And to prefer Britten to VW boils down to sensibilities in the end. For example, I don't like Proust, Thomas Mann, or Gerald Murnane's work. I love Raymond Carver, Dostoevsky and prefer Gogol to Tolstoy. As we say in the Navy, Sailor Vee...
I think I have to join the discussion! I’ve loved Vaughan Williams’ music for over sixty years ever since I got Boult’s recording of the Sinfonia Antartica with Gielgud – and, whatever the rights and wrongs of including the superscriptions (and VW presumably approved?), his readings were worth the price alone which was considerable to a schoolboy in those days! The more I listen to his music, the greater its stature becomes and no composer so easily moves me to tears. Dieter’s suggestion that Britten is a universal genius and that Vaughan Williams isn’t is to me nonsense (ditto Elgar) and all hail to Ralph for suggesting that he too finds Britten perhaps, shall we say, over-rated - to me VW was much the greater composer though I accept that league tables are all in the end down to personal preference
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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