Orchestral Works connected with London

View record and artist details

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Edward Elgar, John (Nicholson) Ireland, Ralph Vaughan Williams

Label: ASV

Magazine Review Date: 7/1989

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 82

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: CDDCA634

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
(A) London Overture	John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer Owain Arwel Hughes, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra
Symphony No. 2, '(A) London Symphony'	Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer Owain Arwel Hughes, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
Cockaigne, 'In London Town'	Edward Elgar, Composer Edward Elgar, Composer Owain Arwel Hughes, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra

Composer or Director: Edward Elgar, John (Nicholson) Ireland, Ralph Vaughan Williams

Label: ASV

Magazine Review Date: 7/1989

Media Format: Cassette

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: ZCDCA634

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
(A) London Overture	John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer Owain Arwel Hughes, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra
Symphony No. 2, '(A) London Symphony'	Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer Owain Arwel Hughes, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
Cockaigne, 'In London Town'	Edward Elgar, Composer Edward Elgar, Composer Owain Arwel Hughes, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra

Composer or Director: Edward Elgar, John (Nicholson) Ireland, Ralph Vaughan Williams

Label: ASV

Magazine Review Date: 7/1989

Media Format: Vinyl

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: DCA634

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
(A) London Overture	John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer John (Nicholson) Ireland, Composer Owain Arwel Hughes, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra
Symphony No. 2, '(A) London Symphony'	Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer Owain Arwel Hughes, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
Cockaigne, 'In London Town'	Edward Elgar, Composer Edward Elgar, Composer Owain Arwel Hughes, Conductor Philharmonia Orchestra

Author:

Ireland's London Overture, Elgar's Cockaigne and Vaughan Williams's A London Symphony make an obviously attractive (and attractively obvious) 'London' programme. For this issue ASV offer one CD free, this being a three-inch disc containing Cockaigne. The cover picture on the box is the perfect choice, where the VW is concerned, of Monet's painting of the Houses of Parliament with the sun breaking through the fog. The recording quality is exceptionally good in all three works, well balanced, warm and spacious but not over-resonant, and the Philharmonia's playing is very fine, with poetic woodwind solos and an eloquent viola and horn in the slow movement of the symphony.
Owain Arwel Hughes proves himself a sensitive interpreter of Vaughan Williams. This is as richly recommendable a performance as Haitink's (EMI). The high spirits of the first movement are well contrasted with the tragic import of the finale, with the two middle movements as intermezzo-like genre-pieces, both nocturnes. Yet the whole piece hangs together as a symphony, in many ways a Mahlerian view of the form, much as VW might have been surprised to find himself compared with his Austrian contemporary. But the use of snatches of popular music, the nostalgia for nature and the use of a march as a kind of funereal leitmotif are all Mahlerian procedures. Hughes's approach takes all this into consideration and the result is a most perceptive interpretation, more perceptive, I think, than Previn's latest for Telarc.
His Cockaigne, on the other hand, seems to go on forever. He draws out the nobilmente tune, over-indulges in rits and generally drains the work of some of its vitality by over-egging the pudding. But it's splendid to hear the organ part so well recorded and integrated into the texture. Ireland's overture is very well done. We ought to hear it more often.'