Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Davis - Vaughan Williams - Job / Symphony No.9 (2017) CD-Rip

The pairing of Vaughan Williams' Job and his Symphony No. 9 is a logical one, not least because of the prominent role given to saxophones in both works. Vaughan Williams called Job a "masque," following old English usage, but it's a ballet in all but name, and like many of them it succeeds as a standalone orchestral work. The idea of a ballet based on the Book of Job seems slightly odd until you learn that it was inspired by William Blake's illustrations for the story, which would have been very familiar to Vaughan Williams' audiences in 1930. The tale is set to weighty versions of old dances like the sarabande and pavane, with high drama in Scene VI as Job curses God, embodied in shattering organ and timpani. Sample this, not only for the flavor of the work but for the extraordinary engineering work from the Chandos team, working in the Grieghallen in Bergen. Here and elsewhere, Vaughan Williams' sizable orchestra is expertly teased out into its individual strands by Sir Andrew Davis and the Bergen Philharmonic. This care serves the music well in the Symphony No. 9, Vaughan Williams' last one, and a rather enigmatic work. The symphony was coolly received in Britain but acclaimed in the U.S., where its premiere was conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Davis' reading is probably less heated than what Stokowski would have offered, but the same walls of sound are present, and the performance works in its straightforward but rich way. There are fine earlier performances of these works, including those by Davis himself, but the sonics set this one apart.