Symphonies 4 and 6
London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Antonio Pappano Conductor
LSO Live LS00867
Full Price
The Review
These are the two symphonies in which Vaughan Williams takes on the turbulence of the 1930s and 40s.
Whatever his protestations about not writing specifically about the politics of the time, there is no getting away from the fact that this is not comfortable music. There is an edge to his writing in the 4th that is just as unsettling as that of his younger contemporaries like Shostakovich, Hindemith, Walton and Bliss. This is music for difficult times, the 4th appearing in 1934, the 6th in 1947.
VW may have come across as amiable but he was deeply concerned about the world he lived in and he was no conservative, even if his musical language – so deeply rooted in the harmonic structures of the early sixteenth century – felt nostalgic in some pieces. Those years from 1600 were full of turmoil too, in England culminating in civil war. We are so used to thinking of him as the composer of the Tallis Fantasia and The Lark Ascending that it is easy to forget that he could be just as fierce as Stravinsky when he wanted. The opening of the 6th has a real sense of cataclysm and, even when it subsides, of something ruthless stalking the land.
These are live performances given in the Barbican and the concert dates could not, in retrospect, have made the accident of the LSO’s planning more apt, as Pappano himself points out. The 4th was played the night Boris Johnson won the 1919 general election, the 6th three months later, only a few hours before all halls and theatres were shut by COVID.
For a conductor it is difficult to negotiate the frequent changes of mood and to keep a tight rein on the shifting rhythms in both works. At times they seem to be a maelstrom of targeted energy, at others restless and tense wanderings. Pappano is just about ideal for this; his American and Italian heritage letting him tackle the tradition with detachment, his British side ensuring that that tradition, so firmly established by Sir Adrian Boult, is given its due. He takes a little more time than Boult’s late 1960s recordings with the New Philharmonia Orchestra in some movements, a little less in others, but they are broadly similar.
Where Pappano succeeds is in the definition and bite he extracts from the LSO. The note values feel shorter, the brass more rasping, the wind fusillades more incisive, the saxophone solos and the final disintegration of the 6th more desolate. It is as if he is approaching VW with half an ear open for Bartok. The phrases are pointed with urgency, the arguments bitter. The effect on CD is unnerving. In the hall it must have been terrifying. I think I would have needed a stiff drink on the way home.
SM