Ralph Vaughan Williams conducting the LSO in his own “London” Symphony at the Proms, Royal Albert Hall, on 31 July 1946.
There has been a curious historic avoidance of the issues surrounding the question of performances by composers of their own works. It is a topic that has never been considered in detail by even the most erudite musical scholars. Instead, we read such statements as “The composer is not necessarily the best interpreter of his own works”, or dismissive comments about differences in composer recordings such as those by Stravinsky, which prove that such documents don’t provide yardsticks and have no real significance. (If, for convenience’s sake I use the masculine term during the course of this article I do not of course exclude performances by women composers!)
A response to the first comment could be to question whether a composer’s performance is in fact an interpretation, or whether it is something quite different, a realisation of his creation in its natural state, that of sound. So far as the second point is concerned it is natural that a composer whose composing style changed radically should see his earlier work in different lights. Thus Stravinsky’s three recordings of Le sacre du printemps reflect how he viewed this work at the time when he was composing his Symphony of Psalms (1929) his Symphony in C (1959) and Movements, for piano and orchestra (1959) respectively.
In the normal course of events one might take it that the 1929 recording represents the earliest and thus the nearest and most valid audio representation of the composer’s original vision, but Stravinsky’s comparative lack of conducting skill at that time means that the usually excellent Walther Straram Orchestra is at times left rather floundering in the difficult and unfamiliar score. Apart from some horn accidents in the final “Danse sacrale” the New York Philharmonic version of 1940 is a more reliable document of the composer’s intentions, as is the performance by the excellent New York group, called the “Columbia Symphony Orchestra” in 1960, recorded in decent stereo sound.
Other issues affect the question of Stravinsky’s recordings, and further consideration of these in more detail are beyond the scope of this present article. It is ironic that Stravinsky of all great twentieth-century composers was suspicious of conductors and very much wanted to leave a legacy of his own recordings to show others how his works should be played.
In the case of more conservative composers such as Richard Strauss and Elgar we are on safer ground, since over the course of time their recorded performances did not change radically. Strauss was an eminent conductor of his time as well as a great composer, and it could be argued that his performances of his music surpass those of all others. Their characteristics are difficult to define, but practically always there is a sense of unforced, natural music-making, clear and precise, yet possessing extraordinary eloquence.
The same qualities inform such recordings we have of Vaughan Williams as a conductor of his own works, and more of these have come to light during the course of the recent 150th anniversary of his birth. They are small in number which means that he is a good specific example of a composer-conductor to be considered within the context of this short article.
The BBC Broadcasting House as it appeared circa 1937. Located at Portland Place, London, it first opened its doors in 1932 and has remained the headquarters of the BBC to this day. Its spacious double-height concert hall can seat a large audience and boasts the first organ purpose-built for broadcasting. It was here that Vaughan Williams led Renée Flynn, Roy Henderson, and the BBC Chorus and Symphony in the November 1936 world premiere of his Dona nobis pacem. Photograph by Alfred Thomson (1894-1979)
He is a very different case from that of Strauss. He didn’t regard himself as a professional executant, and apart from being the conductor of the Leith Hill Festival for over 50 years, renowned for his performances of Bach’s choral works, he was only an occasional performer. He made just three commercial recordings of his own works – the Overture to The Wasps and the ballet Old King Cole – in 1925, with a pick-up group. Unfortunately these highly spirited, well-executed Vocalion performances were recorded by the acoustic process just before electric recording took over, and were thus almost immediately made obsolete.
For reasons that are not apparently known RVW was invited by HMV to make the first recording of his Fourth Symphony in October 1937, more than two years after Adrian Boult had given the premiere of the work in April 1935 with the same ensemble, the BBC Symphony Orchestra. This might have set a precedent, but the producer Fred Gaisberg, a man of enormous experience, was not impressed, writing later in his autobiography Music on Record (Robert Hale, 1946): “When recently he recorded for us his Fourth Symphony I noticed how gently and unobtrusively he indicated his wishes to his men. His movements were rather awkward and he employed a minimum of gesticulation. Self-effacing and silent to a degree, he had not the equipment for a good conductor and rarely essayed that role”. This was an extraordinary misjudgement: why didn’t Gaisberg’s ears and musical instinct tell him that RVW’s recording has in fact exceptional power and fire? Some judges feel that it is still the greatest ever recording of the work. Gaisberg’s reaction was especially odd, given that he was the moving spirit behind the long series of recordings by Sir Edward Elgar – another very part-time conductor.
Thereafter Vaughan Williams diligently attended recordings of his music by other conductors – Boyd Neel, Sir Henry Wood, Boult, Sir John Barbirolli – and was apparently content merely to offer advice and comment. He had a broad view of how his works should be played, and was confident that that his music could be validly interpreted by others. Years later his widow Ursula was asked why he himself made no more recordings. The answer was simple. “He was never asked”. And as a modest English gentleman RVW didn’t take it upon himself to approach the record companies.
This is a grievous loss that is demonstrated by what we do have – a handful of live recordings which have rare luminosity and uniquely intense personal conviction.
It may be that Vaughan Williams was an amateur conductor, but what he was once told by a player was significant: “Just give us a strong beat and we’ll do the rest”. “The rest” might well be taken as an acknowledgement that players had great respect for RVW’s music, that its creator was personally directing them, and that they admired him personally. Thus it was through his personality rather than by technical means that he conveyed his wishes so strongly. He created uniquely direct, yet powerfully expressive realisations of his music.
These qualities shine through RVW’s conducting of his Dona nobis pacem – a BBC recording of the work’s first broadcast performance in November 1936, a month or so after its first performance. How this recording escaped the usual BBC annihilation of such documents is a miracle: few pre-war recordings survived early destruction, and incidentally it doesn’t bear thinking about what could have been preserved. The work is a heartfelt plea for peace, using texts by Walt Whitman, John Bright and the Bible, written for soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra. In RVW’s performance the soloists are Renée Flynn and Roy Henderson, with the BBC Chorus and Symphony Orchestra. The emotions and tensions of this performance are quite extraordinarily vivid, and fortunately the recording is clear and well-balanced.
Similar qualities inform the other RVW live recordings, which are all-off air, and captured by perceptive enthusiasts. The exception is a November 1951 performance of the Serenade to Music in the Royal Festival Hall, which is unfortunately marred by rather poor playing on the part of what was then the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, eleven of the eighteen soloists who had taken part in the original 1938 tribute to Sir Henry Wood are also to be heard, and some of their singing sounds rather elderly and intonation is sometimes pretty approximate.
The best of the other live recordings is a September 1952 Prom performance of the Fifth Symphony, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The playing isn’t perfect but the performance has an all-embracing sense of rightness and authority. A recording of the 1943 premiere of this Symphony, again with the LPO, has very similar qualities and is also in acceptable sound, but there are occasional gaps in the music caused by the need for Kenneth Leach, the sound recordist, to change 78rpm acetate discs. The same problems also affect an otherwise precious document of RVW conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in his London Symphony at a 1946 Prom. Nevertheless, we must be grateful to Leach and his fellow enthusiasts for preserving what would otherwise have been lost.
Many of the characteristics that apply to Vaughan Williams’s recordings can be found in recorded performances by other composers, but of course in each case there are variables and different conditions and circumstances that apply.
Discography and further reading in Issue 6 – available in your subscriber account – on page 86.