RVW No.31 NEW 2004 Final 6/10/04 10:36 Page 1 Journal of the No.31 October 2004 EDITOR Stephen Connock RVW (see address below) Society We are TEN – In this issue... and still growing! G What RVW means to me Testimonials by sixteen The RVW Society celebrated its 10th anniversary this July – just as we signed up our 1000 th new members member to mark a decade of growth and achievement. When John Bishop (still much missed), Robin Barber and I (Stephen Connock) came together to form the Society our aim was to widen from page 4 appreciation of RVW’s music, particularly through recordings of neglected but high quality music. Looking back, we feel proud of what we have achieved. G 49th Parallel World premieres Through our involvement with Richard Hickox, and Chandos, we have stimulated many fine world by Richard Young premiere recordings, including The Poisoned Kiss, A Cotswold Romance, Norfolk Rhapsody No.2, page 14 The Death of Tintagiles and the original version of A London Symphony. Our work on The Poisoned Kiss represents a special contribution as we worked closely with Ursula Vaughan Williams on shaping the libretto for the recording. And what beautiful music there is! G Index to Journals 11-29 Medal of Honour The Trustees sought to mark our Tenth Anniversary in a special way and decided to award an International Medal of Honour to people who have made a remarkable contribution to RVW’s music. The first such Award was given to Richard Hickox during the concert in Gloucester and more . Cathedral on Sunday 8th August. The Award itself is a superb David McFall relief, cast in bronze, and provided to us with the kind agreement of Alex McFall, the artist’s widow. Richard Hickox warmly thanked the Society for this special Award and praised the Society’s work over the last ten years, to an appreciative audience in the Cathedral, before going on to conduct a lovely CHAIRMAN performance of the original version of A London Symphony. Stephen Connock MBE 65 Marathon House Towards 2008! 200 Marylebone Road This special anniversary edition London NW1 5PL of the Journal will, we hope, give Tel: 01728 454820 much pleasure to our members. Fax: 01728 454873 The Trustees know there remains [email protected] much to be done, especially in encouraging performances of TREASURER RVW’s music – as this year’s John Francis Proms sadly show. We look Lindeyer Francis Ferguson forward with eagerness to the North House next major milestone - the 198 High Street 50th anniversary (in 2008) of Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1BE Vaughan Williams’s death. In Tel: 01732 360200 the meantime, warm thanks to [email protected] all those Trustees, Regional Chairmen and readers who have SECRETARY all played their part in our Dr. David Betts successful first ten years. Tudor Cottage 30 Tivoli Road Brighton East Sussex BN1 5BH Picture of Richard holding the Tel: 01273 501118 Award [email protected] www.rvwsociety.com Charity No. 1017175 RVW No.31 NEW 2004 Final 6/10/04 10:36 Page 2 Tenth Anniversary Celebrations – Pictures for the Album Stephen Connock presents the Award to Richard Hickox on the stage at Gloucester Cathedral Th ll e bro cFa nze relief by David M Alex McFall, the artist’s widow Th ef e in eli scri the r ption on the back of Stephen Hogger, our guest speaker at a Three Choirs Festival event on 8 August, chats to Trustee Martin Murray Page 2 Journal of the RVW Society RVW No.31 NEW 2004 Final 6/10/04 10:36 Page 3 Ursula with Dawn and Frank Staneck, at our party on 8 August. Frank is our Regional Chairman for USA Stephen Connock, Richard Hickox and Ursula Vaughan Williams in Gloucester on 8 August 2004. Alex McFall, David Betts and Robin Wells relaxing at our 10th Anniversary party in Gloucester Pictures taken by: Cynthia Cooper and Micheal Kulas Ursula with the leader of the Philharmonia Orchestra Journal of the RVW Society Page 3 RVW No.31 NEW 2004 Final 6/10/04 10:36 Page 4 What RVW means to me: By William Hedley To mark our Tenth Anniversary we invited members to write short testimonials on ‘What RVW means to me’. Here is a selection of responses: William Hedley, Regional Chairman for did he associate them? “Four movements, all of them slow” he said about France and the new Editor of the Journal, the Pastoral Symphony, yet the third movement ends with a coda as light explains that RVW helps him understand and airy as Mendelssohn’s fairy music. It is quite convincing and moving, his place in the world. but what on earth is it doing there? The composer constantly explores those thoughts and issues we tend to avoid because they are painful, If the essay title is The Fascination of Speed, ambiguous or difficult to apprehend. Mysteries abound, in Flos Campi, my English teacher once said, make sure you The Lark Ascending, the Sixth Symphony, the Ninth, even the Harmonica write about “fascination” rather than “speed”. Romance. There are many other examples, voyages into the human soul, In other words, stick to the brief. I’m mindful reaching corners we may not want to explore, or not know how to, the of this advice now, concerned that sticking to paradoxes in life and death, love and eternity. We might argue that all the present brief requires me to write as much great art is a quest of this nature, but what sets Vaughan Williams apart is William Hedley about myself as about Vaughan Williams. his extraordinarily personal manner. The listener may eavesdrop and even participate. I was first introduced to Vaughan Williams by Sir John Barbirolli. If only The brief was to write about what Vaughan Williams means to me. it was true, but I mean, of course, via his wonderful EMI LP of English Reluctantly, then, for fear of revealing too much as well as a laudable string music. I wasn’t totally swept away by the Tallis Fantasia at that unwillingness to mention myself even in the same sentence as the great time, nor by Greensleeves, preferring by a fair margin Elgar’s two string subject of this Journal, I would say that by his ability to compose music masterpieces on the same record. Sir Adrian Boult’s Ace of Clubs LP of at once unmistakably personal and universal, and through his celebration the London Symphony was what really woke me up, and later markers of all that is beautiful and admirable in humankind whilst at the same were Bryden Thompson’s reading of the Fifth Symphony and Matthew time exploring our darkest and most mysterious impulses, Vaughan Best’s inspirational performance of Flos Campi. Williams helps me in the near-impossible task of understanding myself As a young teacher I had the pleasure of conducting a little Vaughan and finding my place in the world. Williams, in particular Valiant for Truth, with a choir of young people. It went very well and we all enjoyed ourselves enormously, but I can see William Hedley now that I had no idea of what the piece was about at all. I sang in choirs for many years but strangely never took part in a Vaughan Williams work. I’ve done what I could, though, with the amateur choirs I now conduct in SEUMAS SIMPSON Southwest France. They love singing O Taste and See – how could they Seumas Simpson, our Regional Chairman for Scotland, sees RVW as not? – but more surprisingly they were very moved by Lord, thou has a great composer – and a great human being. been our refuge as, equally surprisingly, were many of those who came Just before the beginning of the Second World War, when I was about to listen to it. seven years old, I wrote my Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves’. (This article has To return to the brief I have to evoke another musical memory, as a a regrettable but inevitable autobiographical element.) It consisted of fledgling bass in the school choir, singing not Vaughan Williams, but little more than the tune which, since I had not yet learned about 6/8 time, Holst, his setting of Psalm 148. The tune he uses is Easter Alleluia from I had notated in 2/4; in consequence, the piece was somewhat less the Cölner Gesangbuch of 1623, sung in my parish church in those days accomplished than its more famous namesake. (And as a harbinger of to the words All creatures of our God and King. Each verse features a things to come was certainly no Robin’s Nest.) However, this daft series of alleluias set to four notes descending by step, a simple yet reminiscence shows that the pre-war BBC had brought the name of Ralph affecting musical gesture which, combined with Holst’s harmonies, had Vaughan Williams and the sound of one of his most popular compositions a powerful effect on this emerging musician. Vaughan Williams to a child in a small Scottish town. Since that time, the music of that obviously valued this tune highly as he assigned at least two sets of words towering composer, as Hans Keller described him, has been one of my to it, and we find this inconsequential four-note phrase throughout his most enriching mental possessions and my life has been illuminated by a works. It is frequently used at moments of the utmost emotional succession of discoveries of it. importance, as at the words “Except our love” in Act 2 of Hugh the In those far-off days the BBC was concerned to educate its listeners, that Drover.