Vaughan Williams Fifth is my favourite Symphony from him, it's actually the first one i heard [by Previn], and almost immediately i fell in love with it, there's a certain mystical pastoralness about the Symphony which i love, Haitink has been very slowly building a whole cycle of the Symphonies of RVW, and this is a lovely reading of it, with some nice couplings too, it's actually a disc i've had for a while [since 2001], and played it fairly extensively, and yet i feel i've hardly got into it, the good thing is that this Blog helps me to analyse deeper the works / interpretations i listen to, so i should be able to 'individualise' this disc more than ever.
Bernard Haitink is Dutch, he's now 83, and certainly now looks somewhat frail, he recorded this disc in 1994, the booklet front cover is a painting by Harold Speed called 'Country Scene With A Horse', very appropriate for the music within.
A truly beautiful Symphony, written in D Major, though very much couched in a degree of mystery, sounding more that it should be a Minor key Symphony, i can't help the feeling of the whole thing conjuring up a landscape scene, bathed in strange misty light, with a sense of a tinge of regret, especially the third movement Romanza [my favourite movement of the four], but on this listen it's the last movement which truly affected me, and it's good that i paid closer attention to it to notice how truly beautiful it really is, especially the closing pages, it takes your breath away, it starts so innocently, very gentle on the low cellos, but builds up with more layers, .
Here's on Andrew Manze conducting the whole of the Symphony on YouTube, the fourth movement starts at [30:40].
Here's on Andrew Manze conducting the whole of the Symphony on YouTube, the fourth movement starts at [30:40].
