Vaughan Williams Through Others

 

That is what Dutton does best in Vaughan Williams.

Conductor Martin Yates, Stephen Hogger, and Gordon Jacob all put their hand to orchestrating Vaughan Williams' music.

Even if this music wasn't completely at the hand of RVW, gosh what beautiful music this is.

The incidental music of The Blue Bird is a terrific find, but each of these six works offer their own riches. Only David Matthews' completion of a Norfolk Rhapsody no. 3 seems out of place, but at least he makes it his own, rather than a pastiche of Vaughan Williams.

A review from 2023

Dutton Laboratories, along with Albion Records, have been recording a treasure trove of Vaughan Williams discoveries. This recording focuses mostly on the folk music side from the composer.

The incidental music for The Blue Bird is cinematic and engaging, a fun addition into the VW catalog. The Variations for Orchestra, originally for Brass Band, is a showstopper too, but one can hear the music of the work better here than in the virtuosic brass version on Albion.

The Music for an EFDS Masque and the Christmas Overture offer tune-laden goodness, all of which are in very high spirits. The Norfolk Rhapsodies inhabit the same tunefulness, but their spirit leans towards the melancholy. VW’s folk modalism is like a cold breeze through the heather on a sunny day; beautiful, but hard won and chilly.

With the exception of the first Norfolk Rhapsody, each of the works presented here have been edited, orchestrated, or completed from extant sources; orchestral parts, piano reductions, or program notes. While Gordon Jacob, Stephen Hogger, and Martin Yates do a wonderful job bringing this music to a full orchestra, it isn’t truly 100% RVW’s hand at work here; the notes are his, but the orchestral colors have been interpolated, or in the case of David Matthews, creating a fully reimagined third Norfolk Rhapsody.

But this is splendid sounding music in terrific performances from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The crisp and clear Dutton sound is one of the best in the Vaughan Williams series; listen to that harp! Martin Yates is a dedicated advocate of Vaughan Williams’ music, and it shows in each of these entries.

Works
Ralph Vaughan Williams
    The Blue Bird (15.29)
    Norfolk Rhapsody 1 (11.42)
    Norfolk Rhapsody 2 (10.04)
    Variations for Orchestra (12.17)
    Music for an EFDS Masque (12.39)
    Christmas Overture (3.25)

David Matthews
    Norfolk March (10.10)

Ensembles
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Martin Yates, conductor

Label: Dutton
Year: 2018
Timing: 76.38

Gorgeous music played gorgeously.

And a goodly amount of music too! Kudos to Martin Yates for continually bringing rarities to listeners.

Purists should know, much of this music has been orchestrated by others, rather than Vaughan Williams himself.