VW 5&6

With this disk in Slatkin's fine Vaughan Williams edition, we reach the heart of the Vaughan Williams symphonic output. After the sustained ferocity of the Fourth, which came as a tremendous shock to audiences, the sweetly consoling sounds of the Fifth gave people the impression that VW had simply produced an aberration, and was now back on track. Certainly, if this was a response to the war it was a very different one than the one Shostakovich gave with his Seventh and Eighth symphonies.

Then came the Sixth, a bit less ferocious than the Fourth but with a quality of existential searching which seemed to sum up the anxiety of the post-war world. The last movement, all pp, with "drifting" “whiffs of theme” was given the following Shakespeare tag by the composer:

"We are such stuff


As dreams are made on; and our little life


Is rounded with a sleep."

As usual with classical albums, the CD should be burned with no added pauses.




Amazon editorial review

The Fifth Symphony shares some of its musical material with the opera The Pilgrim's Progress, and the composer dedicated it "without permission" to Sibelius. Indeed the work has something of Sibelius's nature poetry about it, as well as a solemn, almost religious quality in the slow movement. The Sixth, by contrast, is the composer's bleakest and most terrifying work, the second movement being a close relative of Holst's "Mars," from The Planets. There's actually quite a bit of "space" music in this score, not least in the finale, which is played entirely at the lowest possible dynamic level. Leonard Slatkin's performances are among the finest available. --David Hurwitz







1. Sym No.5 in D: Prelude: Moderato


2. Sym No.5 in D: Scherzo: Presto Misterioso


3. Sym No.5 in D: Romanza: Lento


4. Sym No.5 in D: Passacaglia: Moderato


5. Sym No.6 in e: Allegro


6. Sym No.6 in e: Moderato


7. Sym No.6 in e: Scherzo: Allegro Vivace


8. Sym No.6 in e: Epilogue: Moderato




FLAC