Vaughan Williams (The) Pilgrim's Progress
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Label: Hyperion
Magazine Review Date: 8/1991
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: KA66511
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (A) Bunyan Sequence |
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
Aidan Oliver, Treble/boy soprano City of London Sinfonia Corydon Singers John Gielgud, Wheel of Fortune Woman Matthew Best, Conductor Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer Richard Pasco, Speaker Ursula Howells, Wheel of Fortune Woman |
Composer or Director: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Label: Hyperion
Magazine Review Date: 8/1991
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 64
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CDA66511
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (A) Bunyan Sequence |
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
Aidan Oliver, Treble/boy soprano City of London Sinfonia Corydon Singers John Gielgud, Wheel of Fortune Woman Matthew Best, Conductor Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer Richard Pasco, Speaker Ursula Howells, Wheel of Fortune Woman |
Author:
This is not the opera (though related to it), but a presentation of material used in a BBC broadcast of 1942, when a version of The Pilgrim's Progress was produced, dramatized by Edward Sackville-West and with incidental music by Vaughan Williams. The musical score and production-script then lay in the archives thence to be rescued by Christopher Palmer and, in what was clearly a labour of love, adapted for this recording. The introductory notes give details of passages found here but not in the opera, and also outline Vaughan Williams's lifelong devotion to Bunyan's great book, which, as Ursula Vaughan Williams has said, almost certainly dated back to earliest childhood, culminating musically in the opera (or ''morality'') which had its premiere at Covent Garden in 1951.
The aim here has been to turn the work ''into a primarily musical entity'', and this has involved, as Palmer admits, a reluctant but large scale reduction of Bunyan's part in the entertainment. Christian's journey to the Kingdom takes him to the Man at the Gate, to the hill of Difficulty where the shepherd boy sings of humble content, then to the Palace Beautiful, the encounter with Apollyon, and through Vanity Fair to his trial by Lord Hategood. Giant Despair assails him, and the Delectable Mountains give him comfort before he sinks in deep water and arrives in the City of God. The story is well but economically told in a mixture of narrative and dialogue, ending with Bunyan's Epilogue which urges the listener to put criticisms into perspective, for ''None throws away the apple for the core''.
That is perhaps the spirit in which the record should be heard for the first time. I wouldn't wish to appear ungrateful but I think the first encounter may bring some disappointment. The music harks back repeatedly to the Tallis Fantasia and looks forward to the Fifth Symphony and of course to the opera. There are many other and more incidental associations, so that initially one may wonder whether the score contains enough that is distinctively its own to form a 'musical entity' at all. At the extremes of happiness, terror and despair, expression is somewhat muted, and the chorus, in particular, has disappointingly little to do. Then, in a first reaction to the performance, it can hardly be over-looked that Christian, none too robust at the outset, sounds sadly groggy on arrival at the Delectable Mountains. Fine as it is to have Sir John Gielgud in the part he played almost 50 years ago, there is no denying that the voice has lost its steel, while (for better or worse) the manner ever more inescapably brings its period with it.
In subsequent hearings it is very likely that such reactions will seem callow. The score does have its own life, and the references to other works in the canon, both past and future, will quickly become, for anyone with a feeling for Vaughan Williams, an enrichment rather than a dilution. Gielgud's performance is a quiet, movingly subdued epilogue to the work of one of our greatest actors. The other actors, the singers (especially the Eton Music Scholar, Aidan Oliver, who sings ''He that is down'' so beautifully), and Matthew Best's musicians all contribute worthily; and for Christopher Palmer's work in reviving, or partly creating this ''Bunyan Sequence'', as for Hyperion's in recording it, one can have only the utmost gratitude.'
The aim here has been to turn the work ''into a primarily musical entity'', and this has involved, as Palmer admits, a reluctant but large scale reduction of Bunyan's part in the entertainment. Christian's journey to the Kingdom takes him to the Man at the Gate, to the hill of Difficulty where the shepherd boy sings of humble content, then to the Palace Beautiful, the encounter with Apollyon, and through Vanity Fair to his trial by Lord Hategood. Giant Despair assails him, and the Delectable Mountains give him comfort before he sinks in deep water and arrives in the City of God. The story is well but economically told in a mixture of narrative and dialogue, ending with Bunyan's Epilogue which urges the listener to put criticisms into perspective, for ''None throws away the apple for the core''.
That is perhaps the spirit in which the record should be heard for the first time. I wouldn't wish to appear ungrateful but I think the first encounter may bring some disappointment. The music harks back repeatedly to the Tallis Fantasia and looks forward to the Fifth Symphony and of course to the opera. There are many other and more incidental associations, so that initially one may wonder whether the score contains enough that is distinctively its own to form a 'musical entity' at all. At the extremes of happiness, terror and despair, expression is somewhat muted, and the chorus, in particular, has disappointingly little to do. Then, in a first reaction to the performance, it can hardly be over-looked that Christian, none too robust at the outset, sounds sadly groggy on arrival at the Delectable Mountains. Fine as it is to have Sir John Gielgud in the part he played almost 50 years ago, there is no denying that the voice has lost its steel, while (for better or worse) the manner ever more inescapably brings its period with it.
In subsequent hearings it is very likely that such reactions will seem callow. The score does have its own life, and the references to other works in the canon, both past and future, will quickly become, for anyone with a feeling for Vaughan Williams, an enrichment rather than a dilution. Gielgud's performance is a quiet, movingly subdued epilogue to the work of one of our greatest actors. The other actors, the singers (especially the Eton Music Scholar, Aidan Oliver, who sings ''He that is down'' so beautifully), and Matthew Best's musicians all contribute worthily; and for Christopher Palmer's work in reviving, or partly creating this ''Bunyan Sequence'', as for Hyperion's in recording it, one can have only the utmost gratitude.'
Vaughan Williams (The) Pilgrim's Progress
Vaughan Williams (The) Pilgrim's Progress
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