Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz & Karl-Heinz Steffens

• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958):
• 1 The Poisoned Kiss: Overture 06:43
• 2 Fantasia on Sussex Folk Tunes 11:54
• 3 Bucolic Suite: I. Allegro 04:13
• 4 Bucolic Suite: II. Andante 06:51
• 5 Bucolic Suite: III. Intermezzo. Allegretto 04:09
• 6 Bucolic Suite: IV. Finale. Allegro 06:03
• 7 In the Fen Country 15:27
• 8 3 Portraits from the England of Elizabeth: No. 1, Explorer 04:19
• 9 3 Portraits from the England of Elizabeth: No. 2, Poet 07:01
• 10 3 Portraits from the England of Elizabeth: No. 3, Queen 05:18
• Total Runtime 01:11:58

Info for Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works

Around the beginning of the 20th century, Ralph Vaughan Williams, together with his friend Gustav Holst, deliberately began to free his compositional style from ‘German influences’, moving towards a more British musical style and finding inspirational models in English folk music. Most of the works recorded here are lesser-known pieces by the composer, but each clearly reflects Vaughan Williams' uniquely personal style.

"The finest playing is by the finest material: In the Fen Country confirms its standing as the first Vaughan Williams's quiet masterworks, here graced with beautifully sure solo and ensemble playing to match." (BBC Music Magazine)

"The majority of recordings of music by Ralph Vaughan Williams are English or American, and as the booklet to this Capriccio release observes, he has never really entered the Central European repertory. That makes the offering here by the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz under Karl-Heinz Steffens doubly notable. First, the album's strong performance on British sales charts, among buyers who have plenty of domestic product to choose from, might be taken as a seal of approval. Second, and more important, Steffens delves into some works that aren't exactly part of the common run even in Britain, and that must have been all but unknown to his German players. The idiomatic results are thus impressive, and there are a few real finds. Sample the Andante slow movement of the Bucolic Suite, a compact piece of lyricism that shows the influence of Dvorák on the young composer (the work dates from 1900) yet has the flavor of the composer's pastoral idiom to come. In the Fen Country, from four years later, expands on the ideas of the earlier work. Two works of the 1920s open the program, the overture to the opera The Poisoned Kiss and a fine Fantasia on Sussex Folk Tunes for solo and orchestra, played with just the right lilt by solo cellist Martin Rummel. Only the final Three Portraits from "The England of Elizabeth," taken from the score of a 1955 film by that name, falls short with its hackneyed musical depictions of Sir Francis Drake ("Explorer"), Shakespeare ("Poet"), and Elizabeth herself ("Queen"). This is an offbeat release that might become part of any serious Vaughan Williams library." (James Manheim, AMG)

Martin Rummel, cello
Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz
Karl-Heinz Steffens, conductor

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This album contains no booklet.