Vaughan Williams - Job, Old King Cole, The Running Set | Onyx ONYX4240

Vaughan Williams - Job, Old King Cole, The Running Set

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Label: Onyx

Cat No: ONYX4240

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 30th June 2023

Contents

Artists

Thelma Hand (violin)
Eva Thorarinsdottir (violin)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor

Andrew Manze

Works

Vaughan Williams, Ralph

Job: A Masque for Dancing
Old King Cole
The Running Set

Artists

Thelma Hand (violin)
Eva Thorarinsdottir (violin)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor

Andrew Manze

About

Following on from their highly acclaimed cycle of the nine Vaughan Williams symphonies, Andrew Manze and the RLPO have recorded a spectacular Job, taken from a live performance at the famed Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool.

Ralph Vaughan Williams’s inspiration for Job arose from William Blake’s illustrations for The Book of Job, a collection of water colours from 1805, and the later engravings from 1822. 1928 was the centenary of Blake’s death, and RVW attempted to interest Serge Diaghilev, the foremost artistic power in the world of ballet to take it up but to no avail. The work has since become a concert piece after a handful of staged performances in the early 1930s.

The score is in nine sections telling the story of Job. The music is notable for its dramatic contrasts. The music for God being powerful and majestic, that for Satan is powerfully dissonant with a violence that foreshadows music encountered in the Fourth and Sixth symphonies and the piano concerto.

Vaughan Williams had seen service in France in the First World War, and what he saw there undoubtedly coloured his musical language, and the horrors endured by Job are depicted in some of RVVs most driven and dissonant music.

Reviews

Right from the outset, there’s an ear‑pricking clarity about the harmonic writing for the lower strings, and textures are probed with engrossing skill. ... As for the remainder, Manze gives a rare outing to the agreeable 1923 ballet Old King Cole, one which in its thrusting, affectionately spry demeanour wisely doesn’t attempt to inflate the music beyond its modest, unpretentious means. ... anyone who has been following Manze’s stimulating RVW series for Onyx will require no further encouragement from me.  Andrew Achenbach
Gramophone August 2023
Gramophone Editor's Choice

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