A Survey of Vaughan Williams Symphony Cycles

An Index of ionarts Discographies

Continuing my discographies, this is a survey of – hopefully – every extant recorded cycle of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphonies. As opposed to the nine symphonies of Beethoven’s, where the survey (so far only the alphabetical index) covers nearly 200 cycles, there are 'only' about 15 such cycles of Vaughan Williams’ Symphonies out – and that’s counting four projects still ongoing. Still, that isn’t so bad, given the rather limited appeal RVW enjoys outside the Anglo realm of the classical music scene.

I have myself struggled with Vaughan Williams, always wanting to like him more than I end up doing… except for the grand opening of the First Symphony, of course, where the grand “Behold –––– THE SEA” etches itself into the memory of every listener on first exposure. (By and large I find the symphonies of Malcolm Arnold rather more memorable, actually.) Naturally, I have been reluctant to accept blame myself and have instead sought refuge in more, new recordings. By way of thus coping with my RVW-deficiency (eventually sniggling a decent amount of Vaughan Williams appreciation (Tony Palmer’s moving – if slow-moving – film Oh Though Transcendent helped a lot), I’ve gathered many more Vaughan Williams cycles on my shelves than, say, Tchaikovsky, to mention someone presumably more popular with a comparable output (disc-spread wise). Favorites are denoted with the ionarts symbol and links to reviews on ClassicsToday and MusicWeb Intl. are included where available.

I am sitting on the data for several new discographic entries under work. Ring cycles, Mahler-, Nielsen-, Martinů- and Schubert-symphony-cycles, as well as Bartók string quartet-cycles. They just take an awful lot of time to research and then put into html-presentable shape and even then they are rarely complete or mistake free. This one won’t be, either, and as such every one of these posts is also a plea to generously inclined readers with more information and knowledge of the subject than I have to lend a helping hand correcting my mistakes or filling data-lacunae. I am explicitly grateful for any such pointers, hinters, and corrections and apologize for any bloomers. Either in the comment section below or, better still, via Twitter. Unlike some earlier discographies, this one does intend to be comprehensive. So I am especially grateful if sets that I have missed are pointed out to me. With several hundred links in this document, there are, despite my best efforts, bound to be some that are broken or misplaced; I am glad about every correction that comes my way about those, too.

At the time of writing this up, there were several cycles underway. Mark Elder/Hallé Orchestra (on their own label) was the first to finish and has been added. Andrew Manze/Royal Liverpool PO/Onyx is done and was just added (see below). Which leaves the Michael Brabbins/BBC SO/hyperion cycle, which appears to be awaiting its final installement (as of Jan 2023). Andrew Davis and his Bergen Philharmonic, meanwhile, have added the missing Seventh and Ninth Symphonies to the incomplete Hickox cycle.

Edit 01/20/23:The survey has been updated to include Manze's cycle and the new release of the combined Hickox/Davis cycle. Brabbins Cycle will be finished when his last installment hits the market on March 3rd, 2023. The volumes so far are being added to the survey until then. Also added: The Boult Decca Legacy on Eloquence which includes that cycle

The musical participants, where known, are listed in the following order: Soprano, baritone, chorus for the Sea Symphony. Soprano for the Pastoral Symphony. Soprano, speaker, chorus (only where differing from No.1) for the Sinfonia antartica [sic] (where applicable). Graphic depictions for the ClassicsToday, Surprised-by-Beauty, and ionarts recordings of choice.

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St. Paul's Cathedral Choir

Canticles, St. Paul's Cathedral Choir, S. Johnson, A. Carwood (Hyperion, 2014)

Washington National Cathedral plays host to visiting English choirs from time to time, this year in a three-part festival that began last fall, with a concert by the Westminster Abbey Choir. This spring brought the Choir of King's College, Cambridge (last month, not reviewed), and the Choir of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, heard on Sunday evening. While this series of events has celebrated the beautiful musical tradition of the church choir of men and boys, a wistful feeling permeated the evening, as institutions that support such choirs, like Washington National Cathedral, struggle to remain financially solvent in the face of declining membership.

What remains unshakable is the beauty of the Victorian and Edwardian repertory that is the bread and butter of this choir. Settings of the grand Anglican translations of old liturgical texts like Vaughan Williams's Te Deum in G, the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis of Stanford's Evening Service in G, and John Ireland's Greater Love were robust, soaring, space-filling in the best way, the score or so of boys' voices on the top part balanced against the other three parts sung by a dozen men. As the Westminster Abbey Choir had done, Parry's epic, soupy-sentimental anthem I Was Glad represented the best of English royal ceremonial, evoked for the Anglophile royal fantasists in the crowd. Unlike the Westminster choir, the contemporary pieces on this program were not of the same quality: Will Todd's banal anthem The Call of Wisdom, the worst kind of Rutteresque Hallmarkiana, complete with the absurd use of the Zimbelstern stop; and Nico Muhly's repetitive but more effective Grief Is the Price We Pay for Love. Organist Simon Johnson had solid turns on two solo pieces, but William Walton's Orb and Scepter march cannot help but sound corny now, as understated and subtle as a circus calliope.

Other Reviews: Grace Jean, A triumphant return across the pond (Washington Post, April 28)

The first half opened with much older music, Latin motets by Tallis and Byrd interspersed among the movements of Byrd's Mass for Four Voices. This music was written for the Catholic liturgy, often sung by small groups for Catholics in hiding from Anglican persecution, an association that was acknowledged in carefully couched terms by Andrew Carwood, the choir's director of music. In fact, as hinted at in the choir's program notes, Byrd embeds a reference to this fact in the Credo section of this Mass: at the words "Et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam," Byrd has the voices repeat the word "Catholicam" insistently, the only place where a single word is repeated in this way, as if to underscore belief in one holy, catholic -- Catholic! -- and apostolic church. This more austere music, unaccompanied, did not sit as comfortably for the choir, which experienced some minor rhythmic misalignments here and there, and Byrd's high writing (the tenors soar up to B-flat with the rising line at "ascendit in caelum") brought out some stridency in the adult voices. On the other hand, the Kyrie and Sanctus movements were gorgeous in their subtle soft textures, and the Gregorian hymn Ecce tempus idoneum, sung in alternation with Tallis's organ setting of the tune, was a most memorable accompaniment to the entrance of the choir from the narthex.

Peter Oundjian in Technicolor

Musorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, P. Oundjian (TSO, 2008)

Charles T. Downey, Guest conductor sets a fast tempo for Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (Washington Post, April 20)

It can be a fine line between energetic enthusiasm and manic excess, especially with the sonic resources of the modern orchestra brought to bear. In his guest appearance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on Saturday evening in the Music Center at Strathmore, conductor Peter Oundjian seemed to aim for the former but sometimes ended up with the latter.

Starting with a Haydn symphony, No. 96 in D (“Miracle”), instead of an overture was an idea that should be encouraged... [Continue reading]

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
With Peter Oundjian (conductor) and Katherine Needleman (oboe)
Music Center at Strathmore

SEE ALSO:
Tim Smith, BSO produces colorful 'Pictures' with Peter Oundjian (Baltimore Sun, April 18)

Charles T. Downey, Oundjian with the BSO (Ionarts, May 25, 2012)

Cantus Radio Drama, 'All Is Calm'

Charles T. Downey, A cappella choir Cantus offers a radio-drama-like re-creation in ‘Christmas Truce of 1914’ (Washington Post, December 7, 2013)

All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, Cantus, Theater Latté Da

The search for a Christmas-themed concert without all those tiresome holiday chestnuts continues each December. The a cappella choir Cantus presented an intriguing solution to this problem Thursday night in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. “All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914,” presented by the Fortas Chamber Music series, is a radio-drama-like re-creation of that Christmas night during World War I that brought German and British soldiers together in no man’s land.

This historical episode has featured as an affecting vignette before, in Steven Spielberg’s film “War Horse,” for example, but it was not clear that it could be adapted to fill an evening. [Continue reading]

All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914
Cantus and Theater Latté Da
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

SVILUPPO:
The aim of this recreation, like all retellings of this story, is, I think, to provide an example of the power of Christmas to elicit noble sentiments. In the end, though, rather than being uplifted, one could just as easily be disappointed at the confirmation of the superficiality of the “Christmas spirit,” since after the Christmas truce of 1914, the war resumed at full pace.

SEE ALSO:
Liam O'Brien, War Horse author Michael Morpurgo writes new play about WW1 Christmas truce (The Telegraph, March 24)

Deborah Cohen, The War No Image Could Capture (The Atlantic, December 2013)

Brandon Cedel, Rising

Charles T. Downey, Brandon Cedel makes Kennedy Center debut (Washington Post, December 6, 2013)

Vaughan Williams, Songs of Travel (inter alia), G. Finley, S. Ralls

Attentive Washington audiences recognize the voice of Brandon Cedel. I heard him as an apprentice singer at the Castleton Festival last year, and he appeared at Wolf Trap this summer. The young bass-baritone won a grand prize at this year’s Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, leading to his debut on the Met stage this fall. The savvy folks at Vocal Arts D.C. presented his first show at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday night in the Terrace Theater.

Cedel was not in the best vocal shape, and thus a little cautious at the top of his range, but he made a fine impression. He came most alive in the opening set of songs by Aaron Copland, with a lusty tone but also a sweet crooning sound when he needed it. He showed the same level of animation in the “Songs of Travel” set by Ralph Vaughan Williams, relishing Robert Louis Stevenson’s melancholy poetry. [Continue reading]

Brandon Cedel, bass-baritone
Vocal Arts D.C.
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

PREVIOUSLY:
Charles T. Downey, Brandon Cedel at Castleton Festival (Ionarts, July 2, 2012)

Anne Midgette, Wolf Trap Opera’s ‘Il viaggio a Reims’ (Washington Post, June 23, 2013)

Musical Evocations at the Kennedy Center

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from The Kennedy Center.

This Thursday night, French influence was everywhere with the National Symphony Orchestra under British guest conductor Matthew Halls at the Kennedy Center. First there was Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, a recollection of 18^th-century French music through the gauze of Impressionism, next, Henri Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain, a musical impression of Charles Baudelaire’s Les fleurs de mal, and, lastly, Ralph Vaughan Williams’s A London Symphony, with wonderfully colored orchestration influenced by Vaughan Williams’s studies with Ravel.

The first movement of the Ravel sounded slightly homogenized, not as transparent or diaphanous as it should have been, and wanting in subtlety. Things improved in the second movement with the delicate tracery of the winds standing out, though foursquare rhythms. The third movement had everything together, rhythmic flexibility and finely shaded playing, especially from the oboist. With a sparkling last movement, Halls and the NSO captured the heart of

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Washington Master Chorale Greets Spring

Read my review published today in the Style section of the Washington Post:

Charles T. Downey, Master Chorale ends first full season with British choral masterpieces
Washington Post, March 22, 2011

Herbert Howells, St. Paul's Service (inter alia), St. Paul's Cathedral Choir

Washington has too many choruses, a superabundance of amassed volunteers singing too many performances of overdone symphonic choral repertoire. The dire economic downturn began to cull the herd, but new groups continue to appear. Perhaps the best of these, the Washington Master Chorale, ended its first full season on Sunday afternoon at the National Presbyterian Church, with a sterling spring concert of British choral masterpieces.

Artistic Director Thomas Colohan founded the group as the National Master Chorale in 2009 but rebaptized it at some point this season. The combination of professionals and carefully chosen volunteers paid dividends in the group’s warm, full-bodied but not overblown sound, particularly in unaccompanied motets by Charles Stanford and Edward Bairstow. David Lang gave virtuosic fire to Herbert Murrill’s organ solo “Carillon,” but he did not seem to have a clear sightline to the podium. He was sometimes at odds with Colohan, accompanying the choir in Murrill’s lively “Magnificat” and “Nunc Dimittis” and “Like as the Hart,” that old Herbert Howells standby. [Continue reading]

British Masterpieces: Jewels from the English Choral Revival
Washington Master Chorale
National Presbyterian Church

OTHER THOUGHTS:
Britten composed The Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard for an unusual male chorus (TTB), made up of the prisoners of war at a German camp (Oflag VIIb in Eichstätt). This included Britten's friend Richard Wood and Fred Henson, who directed the chorus. The text seems like an odd choice given the location of the performances, which Britten edited slightly from its original form. The music was beautifully performed, so I focused on that in the review rather than on the fact that there was way too much chatter in this concert: conductor Thomas Colohan, as well as a reading (not even a recitation) of some of Falstaff's lines to go with the Vaughan Williams selection In Windsor Forest, adapted from the composer's opera Sir John in Love, from 1929, which was based on The Merry Wives of Windsor.

PREVIOUS REVIEWS:

• Anne Midgette (A new D.C. chorus makes its debut, March 2, 2010)
  
• Cecelia Porter, National Master Chorale at National Presbyterian Church (Washington Post, October 26, 2010)
  
• Changing choral landscape in Washington

Teddy Tahu Rhodes: Beauty Skin Deep

Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Vagabond, Sharolyn Kimmorley (2005, ABC Classics, oop) Online score: Beethoven, An die ferne geliebte, op. 98

To close out its 2008-09 season Vocal Arts Society presented New Zealand-born baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater on Tuesday night. Narrating in a charming accent, Rhodes eventually described the program as centered on the theme of travel and exploration, which was mostly true. While the theme of geographic exploration was indeed part of many of the songs included, there was little off the well-trodden path in terms of the song repertory. The program was identical to the baritone's earlier recital disc Vagabond, but with Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte substituted for a Britten set and a few other changes.

The Beethoven, a set of linked songs usually considered the first integrated song cycle, provided the only foreign language of the program. Rhodes sang in generally passable German, with a few odd vowels, especially diphthongs (which are treacherous enough in many languages to give away the non-native speaker). In recent stage appearances at the Met and Santa Fe Opera, Rhodes has sounded to my ears mostly like an instinctual singer, especially in terms of his sense of rhythm, which at times here also seemed unsure. Fortunately, he had one of the most skilled vocal accompanists in the business, Craig Rutenberg, at the piano, compensating almost imperceptibly for fluctuations or quirks of tempo. In the Beethoven and throughout the evening, Rhodes sang with a velvety tone, an instrument that is smoothly connected and equally resonant in all registers, if occasionally nasal in production.

What was lacking was much characterization, vocal or dramatic, changes in tone or presence that helped tell the story of the songs. Rhodes moves easily on the stage in operatic roles but seemed at a loss to bring songs to life without directed stage movement. It is a truth that hardly needs repeating: a gifted opera singer is not necessarily going to make a gifted song recitalist. Rhodes got by in this recital by relying on his considerable charm, winning the audience over with a wink of the eye and not much more. As the narrator of the Alois Jeitteles poems set by Beethoven puts it, in many ways Rhodes sang "from a full heart / with no display of art."

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Rough Rhodes, but Travels Are Still Beautiful (Washington Post, May 14)

While there was not much to appreciate below the surface of this performance, there was beautiful singing in many English-language songs. Rhodes took a "man's man" approach to the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson in the Ralph Vaughan Williams set Songs of Travel, opening the cycle in the persona of a sullen, angry loner. Two sets of Shakespeare songs prompted Rhodes to make an impromptu remark about the profundity of the Shakespeare sonnets, although these songs by Roger Quilter and the vastly superior Gerald Finzi are settings of the song lyrics from the plays, not of sonnets. If no one ever sang these saccharine, over-obvious Quilter songs again, that would be fine with me. Fortunately, Finzi was much more inventive in his set, Let Us Garlands Bring, seeming to use Renaissance lute songs and other historical music as a model for its thoroughly modern, melismatic, sometimes multi-metric style. All vocal accompanists, including myself, have had to play the Vaughan Williams and Quilter songs far too often, for countless undergraduate performances -- the challenging and interesting piano parts of the Finzi set are much more rewarding to play, and Rutenberg stole the show with them in the second half of the program.

In Santa Fe Rhodes was so believable as Billy Budd, Britten's naive and honest-simple sailor, and here he was most successful in simple songs one could imagine Billy singing, like the chantey Sea Fever, set by John Ireland to the poetry of John Masefield. The same was true of Sean O'Boyle's medley of Australian folk songs, which concluded with a sly, jazzed-up arrangement of Waltzing Matilda. As a nod to his recent move to New York -- where he now resides with his American wife, the mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard -- Rhodes chose as an encore an embarrassingly schmaltzy performance of Gene Scheer’s American Anthem ("America, I gave my best to you").

The Vocal Arts Society's 2009-10 season will feature several recitals not to be missed, including Anne Schwanewilms (January 30), Gerald Finley (March 17), Patricia Racette (April 9), and Anthony Dean Griffey (May 5).

Select Discographies for Vernon Handley (1930 - 2008) and Richard Hickox (1948 - 2008)

With Vernon Handley and Richard Hickox, two of the finest British musicians have died this year. Both were known - and will be remembered - for their contributions to English music which, even if this comes at the expense of their achievements in other fields, is fair enough because no other conductors contributed as much to the long maligned, longer still neglected canon of British composers of the last 150 years. They truly were, and through their recorded legacy remain, lions of British Music.

Below are select choices from their huge discographies (Hickox recorded over 280 discs for Chandos alone) with an emphasis on the repertoire they helped bring back to some deserved attention.

Richard Hickox:

William Alwyn, Complete Symphonies, LSO – Chandos 9429	William Alwyn is a wonderful composer whose usually tuneful, always romantic (but unmistakably modern) music is a pleasure. He made his living crafting excellent film scores (I Accuse, Odd Man Out) for which he became known – and he used his skill for engrossing movie-goers in his classical works like the symphonies or piano concertos. Lyrita (with most of its catalogue available again) recorded Alwyn’s music with the composer conducting. Chandos’ Hickox recordings remain the centerpiece of the Alwyn discography, although David Lloyd-Jones on-going Alwyn survey on Naxos offers an excellent alternative.	Lennox & Michael Berkeley, Berkeley Edition Vol.3, BBC National Orchestra of Wales – Chandos 5014	This series of the music of Berkeley père et fils is a wonderful tribute to both composers, whose difference in styles is perhaps a bit jarring on volume 1, but not on this disc bringing the father’s Third Symphony and Sinfonia Concertante together with the excellent Oboe Concerto and the festive “Secret Garden” suite of the son. Modern works, all, but more chromatically dense than atonal.
Frank Bridge, Orchestral Works Vol.1, BBC National Orchestra of Wales – Chandos 9950	Frank Bridge is one of the most tasteful English composers there are, musically elegant from his youthful Quintet and Sextet (on the “Best of 2004” list) to the late, Bergian string quartets. His orchestral works are worthy explorations, too, and how better to explore than with Hickox’ five-volume series of Bridge’s orchestral music. Volume 1 is a good place to start containing the smaller works Isabella, Enter Spring, Mid of the Night and Two Poems for Orchestra.	Frederick Delius, A Mass of Life, Requiem, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra – Chandos 9515	Frederick “Fritz” Delius was popular in Germany long before the English accepted him as a composer of great merit, which wasn’t helpful with anti-German sentiment on the rise around World War I. Sir Thomas Beecham’s advocacy helped a great deal in securing Delius a foothold on concert programs, although I’ve not yet had the opportunity to hear some Delius live. The grand Mass of Life – a setting, in German, of Nietzsche’s “Also sprach Zarathustra” – might be overly ambitious, but it’s grand and wonderful and it ought to be heard. Recordings exist of Beecham, Charles Groves, and for some reason I thought (but can’t find or otherwise confirm and am likely mistaken) Simon Rattle. Especially with the latter a figment of my imagination, Hickox is the only modern recording and not just on grounds of sound quality the first choice.
Edward Elgar, Symphony No.3 (Payne), BBC National Orchestra of Wales – Chandos 5057	Anthony Payne spent almost 30 years trying to patch together Elgar’s unfinished Third Symphony, with very impressive results, but results that are still hotly debated (more controversially than the various ‘performing versions’ of Mahler’s Tenth) today. It’s much more convincing than the (fun) Elgar “Piano Concerto”, but for all its quality, the second and third movements don’t ring true. No performance will ever silence the debates over whether Payne’s version is a success (as opposed to ‘mere attempt’), but this recording comes awfully close. It does so, because Hickox achieves to make the Symphony sound like ¬echt-Elgar, rather than collections of “Elgarian moments” strung together. The issue is made yet more interesting with the inclusions of two more Payne-elaborations: “So Many True Princesses Who Have Gone” and the Sixth Pomp & Circumstance March. The sound is unbeatable.	Gerald Finzi, Intimations of Immortality, Grand Fantasia & Toccata, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra – EMI 64720	Intimations of Immortality, Finzi’s ambitious, grand, and gorgeous Wordsworth setting, is a terrific oratorio (of sorts), woefully under-recorded. Matthew Best / Hyperion and David Hill / Naxos are excellently played alternatives – but true competition in terms of spirit comes from Vernon Handley’s just resuscitated Lyrita recording.
Edmund Rubbra, Symphonies Nos. 5 & 8, BBC National Orchestra of Wales – Chandos 9714	Rubbra is ‘tough’ music, but it yields its rewards – and it is thanks to Hickox (and Handley) we even have a chance to hear for ourselves. And if an English variant of Eduard Tubin sounds appealing to you, you might lap Rubbra up. The set of the complete Rubbra symphonies might be overkill for a newcomer to this music, but Symphonies Two and/or Five should be sampled. Unfortunately there is no coupling of those available, but Five and Eight (Rubbra’s three-movement “Hommage à Teilhard de Chardin”) are nearly as good an introduction.	Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Symphony No.2 “London” (original version), London Symphony Orchestra – Chandos 9902	Hickox was a master of Vaughan-Williams, and this, together with his recording of the Fourth Symphony (coupled with the Mass in g-minor) is the most successful and interesting of his near-complete (and surprisingly uneven) Vaughan-Williams cycle. The 1914 original version isn’t a better work than the tightened 1936 revised one, but if you like Vaughan-Williams and his London Symphony, then you won’t mind hearing more of it, with plenty new material thrown in and as passionately performed as here.

You might also want to read Bob McQuiston’s reviews at “Classical Lost and Found” of Hickox’ discs of Richard Rodney Bennett, Arthur Bliss, Kenneth Leighton, Charles Villiers Stanford, and just in time for the season, a disc of Vaughan-Williams’ Christmas music.

You can find obituaries for Hickox in the Telegraph, Times online, Guardian, New York Times, and at the BBC website.

Vernon Handley:

Malcolm Arnold, Symphony No. 6 et al., London Philharmonic Orchestra – LPO live 13	Malcolm Arnold’s Symphonies are a truly great achievement, not just for an English composer. The music more the vain of Mahler and Shostakovich than Elgar or Vaughan-Williams, it’s as far from the “cow-pat” style of music (to use Elisabeth Lutyens’ devastating quip). His 9 Symphonies (11, if you include the Symphony for Brass and Symphony for Strings) have been recorded by Handley for Conifer, by Andrew Penny for Naxos and by Hickox (together with Rumon Gamba) for Chandos. Chandos hasn’t released a complete set, the Conifer recordings were (briefly?) re-issued by Decca in the UK, and the immensely attractive Naxos “White Box” cycle has been inexplicably taken off the shelves, too. Until they re-appear, this recording on the London Philharmonic’s own label is a very attractive introduction to Arnold conducted by Handley. The Sixth Symphony is typical of Arnold’s musical bite without being forbidding, the couplings are works Arnold wrote for the orchestra that plays them here.	Granville Bantock, Complete Orchestral Music, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – Hyperion 44281	Granville Bantock wrote music that makes it possible to be a little embarrassed for liking it. Romantic, sweeping, emoting, eager – and sometimes a little silly, so caught up in how it wants to tell its stories (and apparently any grand, exotic story was good enough for Bantock to be inspired to write miniature-epics about), that the stories themselves (their particular flavor and characteristics) become jumbled in that romantic exterior. But then, who cares if this is not “great” music… it is fun music, and for the late-romantically inclined, at least some Bantock is a must. No one conducts it better than Handley (there isn’t much competition, admittedly), and this Hyperion box of all the orchestral works is a very desirable semi-precious in the discography of English music. To utterly fulfill your Bantock-needs, add Chandos’ recording of Omar Khayyám to that (also conducted by Handley), which made it onto my “A Few of My Favorite Things - 2007” list.
Arnold Bax, Complete Symphonies, et al., BBC Philharmonia Orchestra – Chandos 10122	This cycle of the English, wannabe Irish, composer Arnold Bax might be the proudest achievement of Handley’s recording career. Bax’s music is easy to appreciate: old fashioned (Bax lived from 1883-1953), post-Elgarian romantic music, with Bax happily dwelling on atmospheric moments in his colorful, large-scale symphonies. When Lutyens spoke of cow-pat music, Bax was certainly among the intended targets. But it is telling that what survived of Lutyens’ is her quip, not her compositions while Bax is still (or again) around, with his music too lovable to be neglected entirely. It’s well served on record with David Lloyd-Jones’ survey on Naxos (available only individually) and this cycle vying for top honors.	Gerald Finzi, Clarinet & Cello Concertos, Royal Philharmonic & New Philharmonia Orchestra – Lyrita 236	None other than (the very young) Yo-Yo Ma is the soloist in Handley’s first (and finally re-issued) recording of Finzi’s late masterpiece of a cello concerto. This was the first commercial recording of the work written in Finzi’s last year (1956), and it remains the best. John Denman plays the 1946 Clarinet Concerto – and it more than holds its own next to Thea King (Hyperion) and Richard Stoltzman (RCA, oop). This is unfashionably melodic, albeit dark, music by a composer more preoccupied with the urgency to express himself in an idiom of beauty than the musico-academic tussles that went on between Schoenbergian and Stravinskian composers at the time.
Edward Elgar, Violin Concerto, London Philharmonic Orchestra – Classics for Pleasure 75139	I am no particular fan of Nigel Kennedy, even as I appreciate his new infatuation with romantic Polish composers from afar. But he owns the huge Elgar Violin concerto – and if a top choice would have to be made, it would be between his own two, inspired, accounts of it. This one is the first, with Handley and the London Philharmonic is from 1984 – the other from 1997 with Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Between the free-wheeling re-make (from a time when the soloist insisted being called just “Kennedy”) and the attuned, precise, and generous Handley reading, the unbeatable price of this Classics for Pleasure re-issue might make the difference. Handley offers no filler, Rattle a leaden Lark (barely) Ascending.	Ernest John Moeran, Symphony in g-minor, Rhapsody for Piano & Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra – Chandos 10169	Ernst Moeran composed much music that is borderline “British Light Music”, which isn’t generally my cup of tea (though even a good number of those works are plenty delightful to my ears). His Symphony, however, is fit to compare with any of the great English composer’s attempt in the genre. If any symphonic work was meant to give the term “derivative” a good name, this g-minor Symphony might do the trick. Sibelius and Vaughan-Williams are obvious influences, and the result isn’t unlike one of Delius’ or Bax orchestral works. But it is darn good and this is a recording and interpretation that makes the work’s case particularly well.
Robert Simpson, Complete Symphonies, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra – Hyperion 44191	Robert Simpson (1921-97, not related to the conductor) wasn’t an amateur composer, but his day-job at the BBC as a producer, announcer, and writer surely gave him the liberty to pursue his extensive output without the pressures experienced by full time note-smiths. Resultingly, his 11 Sympnonies (1-10 in this set are conducted by Handley, No.11 by dedicatee Matthew Best), composed between 1951 and 1990, were largely out of date before they were even written, suffering from tonality and reasonable accessibility, as they did. From his brooding, grandiose beginnings to a more restrained and tightened idiom, Simpson wrote music vaguely reminiscent of the composers he wrote about: Nielsen and Bruckner. When I first heard them, however, my only association was that of a ‘grumpy, spiky Hovhaness’. Having all his symphonies might be overkill, since they aren’t all equally interesting – but most will yield enjoyment eventually and this box is a fine bargain. For the cautious, either the disc coupling Symphonies Six and Seven or Symphony Eleven with the Variations on a Theme of Carl Nielsen might be a fine starting point.	Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Complete Symphonies, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra – Classics for Pleasure 75760	There is a glut of Vaughan-Williams Symphony cycles out there, but even amid the competition of Boult (Decca), Boult (EMI), Previn (RCA), Thomson (Chandos), Haitink (EMI), and Daniel/Bakels (Naxos), Handley stands out as the most consistent and the most consistently enjoyable. It’s not as “tea & crumpets” (read either as “very British” or “boring”) as the EMI cycle of Handley’s mentor Boult, it is not as full of effects (for better or worse) than Previn, livelier than the very composed Haitink. If I listen to Handley perform Vaughan-Williams, I am reminded of Günter Wand conducting Brahms or Bruckner. Service on the music, without an ego interfering in the ‘interpretive’ process. Vaughan-Williams may not have needed Handley’s championing as much as, say, Bax, but in these readings he benefits him just about as much.

I hate to not have given more space to Handley’s recording of Bliss’ “Colour Symphony” (the top choice for that wonderful symphony), or the completists’ dream of all the Charles Villiers Stanford Symphonies, but this list would otherwise get out of hand. You might want to check out Bob McQuiston’s reviews at CLOFO, though, who considers Handley recordings of Bainton / Boughton, Elizabeth Maconchy, and York Bowen.

You can find obituaries of Handley in The Independent, New York Times, the Telegraph, Times online, Guardian, and on the Arts Council’s website.

An Index of ionarts Discographies

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