More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
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22 May
Cambridge Corn Exchange is to be praised for giving us, in Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 3 to-night, something out of the ordinary. For, despite Sir Adrian Boult’s still impressive recordings*, and championing by Andrew Manze (such as Boult did : he premiered this work) with Symphonies 4 to 6 at The Proms two years ago (and previously with The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra), the knowledge of Vaughan Williams is not, where it should be, in people’s minds, and the music in their hearts.
The works speak for themselves, if given the opportunity, and it is the composers whose reputation needs championing, in fact. But we must beware of switching one orthodoxy about what was originally called A Pastoral Symphony (and, as with A London Symphony, only numbered later, as well as not seeming to be expressed to be in any key), which is now that it is a form of relection on war :
Perhaps we did not know, as Martin Furber’s brief sleeve-notes for the CD release of the Boult recording* tell us, that Vaughan Williams had served in France, and that it was there, in 1916, that he first made sketches for the symphony (A London Symphony had been first performed in 1914). The question is : does it add to, or detract from, the symphony to try to connect it to the war, since Vaughan Williams had stated that its predecessor was absolute music, and in 1920 suggested, in a prgramme note, that it might better be called Symphony by a Londoner.
By all means, we want to listen to what broadcaster Stephen Johnson says that he has researched about Vaughan Williams and his time, but, most of all, we want to listen to the music…
So here is a suggestion for those new to this symphony. If one had to pick out an instrument that is redolent of each of the symphony’s four movements (although Vaughan Williams always loves trombones and writes stunningly well for solo violin) they would be, respectively, oboe, trumpet, flute and harp (as well as human voice). See the contributions being made by each instrumentalist (vocalist) at the time, and hear where they fit into the whole, both the whole of the movement, and of the accruing piece, and what Vaughan Williams is expressing by them.
Listen hard, though, for Wikipedia informs us that ‘It is scored for a large orchestra including:
* Woodwinds: 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 3 clarinets (in B♭ and A; 3rd doubling on bass clarinet), 2 bassoons
* Brass: 4 horns (in F), 3 trumpets (in C, 1 doubling on natural Trumpet in E♭), 3 trombones, tuba
* Percussion: timpani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, celesta,
* Strings: harp, and strings.'
There is now an outline review of the concert, too, here
End-notes
* The one of this symphony, from 1952, with soprano Margaret Ritchie providing the wordless solo in the last movement and The London Philharmonic Orchestra takes some beating. Boult had given the premiere thirty years earlier (on 16 January 1922).
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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