So we really are to have complete cycles of the Vaughan Williams symphonies from both Bryden Thomson for Chandos and Haitink for EMI. It is an inviting prospect, and if Thomson's continues as well as it has begun with this splendid performance of No. 5, then we are in for revelations. Some may find the actual recorded sound (the recording was made in St Jude-on-the-Hill, Hampstead) a little over-resonant, but for my taste the acoustic suits the soaring arches of string tone and the hieratic brass which Vaughan Williams provides throughout the work.
Revelations? Yes, indeed. We know this symphony is generally regarded as a 'mild' work, a kind of benediction, and much of it supports that interpretation. But Thomson convincingly relates it to the harsher spirit of its F minor predecessor by his clear exposure of the symphony's underlying harmonic ambiguities. At an early stage in the work's composition, Vaughan Williams used part of the first movement as a funeral march, and I have never before been so conscious as when listening to this performance of the music sounding like a lament for a vanishing world. In the Scherzo, too, most brilliantly played by the LSO, and in the finale, the nocturnal world of the Scherzo of A London Symphony seems to be revisited. Altogether a deeply thought provoking interpretation, broad, noble and strong.
The Lark Ascending is beautifully played by Michael Davis, the LSO's former leader, now with the Halle. Perhaps a trace too much vibrato, but a lovely tone throughout. This work too is given a searching interpretation. It never was just a piece of pastoral meandering. It is the musical equivalent of Edward Thomas's England, nostalgia raised to high art. Only a composer capable of writing a masterpiece like the Fifth Symphony can compose a masterpiece on this smaller scale.'