DESCRIPTION:
Vaughan Williams's 'Masque for Dancing' entitled "Job" was first given as a concert work in 1930, conducted by the composer. It then received its dance premiere the following year, to choreography by Ninette de Valois, by the Vic-Wells Ballet (later the Royal Ballet). Sir Adrian Boult was the work's dedicatee and he made four commercial recordings of it. This televised performance took place at London's Royal Festival Hall in 1972 with Boult conducting the London Philharmonic when he was 83 years old. We hear two excerpts: the 'Saraband of the Sons of God' and 'Satan's Dance of Triumph.' It's unfortunate that there were so few shots of Boult in close-up in this concert since most of the time we're only looking down at the back of his head. On the other hand we get plenty of horns and trumpets and woodwinds and percussion, whereas it's Boult's conducting technique that would have been far more interesting to preserve on film. (With all due acknowledgements to the ICA Classics DVD release: Catalogue No. ICAD 5027 - also features Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 8)