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New Release of the Week: "Vaughan Williams: Job and Symphony No. 9"

 

Chandos, Sir Andrew Davis and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra bring a landmark new collection by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

 

Vaughan Williams: Job - Symphony No. 9”features two of Vaughan Williams’s lesser-performed works. Job was described by Vaughan Williams as a “Masque for Dancing,” but is actually a one-act ballet, and the first ballet ever produced by an all-British creative team. Inspired by the illustrated version of the Book of Job by William Blake, the ballet was first performed at the Cambridge Theater in 1931. The ballet features nine “scenes” sequenced and based on Blake’s illustrated edition. The movements are connected to the tradition of English ballet in the use of dance forms such as galliard, pavane, and sarabande.

The album also features Vaughan Williams’s final work, the Symphony No. 9. The symphony premiered on April 2, 1958; just five months later, Vaughan Williams passed away at age 85. Vaughan Williams augmented the traditional symphony orchestra instrumentation with three saxophones and a flugelhorn. The unusual instrumentation has prevented the Ninth Symphony from being performed as often as Vaughan Williams’s other large orchestral works.

Under conductor Sir Andrew Davis’s baton, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra performs these two Vaughan Williams masterpieces. Joining the Bergen Philharmonic are organist Sigurd Melvær Øgaard, flugelhornist Martin Winter and violinist Alexander Kagan.

Credit harmonien.no
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra

Dr. Amanda Sewell is IPR's music director.