In Reply to: What are the masterworks of the English Revival? posted by hinduclient on March 15, 2007 at 07:56:31:
I am a fan of Ralph Vaughan Williams, but only in some areas, but as you mentioned George Butterworth I might assume that maybe you are refering more to their folk songs.
I was listening to some Butterworth the other evening, 'Bredon hill' and 'a Shropshire lad' and loved them. Vaughan Williams wrote 'songs of travel' and I really liked 'ten Blake songs' for voice and Oboe. Unfortunately George Butterworth was killed at an early age and so never got the opportunity to build up a catalogue of works.. but Vaughan Williams produced copious amounts. I particularly like the 'Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis' and his 'Five variants on Dives and Lazarus'.
Parry I found a bit bland, as did Elgar which caused him to rescore Parry's 'Jerusalem' (my old school hymn) and turned it into something great. That was also based on a work by Blake. Elgar would be on my list from this era as well.
Delius could blow hot and cold depending on what you liked...
But going off topic slightly... Delius is buried a few miles from my house. Right next to him are some friends of his, first are the Harrison sisters. Beatrice, one of 4 talented sisters, was a cellist and Delius wrote several works for her. The other sisters were 2 violinists and a opera singer. Beatrice also worked closely with Elgar and gave the first performances of his now famous Cello concerto. On Delius's other side are the conductors Norman Del Mar and Sir Thomas Beecham.
Imogen Holst also went to school near here at Caterham... so it's a small world. She is buried by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, 2 other exponents of English music. All of the musicians were in quite a small clique. I could ramble on with these associations... from Casals and Suggia to Rostropovich and Finzi and of course Du Pre.I noticed on your profile that you have given up on vinyl. I discovered Butterworth and Grainger and several others from this period on a stack of old vinyl that I was given a few years back. I cannot find any of these recordings on CD, or at least not the versions I have, and so will have to stream them to my PC for safe keeping. Be a shame is these obscure recordinds disapeared.
Enjoy what you find,
K
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Follow Ups
- Depends what you mean.... - damage k 13:49:17 03/15/07 (0)