I’ve listened to at least an hour of VW every day this month and my love for and admiration of the music simply grows. The symphonies are surely now accepted as masterpieces, especially perhaps 3 to 6, but I was lucky enough to be in England in July and be present at the Prom 'Sea Symphony' and was overwhelmed all over again – the opening is simply stunning and so is much of what follows. And it took me years to come to terms with it, but surely No.9 is a great masterpiece, the ending one of the most extraordinary and moving in all music – a great man perhaps contemplating the beyond, though he probably wouldn’t thank me for saying so! And, just to take two examples, what extraordinary and wonderful works are 'Job' and ‘Flos Campi’ – surely nothing specifically English about them or those middle symphonies, they're just great music by any standards. As occasional pieces go, is there anything better than ‘A Song of Thanksgiving’? – and perhaps specifically English given its subject matter, but still a wonderful and under-valued work, ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ is as much of a 20th century masterpiece as ‘Wozzeck’, ‘Moses and Aaron’ or ‘Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk’. And has any British composer written more good tunes? – indeed, have many?
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