Toronto Symphony Orchestra & Peter Oundjian - Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works (2018) [CD-Rip]

The British serialist Elisabeth Lutyens characterized Ralph Vaughan Williams as a member of the "cowpat school." The description is not only uncharitable but inaccurate: Vaughan Williams was interested not only in pastoralism but in war, religion (although he was an atheist), mysticism, the works of Shakespeare, American poetry, and much more. Musically he could sound, as in the Piano Concerto in C major heard here, like a pure Parisian neoclassicist, like a fairly hard-edged modernist, like a neo-Renaissance glorifier of British tradition, or, yes, like a pastoralist, as in the marvelous little Oboe Concerto in A minor on this Chandos release. But here's the thing: his treatment of pastoral, modal melodic ideas was endlessly varied. Sample the first movement of the oboe concerto and hear its formal freedom as the oboe weaves unpredictably in and out of the flow. The performances here are part of the attraction: this was a valedictory release with conductor Peter Oundjian at the helm of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and he gets top-notch work out of everyone involved. The Elmer Iseler Singers do a strong impression of the plummy British choral style, and pianist Louis Lortie gives the right joyous edge to the Piano Concerto. The Toronto Symphony sounds terrific on its home ground, at the Roy Thomson Hall, and the end result is a fine Vaughan Williams album, one of many to have appeared on the market in the late 2010s. And who listens to Elisabeth Lutyens now unless they have to? ~ James Manheim