unforgettably than in this 1972 ADRM/Argo recording. Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields acquit themselves above reproach. Vaughan Williams - you love him or hate him - must be loved for his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, that haunting and almost religiously uplifting setting of Medieval plainsong that is capable of shifting a driver to the side of the road in open-jawed amazement at the sheer evocative beauty of it.

Greensleeves is emblematic of the English countryside and its melody, easily dismissed as the primped-up stuff of 'Rule Brittania' shops but so much more worthwhile than all that. Iona Brown's violin on 'The Lark Ascending' sounds as though crafted to play this piece once - enduringly- and then tossed like unused Eucharistic wine.

How, one wonders in aesthetic and rationally unguarded moments, could a nation that produced such music have lost an Empire? Or, more accurately, how could a people capable of such lyricism have done otherwise than believed - for an historical blink of an eye - in its own superiority?

That a coterie of *English* musicians should produce the definitive recording of these works is poetically appropriate.

That listeners of many tongues should listen and wonder at Williams' temperamental genius is simply a musical fact on the ground.

Begin Vaughan Williams with this recording. The rest are derivative.

tallis and lark.......2006-10-06

Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis was a piece of music John Williams discovered in a house of sorts during the war in a dresser.He loved to visit small villages to hear local music. This piece and Lark Ascending are, in my mind, the finest music ever written. I love Beethoven, Willie and Lobo, Miles Davis, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Nina Simone, Pat Metheny, Patrick O'Hearn, John Lee Hooker, I can go on. But it's these 2 pieces that completely consume the listener, pull you in and stop you dead in your thoughts....to dream. Lark Ascending was literally a piece of music written with the author watching a lark(bird) in a small, cozy valley rising up from the floor, singing all the way up. I have given away these CD's 6 and 7 times over because guests at my house are so touched after the music is over, especially after a jug of wine. Thank you for reading, Greg-Fresno, CA.

smooth as silk.......2006-09-30

I too fell for this music in college long ago, and carry it inside me everywhere I go. I have listened to Lark and Tallis many times when I was worried about school or work, and hum them in my mind when I need an emotional lift. Interesting comment about the Japanese connection -- when listening to Lark I sometimes imagine an English countryside with stream, and sometimes a Japanese.

Marriner is a genius at small orchestra. I like the famous Barbirolli version of Tallis too, but it was Marriner's I fell in love with. A great collection to own. If you love this, don't miss RVW's Serenade to Music on Hyperion - an awesome musical setting of Shakespeare that is as satisfying as Lark and Tallis.

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