大象传媒

From the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Presented by Tom McKinney

The 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams provides the 大象传媒 Philharmonic and Halle Orchestra scope for another of their groundbreaking collaborative series of concerts at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall. Each of the six concerts reflects on his visionary symphonic cycle.

In the first concert, Mark Wigglesworth conducts the 大象传媒 Philharmonic in 'A Pastoral Symphony'; on one level the music presents a rural idyll, but has darker brooding undercurrents as Vaughan Williams remembers his time as an ambulance driver just behind enemy lines during the first world war, images which - as for many who experienced the conflict - echoed on in his mind years afterwards. The Fifth Symphony, completed in 1943 during one of the peaks of World War II ends with a gentle benediction for peace. In his hands personal experience becomes universal in this transcendent music.

Between these two symphonic statements, tenor Alessandro Fisher joins the orchestra for Vaughan Williams's setting of words by A. E. Housman, from 'A Shropshire Lad,' poems inspired by loss of life during the Boer War. Here, in 'On Wenlock Edge' Vaughan Williams luxuriates in the warm harmonies inspired by his time spent studying in France with Ravel. "Be still, my lad, and sleep."

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 3 'A Pastoral Symphony'

8.10 Music interval (CD)
Vaughan Williams: Mass in G minor
Choir of Clare College, Cambridge

8.35
Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 5

Alessandro Fisher (tenor)
大象传媒 Philharmonic
Mark Wigglesworth (conductor)