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.. Vaughan Williams ~ Rhosymedre best known (so it seems) by a mile of Vaughan Williams 1920 Welsh organ pieces ~ a first choice for every organist setting down the composer's organ music In 1970s I had Robert Joyce vinyl at Llandaff Cathedral also included serenely flowing Rhosymedre.but was largely unsmitten ~ a difficulty relating Rhosymedre which seemed a century backwards to my unfinished take on a modern Vaughan Williams~ two outer pieces bespeaking Vaughan Williams craggy power nearer my needs A version for strings helped allay inadequate doubts.about Rhosymedre .Earlier an American semi private vinyl of Sancta Civitas provided initial acquaintance but big work on that mid 1950s vinyl was Sancta civitas ~ half hour choral masterpiece probably VW greatest. Item caught my ear on Robert Joyce vinyl was a dash to to finish approach on Hyfrydol despite generous Andante maestoso marking~ a field day for tempo disquisition but compensation about music ~ spiritual latitude ~ slow or fast both sometimes seem correct.
As dust settles some touted 20th century composer reputations. remain in the balance The absorption of early orchestral piece Solent into darker world of Vaughan Williams Ninth Symphony lends context to both . A fifty plus year spread in composition but both pieces stylistically not especially at odds ~ the singular less ambitious mood of Solents pre Sea Symphony sound world is replaced by much weightier Ninth Symphony . Garbed in characteristic VW strings ~ Solent as observed is worthwhile rediscovery most maturely characteristic of composer's early pieces Though shaping of themes lack imprint of familiar VW a similar inwardness discernible in more elaborate 1920s song New Ghost .. The timings question the hectic approach of some Ninth Symphony performances ~ Second Movement March sequence taken at a lick may gain superficially but disequilibrates the Symphony' s balances Slowly the music acquires darker significance anticipating greater Andante tranquilo finale ~ A Brucknerian amplitude palliates sterner tones in this late symphony ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Purely personal I prefer this strings arrangement of Hyfrydol to organ version Within past few years a commentator declared Vaughan Williams Ninth Symphony probably the worst symphony ever (he had heard)~ the guts of a spirited conversation implied by that observation
Circa 1960 in the bleak mid winter of modernism when doughty souls were clambering aboard another observer had a similar response. ~ along lines ~ arbitrary pointlessness of a work (Ninth Symphony) going through the motions Strange over 47 years many listens ~though the second movement presented thoughts if problems of symphonic symmetry~ perhaps the repeat March might have withstood very minor pruning~ but that does not constrain estimate of a great symphony attracting adherents ~ You will understand for sake of my sanity I bow out from ranks of "worst symphony ever"