Vaughan Williams Symphonies 4 & 6/LSO/Pappano
I woke up early one morning a couple of months ago to read excited PR tweets from the LSO and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra about their Music Directors’ contracts. Through my blurry vision and foggy brain, they read like self congratulatory tweets in PR-speak about renewals. Good news when the two MDs in question are the tops in their field in the United Kingdom, the LSO’s Sir Simon Rattle and the CBSO’s Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. A coffee or two later realization came these were Band-Aid tweets inoculating the bands from the upcoming divorce fallout. Both conductors were leaving, decamping for fresh, Brexit-less pastures new. Rattle to Bavarian Radio and Mirga to raise her two young children in Salzburg, and positioned perfectly for the next top Euro or US job.
Back to reality.
The London Symphony Orchestra would usually have the pick of the crop when searching for a new conductor, but Brexit fallout must have seen that list dwindle. Yet, all seems happy about the next Music Director, Sir Antonio Pappano. More upbeat tweets. Local Essex lad Pappano has been Music Director of Covent Garden for almost 20 years.
This recording was released on LSO Live in April 2021 taken from live concerts at the orchestra’s Barbican home in 2019 and 2020, well before the Pappano announcement. Even though the scuttlebutt is the musicians like him, I’ve had mixed reactions to his work—some marvelous Wagner and Puccini in the opera house, but less impressed with his work on the concert stage.
The LSO, even under stressful conditions like Brexit and Covid, can still produce top drawer performances. But would Pappano bring something new to the table considering the benchmark Vaughan Williams recordings the orchestra produced with previous boss, André Previn?
Photo credit: LSO Live
I can report to you this new release is first rate, both in recording and performances. The playing suggests a live show in some ensemble moments, but on the whole it’s very fine, and the LSO can turn on the heat like few others. So, RVW’s two most aggressive symphonies—Symphony No. 4 in F minor (1935) & Symphony No. 6 in E minor (1944-47; revised 1950)—sound anywhere from energetic to white hot. For orchestral enthusiasts, intonation is excellent and solo playing is typically beautiful from the hard working LSO principals.
What I really enjoyed about both performances was Pappano’s insistence on RVW’s written dynamics. Too many conductors gild the lily with these works. Blaringly loud to the opposite end of the scale, the weird, pp ‘Epilogue’ to the 6th Symphony, for example. Loud or soft, the playing is always nicely balanced by Pappano. Even difficult voicings, like the solo oboe cantabile over strings in the ‘Epilogue’, are executed perfectly.
The 24/96 stream from Qobuz is a cracker!
The 4th and 6th, both preceded by beautiful, elegiac symphonies, are violent, very rhythmically complex and celebrate the minor 2nd and minor 3rd incessantly. To be honest, unlike compatriot Elgar’s 2 symphonies, the harmonic and rhythmic complexity of RVW’s 4 & 6 often don’t allow the conductor to make the works their own, rather, it’s heads down and see you at the end. As such, the LSO are so brilliant, they could play both symphonies without somebody waving a stick. Yet, Pappano does hold the orchestra together very well in the polyrhythmic ‘Scherzos’ and the swirling 16th patterns at the opening of the 6th Symphony (see below). And the rare times a big RVW tune appears, Pappano allows the orchestra to soar and elicits a very beautiful sonority.
Barbirolli, Boult and Previn usually hold first place in RVW’s works, but Pappano will be a good first choice for those listeners wanting a new release with fine performances and excellent sound. The Toronto Symphony under Oundjian (4th) and Liverpool Phil under Manze (6th) play very well but can’t compete with the depth of sound and tone the LSO produces. If you’re on Roon and Qobuz like me, be sure to compare the glorious 2nd subject theme recap in the opening movement of the 6th (rehearsal number 15) from all the recordings listed. You’ll hear what I mean. The LSO strings under Pappano are magnificent here.
Want a deep dive? Download the scores on IMSLP and follow along as Barbirolli and the Bavarian Radio Symphony, no less (Orfeo live recording, 1970), give a master class on how to scrupulously follow RVW’s precise markings. Even the beginning of the 6th, ‘allarg’ (abbreviation for allargando—broadening), Barbirolli and his Bavarians get it. As for British idiomatic playing and 2021 polish, that’s where we’ll leave Munich and return to London.
So, the new LSO Live recording and performances are very successful. It is a quality recording like this (he sells records) plus Pappano’s musicianship and reputation why the LSO hired him. But, when you’re in the same legacy line-up as Monteux, Abbado, Sir Colin Davis, Gergiev and Rattle, you had better bring your A game or you’ll be receiving one of the LSO’s infamous ‘DCM’ letters.
Don’t Come Monday!
Do these performances supplant Previn? No. Previn is luminous in RVW. Space and time in the elegiac symphonies and some classic 1970s LSO playing in 4 & 6 (be sure to listen to Previn’s A London Symphony remake on Telarc with the Royal Phil while you’re in RVW streaming mode. Stunning!). However, Pappano’s recording is a very good beginning if a cycle is what the LSO is planning. Interestingly, Previn’s LSO appointment also had critics. Yet, history sees his leadership very positively, especially with British music. Now, the LSO’s candidate short list may have dwindled, but let’s hope this continues the glory days for the LSO. And a new, exciting chapter for Pappano.
LSO Live LSO0867 (2021)
