Tag Archives: Ralph Vaughan Williams

Arcana at the BBC Proms: Simone Lamsma, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Manze – Vaughan Williams, Britten & Smickersgill

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Simone Lamsma (violin), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Manze

Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910)
Britten Violin Concerto in D minor Op.15 (1938-9)
Smickersgill A Brick Thrown with Love (2026) [BBC co-commission: World premiere]
Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 9 in E minor (1956-7)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Friday 4 September 2026

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) BBC / Chris Christodoulou

Andrew Manze’s eleventh appearance at the Proms, during which 28 years he has moved from being a Baroque violinist and director to a symphonic conductor, drew on just over a century of British music for what proved a typically thoughtful and absorbing programme.

Not consistently successful, though – hence an account of Vaughan Williams‘ Tallis Fantasia whose avoiding of old-school eloquence leant it a certain uniformity of expression. In particular, the second (nine-piece) orchestra sounded rather un-atmospheric placed just behind the main body, leaving it to the solo quartet to instil a degree of intensity as the piece built toward its fervent if generalized climax before heading into subdued retrospection. Assured playing among the ranks of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra strings did not make it other than an unexceptional reading.

The surprise about Simone Lamsma’s Proms appearance was this being her first, but anyone having heard her in Saint-Saëns’s Third Concerto knows her to be a soloist of the first order -as was the case with Britten’s Violin Concerto. The Moderato’s alternating of enervation and incisiveness was deftly handled, then the Vivace’s impetus did not omit a soulful response in its central episode with a magical transition on piccolos and tuba back to its initial animation. Nor was the cadenza other than integrated thematically into an overall structure as concludes with one of Britten’s most deeply felt passacaglias. Spanish elements which keenly offset any formal severity with expressive spontaneity bring about its powerful climax; the equivocation between hope and resignation unerringly judged at the end of what was a memorable reading.

Those responsive to her earlier ensemble works should have found Carmel Smickersgill’s new Proms piece no less intriguing. Its three (more or less) continuous sections of A Brick Thrown with Love provide an unforced trajectory where reckless negativity is countered with diverse responses, before the coming together in a mood of determined positivity. Lucid textures and iridescent scoring banish any hint of agit-prop with an appealing demonstration of orchestral prowess; one whose warm reception the composer chose to acknowledge from the rear stalls.

Vaughan Williams’s Ninth Symphony receives more hearings than ever in the seven decades since it premiered to a lukewarm response. Manze had the measure of the opening Moderato with its luminous scoring for three saxophones and a restiveness allayed if not resolved by its twilit coda. The ensuing Andante drew potent contrast from its hieratic and human elements, thrown into relief by a flugelhorn refrain (evocatively played by Tom Fountain) that reaches back into the composer’s distant past, then the Scherzo purposefully offset its capricious and militant aspects with a haunting lyricism as comes into its own in the finale. Less protracted than on Manze’s recording (Onyx), this unfolds in ever more elaborate arcs of accumulating activity to what is less a coda than an apotheosis which here was inevitable and unequivocal.

Just what those closing bars are conveying has been the subject of considerable speculation over time. Without overstating his case, Manze allowed this ‘journey of a life’ to envelop the Albert Hall’s expanse in what was an affecting end to a memorable evening’s music-making.

You can listen to this Prom on BBC Sounds until the end of September 2026.

Published post no.3,012 – Wednesday 9 September 2026

In Appreciation – Martyn Granville

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by Ben Hogwood

Taking time to pay tribute to an old, sadly departed friend. Martyn Granville would have been 62 today, and I realised I had not yet dedicated music to him on these pages, for Martyn sadly left us in May 2014. Here is his favourite classical piece, the wonderful Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams, from a lockdown session revealing its emotive core:

Published post no.2,842 – Monday 30 March 2026

In Concert – Ailish Tynan, Pauline Murrihy, Robin Tritschler & Iain Burnside @ Wigmore Hall: Ina Boyle – A Rediscovery

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Ailish Tynan (soprano), Paula Murrihy (mezzo-soprano), Robin Tritschler (tenor), Iain Burnside (piano)

Boyle A soft day, thank God (1912); Looking Back: Carrowdore (1961-6); The Joy of Earth (1914); 2 Christmas Songs: Blyssid be the Tyme (1923-4); Himself and his Fiddle (1929); Have you news of my boy Jack (1916); Looking Back: O ghost, that has gone
Vaughan Williams Orpheus with his Lute (1925)
Boyle Looking Back: The mill-water
Vaughan Williams The Water Mill (c1922)
Maconchy Sun, Moon and Stars from Sun, Moon and Stars (1977)
Boyle Spring goeth all in white (1924); A Song of Enchantment (1921-2)
Wood The blackberry blossom (1897)
Boyle Roses (1909)
Wood Oh! Skylark, for thy wing! (1884)
Boyle All Souls’ Flower (1928)
Wood Darest thou now, O Soul (1897)
Boyle The Last Invocation (1913)

Wigmore Hall, London
Tuesday 9 March, 1pm

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood Photo (c) Ben Hogwood

“I think it is most courageous of you to go on with such little recognition,” wrote Vaughan Williams to his pupil, Irish composer Ina Boyle. “The only thing to say is that it does come finally.”

This Wigmore Hall concert gave the strongest possible proof of recognition at last for Boyle’s work, her songs brought to life by a starry cast of singers with pianist Iain Burnside. The program helpfully complemented her work with that of teacher Vaughan Williams, cousin by marriage Charles Wood, and good friend Elizabeth Maconchy.

The texts reflected a love of the outdoors, surely gained during her relative seclusion in home territory at County Wicklow, and also celebrated the season of spring, evident to all arriving at the Wigmore Hall for this lunchtime recital.

The brightly voiced A soft day, thank God, took us outdoors immediately, the ‘scent of drenching leaves’ and the rain that ‘drips, drips, drips from the leaves’ brought to life from Winifred M Letts’ words. They were sung with clarity by Robin Tritschler in the first verse and a brightly voiced Ailish Tynan in the second. Boyle’s songwriting is simple – not a criticism – and direct in its communication, reflecting the shy disposition of its composer but growing in assurance as her style developed.

This was evident in the selections from the song cycle Looking Back, with Carrowdore lost in thought through Paula Murrihy’s thoughtful account. The elusive and more playful O ghost, was laced with humour by Tritschler, while Murrihy’s full-bodied vocal was complemented by the flowing current of Burnside’s piano in The Mill Water.

The Joy Of Earth was noticeably more demonstrative, while Blyssid be the Tyme benefitted from both Tynan’s effortless projection and Boyle’s clean melodic line. Murrihy did extremely well with the wordy Himself and his Fiddle, accentuating the song’s folksy triple time with Burnside, while the brief but bright Robert Bridges setting, Spring goeth all in white, was beautifully phrased by Tynan.

Boyle’s inwardly facing songs were the most moving, notably A Song of Enchantment, a setting of De la Mare given mysterious light and shade from Tritschler, who held the stillness of twilight exquisitely as the shadows advanced. The tenor also kept the inner questions of Roses in a confidential tone, while Burnside’s wandering right hand line aided the wonder of All Souls’ Flower, where the three singers took a verse each. Most affecting of all Boyle’s songs here was a setting of Rudyard Kipling’s First World War poem, Have you news of my boy Jack?, Murrihy and Tritschler playing a tense scene of anxious questions, with answers that a mother dreaded to hear.

Vaughan Williams was represented by a beautifully sung account of Orpheus with his Lute from Tynan, then a vividly pictorial account of The Water Mill from Tritschler, where Burnside’s characterisations of the roaring waters, the ticking of the mill clock and the miller’s tabby cat were exquisite.

The composer Charles Wood, Boyle’s cousin by marriage, is known primarily for Anglican church music rather than exploits in the concert hall, so it was satisfying that the centenary of his death this year was marked with three characterful songs. Paula Murrihy worked wonders with another wordy composition, the frivolous The blackberry blossom, and with the serious tones of Whitman setting Darest thou now, O Soul. Tynan was in her element for the soft tones of Oh! Skylark, for thy wing!, Burnside allowing her room to spread her wings.

Elizabeth Maconchy nearly stole the show with Sun, Moon and Stars, a modern song of striking musical language reflecting the ‘new and strange’ of its first line. The top notes reached for celestial highs, and were found unerringly in an exceptional performance by Tynan.

Wrapping up a memorable hour of music was Boyle’s The Last Invocation, an impassioned setting of Whitman throwing open the doors with the strongest possible advocacy from Robin Tritschler. It completed a concert where the songwriting craft of Ina Boyle was confirmed beyond doubt, her voice at last projecting further afield.

You can listen to the music from this concert in a Tidal playlist, including songs by Ina Boyle recorded by the artists at the Wigmore Hall for Delphian in 2020.

Published post no.2,827 – Thursday 12 March 2026

In Concert – Zoë Beyers, English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods: Vaughan Williams, Sawyers & Elgar @ Cheltenham Town Hall

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Zoë Beyers (violin, above), English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods

Vaughan Williams The Wasps (1909) – Overture
Sawyers Symphony no.6 ‘A Pastoral’ (2022) [World Premiere]
Elgar Violin Concerto in B minor Op.61 (1909-10)

Town Hall, Cheltenham
Sunday 1 February 2026

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photo of Zoë Beyers (c) Bill Leighton

This afternoon’s concert in the second season of its Cheltenham residency found the English Symphony Orchestra tackling, appropriately enough, an all-English programme; the Overture from Vaughan Williams’s incidental music to The Wasps being an ideal curtain-raiser with its interplay of incisiveness and eloquence ideally judged. The performance was enhanced by an unerring balance that allowed such as Rita Schindler’s dextrous harp playing to register with real clarity. Hopefully the whole suite will appear at an ESO concert sometime in the future.

The music of Philip Sawyers has appeared frequently on ESO programmes this past decade, with his Third Symphony launching the orchestra’s 21st Century Symphony Project back in 2016. A decade on bought the premiere of his Sixth Symphony – less epic in scope than the Third or Fourth in this cycle and without the searching ambiguities of the Fifth, but a piece whose modest length (30 minutes) or forces (double woodwind, horns and trumpets) likely belie the emotional range of what is being played out across these four compact movements.

Its subtitle evidently an afterthought, ‘A Pastoral’ deftly characterizes this symphony audibly influenced by if never beholden to that by Beethoven. Hence the opening Moderato implies a journey whose destination seems at best uncertain, its accumulating tension carried over into an Andante where scenic aspect is countered with more subjective preoccupations. Nor is the Allegro of an unchecked jollity, the insistent rhythmic profile accumulating an impetus such as takes on more elemental qualities in its visceral latter stages. The final Allegretto surveys all that went before (whether motivically or emotionally) through a process of clarifying and honing earlier ideas towards an ending which, with its evocation of birdsong, affords closure but not catharsis. An ambivalence Sawyers will hopefully address in his Seventh Symphony.

Assuredly directed by Kenneth Woods (below), this first performance was almost all that could have been wished as to accuracy of ensemble or interpretive insight. Good to hear it was recorded for future release, and hopefully Sawyers’s Sixth will receive more hearings before too long.

After the interval, Zoë Beyers repeated what was a well-received account of Elgar’s Violin Concerto from last year’s Elgar Festival. With its opulent scale and solo part that had been conceived for Fritz Kreisler, this could never be other than a testing proposition but Beyers succeeded admirably in conveying that formal intricacy and expressive force which typify this work. The opening Allegro was rarely other than cohesive, thanks not least to Woods’s astute accompanying, and the Andante radiated an emotional warmth with no risk of undue emoting. Beyers had the measure of the lengthy finale, duly coming into her own with that accompanied cadenza such as reviews previous themes at an emotional remove and whose ambivalence resonated long after activity had been resumed on the way to a decisive close.

An engrossing performance which concluded this concert in impressive fashion. Woods and the ESO return to Cheltenham Town Hall next month with a new piece by David Matthews, alongside Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante (for strings) and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.

To read more about the orchestra’s 2025/26 season, visit the English Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names for more on violinist Zoë Beyers, conductor Kenneth Woods and composer Philip Sawyers

Published post no.2,786 – Monday 2 February 2026

In concert – Gwilym Bowen, Gareth Brynmor John, William Vann, Navarra String Quartet @ Temple Church, London – Ian Venables: Out of the Shadows (a 70th birthday concert)

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Gwilym Bowen (tenor), Gareth Brynmor John (baritone), William Vann (piano), Navarra Quartet [Benjamin Marquise Gilmore, Eva Aronian (violins), Sascha Bota (viola), Brian O’Kane (cello)]

Venables Out of the Shadows Op.55 (2023)
Vaughan Williams arr. Vann Fantasia on Greensleeves (1934)
Vaughan Williams On Wenlock Edge (1909)
Vaughan Williams Love Bade Me Welcome (1911)
Venables Portraits of a Mind Op.54 (2022)
Howells An Old Man’s Lullaby (1947)

The Temple Church, London
Tuesday 4 November 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

The emergence of Ian Venables as the leading British art-song composer was suitably marked with a 70th-birthday concert, sponsored by the Morris-Venables Charitable Foundation under the auspices of Temple Music Foundation and held in the evocative setting of Temple Church.

Song cycles being at the forefront of Venables’s output, it made sense to start with one of his most recent – Out of the Shadows a wide-ranging overview of male love. From the coyness of Constantine Cavafy’s At the Cafè Door and the barbed humour of Horatio Brown’s Bored, this takes in the fleeting ecstasy of Cavafy’s The Mirror in the Hall and stark soulfulness of Alfred Tennyson’s Dark House, prior to the overt playfulness of John Addington Symonds’s Love’s Olympian Laughter and calm affirmation of Edward Perry Warren’s Body and Soul.

Affectingly sung by Gareth Brynmor John (above), it preceded likely the most influential such cycle in English. A. E. Housman may have disliked his settings, but Vaughan Williams always gets to the heart of the matter in On Wenlock Edge. Hence the volatile imaginings of its title-number or hymnic poise of ‘From Far, from Eve and Morning’, the brooding dialogue of ‘Is My Team Ploughing’ or nonchalant wit of ‘Oh, When I Was in Love with You’; reaching a climax in the innocence to experience of ‘Bredon Hill’, with ‘Clun’ ending the sequence in fatalistic repose.

Gwilym Bowen gave a searching account of this cycle (doubly so having replaced Alessandro Fisher at such short notice), with Brynmor John comparably attuned to the understatement of George Butterworth’s Love Blows as the Wind Blows. These settings of W. E. Henley amount to a cohesive yet subtly contrasted entity – the existential musing of In the Year that’s Come and Gone followed by the deadpan charm of Life in Her Creaking Shoes and effervescence of Fill a Glass with Golden Wine, then On the Way to Kew brings a close of deftest poise.

Bowen duly tackled a further Venables cycle. Written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Vaughan Williams’s birth, Portraits of a Mind is a notably inclusive one of the composer. Hence the gentle pantheism of George Meredith’s The Lark Ascending and the meditation on creativity of Ursula VW’s Man Makes Delight His Own; the engaging impetus of R. L. Stevenson’s From a Railway Carriage a perfect foil to the resignation of Christina Rosetti’s Echo, before lines from Walt Whitman’s A Clear Midnight conjure a warm transcendence.

Throughout these performances, the playing of the Navarra Quartet (above) evinced an incisiveness and eloquence always at the service of this music; William Vann’s attentive pianism astutely deployed in his appealing arrangement of VW’s Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves’. Brynmor John opened the second half with that composer’s disarming take on George Herbert’s Love Bade Me Welcome (first of Five Mystical Songs), with both vocalists heard to advantage in An Old Man’s Lullaby – Herbert Howells’s setting of Thomas Dekker that made for a winsome envoi.

Taken overall, this was a wholly pleasurable evening and welcome confirmation of Venables’ creative prowess – his corpus of songs or song-cycles surely second to none among those for whom the English language is a source of never-ending and always unexpected possibilities.

Click here to read an extensive tribute to Ian Venables on from his husband, pianist Graham J. Lloyd – or click on the names to read more about Gwilym Bowen, Gareth Brynmor John, William Vann, the Navarra Quartet and Temple Music Foundation

Published post no.2,710 – Thursday 6 November 2025