Glad to hear it, Jeffrey - and a couple of those works you mention as favourites I need to know better or indeed need to become acquainted with, so thank you for the tips. (I should mention that I did not mean to imply in my previous posting that the MWI reviews were guilty of the labelling I mention - I refer to a wider perception.)
I greatly enjoyed all those Anniversary reviews Ralph, (especially as my notes for the Alto release of symphonies 4 and 5 received a positive mention!) For me, it's the 6th Symphony and the Pilgrim's Progress (which I was privileged to see live twice) which are VW's greatest works. I'm also very fond of lesser-known works like Epithalamion (ideal late-night listening) and the Fantasia on the Old 104th Psalm Tune.
I hope readers were pleased with the collection of reviews celebrating the birth sesquicentennial. I wonder if anyone shares my irritation at the constant references to Vaughan Williams as a primarily "pastoral" composer. For all that he was a collector of folk songs, loved the English countryside and expressed that love in his music, so much of it is far more challenging than the justly famous "lollipops" like Dives and Lazarus , the Lark Ascending and Greensleeves - all of which which I love, but they are not the bulk or core of his work. The "Pastoral" symphony and the Romanza of the Fifth (which does not actually have much to do with the English countryside) notwithstanding, you have only to listen to his symphonies as a whole - especially nos. 4, 6 and 9 - to hear why the composer was irked by that label.
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