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Summary: Where's the organ (or harmonium) on Sospiri?
Comment: A terrific disc; I won't add to the thoughtful reviews already accumulated here, but I would like to discuss something. Sospiri was written for strings, harp and organ (or harmonium) but for the life of me I can't hear any organ in the version on this disc, which I found a little disappointing as I am a fan of the instrument. Was one not used or is it just buried in the mix? No clues in the liner notes.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wonderful stuff
Comment: This is an absolute must for anyone who loves English music and the intimate and personal sound of Barbirolli. It is indeed wonderful stuff. Anyone not familiar with English music and Sir John should go for this collection. That is, after they have listened to his and Jacqueline's version of the cello concerto.
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Summary: Barbirolli invests Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasy with unique weight
Comment: Though Barbirolli had a long association with Elgar (as Michael Kennedy remarks in his remarkably informative liner notes, he made no less than 6 recordings of Introduction & Allegro, including the first one in 1927 with an ensemble he had hired himself), it is for the conductor's take on Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasy (his second recording) that I bought this disc. It is, indeed, superb. The most remarkable feature of Barbirolli's conducting, I find (and this applies to many of his other recordings as well), is the weight he invests the music with. Close to the Tallis Fantasy's beginning the lower strings are instructed to play an eighth-notes bass accompaniment in pizzicati. It is marked "molto pesante". I've never heard it more pesante than with Barbirolli. It is Atlas walking with the weight of the world on his shoulders, or maybe burdened with the guilt of mankind. Other than Bernstein, I've met no version that comes close to setting such a slow initial tempo, but Berstein doesn't convey the same impression of weight. It has to do, in part, with the way Barbirolli has the balance emphasize the middle strings. But don't infer that Barbirolli plods. There is incredible power in that weight, slowly but implacably forward-moving, and this in turn has to do with the intensity with which the bows dig into the strings. And when the music becomes more animated (from 6:49, "poco piu animato", to the big climax at 10:48), Barbirolli can dramatically speed up the pace to heights of passion. In the same passage Bernstein remains rather staid. Barbirolli superbly conveys a mood of longing, alternately meditative and passionate. The notes contend that there is something religious about the Tallis Fantasy ("solemn and ecclesiastical in mood"). Maybe, but if so it is Andrei Rublev's Russian Orthodox Church with its solemn processions. This Vaughan Williams also evokes the epic and desolate northern vistas of Sibelius' symphonies - no coincidence that Barbirolli made historical recordings of these works too.
All the compositions contained on this CD save Elgar's Elegy and Sospiri came out on an LP (in the US Angel S-36010) which ever since its first publication in 1962 was justly considered a classic. As long as EMI was going to complete that program for this "Great Recordings of the Century" reissue, they might have been more generous than by adding just the two Elgar fillers, for a none too generous TT of 58'. Elgar's Elegy and Sospiri were recorded in 1966 and originally came out in the US on Angel S-36403 with the composer's Pomp and Circumstances March and Froissart-Overture.
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Summary: More Elgar than Vaughan Williams
Comment: You buy this more for the Elgar than for the Vaughan Williams. I see some previous reviewers saying that this is the best recording ever made of the Tallis Fantasia by Vaughan Williams. With all due respect, this piece has been recorded dozens of times? Hundreds of times? It is the rare listener who has surveyed all those recordings to truly determine which is best. This is a good recording of the Tallis Fantasia. Because the piece is so great, it's hard to make a bad recording as long as you have a good string section and good recorded sound. For me, Barbirolli interrupts the flow a bit in the big unison section towards the end. So for me it's not the greatest recording ever, but it's damn good.
On the other hand, it's hard to imagine these Elgar performances being surpassed anytime soon. If you don't believe me, check out the two short pieces, the Elegy and Sospiri. Barbirolli invests these slight and even somewhat nondescript pieces with such intense feeling! I don't mean this in a negative way, but they almost sound like very Romantic movie music here, with surging strings! The Serenade has been done well by many conductors; this is a charming performance that really brings out a lot of detail. The Introduction and Allegro is a piece that requires special advocacy. In fact, I never even liked the piece until I heard this record. Barbirolli really "sells" this music as though it were one of Elgar's greatest compositions, and you will buy what he is selling!
Buy this one for the four short pieces by Elgar, especially if you don't have any Elgar in your collection.
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Summary: Vaughn Williams
Comment: This is truly beautiful music. It is soft and soothing but it is not elevator music. It has intellectual and emotional depth. Listening to Vaughn Willimas's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis my imagination was triggered with streams of images and deep feeling.
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