Vaughan Williams: Job - A Masque for Dancing

Ivor Gurney’s The Five Preludes for piano date from the second half of 1919 written during a period of remarkable and unexpected creativity from the 29 year old composer and published war poet, with over 40 songs composed and 80 poems written. Gurney was taught by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1919 at the RCM. In 1922 ill health got the better of Gurney and he was sent to the City of London Mental Hospital where he remained until his death in 1937.

Ralph Vaughan Williams was not renowned for his piano playing and as such wrote few works for the piano. The Lake in the Mountains was his last piano work and was composed for Phyllis Sellick in 1947. This piano version of Job A Masque for Dancing was arranged for piano by Vally Lasker, made in the summer of 1930 to support the dancers’ rehearsals for a production. The piano arrangement was considered significant enough to be published by Oxford University Press in 1931.

Award winning piano accompanist, Iain Burnside makes his first full solo recording with this disc of rare repertoire.

Sir Adrian Boult made some pioneering Decca recordings, among them symphonies and other orchestral works of Vaughan Williams. Having had first hand experience of the composer, his recordings have an authority in our age that is virtually unequalled. The music on this CD contrasts Blake's visions of darkness in Job with the hilarious Wasps Suite, with its onomatopoeic buzzing overture and cheeky 'March Past of the Kitchen Utensils'.

Recorded in 1953

Sir Adrian Boult was born on 8th April 1889 in Chester and died on 22nd February 1983 in London and hence 2013 marks the 30th anniversary of his death. He was attending concerts first in Liverpool, primarily with Hans Richter, and then in London, whilst a pupil at Westminster School, with Sir Henry Wood, Claude Debussy, Arthur Nikisch and Richard Strauss. He met Elgar for whose music he was to do so much during his life as was another composer he befriended whilst at Christ Church, Oxford, before graduating in 1912, Ralph Vaughan Williams.

He spent a year studying in Leipzig where Arthur Nikisch had the greatest influence on him. He gained experience conducting for both the Royal Opera House, where he assisted in the first production there of Wagner’s Parsifal , and Serge Diaghilev’s ballet company. He was appointed conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924 and six years later the BBC made him director of music where he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. During these years he introduced works by Bartók, Stravinsky and the Second Viennese School composers – Schönberg, Webern and Berg including his opera Wozzeck.

Forced to leave the BBC when he reached their retirement age, he became chief conductor of the LPO retiring in 1957. He became a champion of British music, giving numerous performances of Bliss, Britten, Delius, Tippett, Walton and Holst, whose Planets he had premiered, and the aforementioned Elgar and Vaughan Williams. This set brings together all the recordings he made of the latter starting in 1940 to the early 1950’s.

There was a pause until 1967 when he started to commit this set’s stereo recordings to disc ending in 1975. He continued to give concerts and record for a further three years until retiring just before reaching the age of 90.

CD 13 includes audio footage of Sir Adrian in rehearsal.