Ralph Vaughan Williams - world famous in the UK?

[Alan Howe]

Yes, that's true. Neverthless, VW sounds like a composer striking out in totally new directions. That's why he's a true great, whereas Korngold...

[terry martyn]

Vaughan Williams was drummed in to me at school, and I fear that I will never come to terms with him. But that´s not to say that I don´t think he is a composer of renown, just that I have never developed a liking for much music composed after Reinecke and his followers. As for Korngold, who isn´t really part of this thread, he was originally recommended to me by David Mellor and I´m afraid I don´t think he is in the same class as Vaughan Williams (Korngold,that is)

[scarpia]

Vaughan Williams 6th Symphony is more chromatic than anything. It hardly sounds like music to me. I've never heard it in concert. I think everyone knows his Fantasia on Greesleeves.

[Gareth Vaughan]

It hardly sounds like music to me.

!!!!!!!!!!!

[Alan Howe]

Quite.

[eschiss1]

Several authors I like are fond of VW, including the late Reginald Hill (Songs of Travel mentioned in "Roar of the Butterflies" chapter 16) and less unsurprisingly Alan Dean Foster (a work of VW figures in a music battle at the end of one of his Spellsinger novels.. then again Foster likes H Brian too, so...)

[kolaboy]

I would have to say that the last mvt of VW's 6th is some of the most profoundly beautiful music written in the 20th century.  The first time I heard it on the radio (early 80s) I was transfixed. It's a piece (the symphony as a whole) that I've come to value even more as time passes.

[Alan Howe]

It's a great work, yes!

[chriskh]

Back to continental conductors performing VW ... Ferruccio Scaglia conducted Symphony 8 for RAI in Rome in the 1960s. I don't know if a tape still exists. I have heard a performance of the Oboe Concerto with Sheila Hodgkinson (a good player briefly active in Naples in the 1960s) and the Naples Scarlatti Orchestra of the RAI under Pietro Argento. Argento seemed to have no difficulty with the style (to an Italian, VW is likely to sound like Pizzetti). This was a studio performance, though.