This release is part of the complete cycle of
Vaughan Williams' symphonies undertaken by the
BBC Symphony Orchestra and the energetic
Martyn Brabbins holding the baton. Like others in the series, the reading of the Symphony No. 5 is a strong performance, understated in the English way, with themes arising naturally, as if organically. Listen to the emergence of the second theme in the opening movement for a good idea of what to expect from the whole. The big news here is the presence of a new
Vaughan Williams work: the Scenes Adapted from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, composed in 1906.
Brabbins has generally paired
Vaughan Williams' symphonies with lesser-known works, but he hasn't so far essayed anything this obscure: the Scenes have never been recorded before, and, indeed, have rarely been performed anywhere. It's not clear exactly what event they were intended for, and they don't form a coherent set, but they are of all kinds of interest to
Vaughan Williams devotees. They unmistakably point forward, not so much to the composer's later opera The Pilgrim's Progress, but to the development of the folkish element in his style. The work is contemporaneous with the Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1, and it comes from the earliest stages of the composer's uses of the folk music he had begun to collect. There are a cappella folk pieces apparently transferred wholesale to the concert setting, as well as new models for the treatment of folklike melodies. In all, this is a release
Vaughan Williams enthusiasts will welcome heartily.