I've always loved the slow movement of Vaughan William's London Symphony--it is achingly beautiful

I've been an RVW fan for fifty years. As president of a Canadian orchestra, in 2018 I challenged a guest conductor to conduct the Fifth here. She didn't know the score; but agreed and conducted it three times here in wonderful performances. She was appointed Music Director last year. The Romanza is indeed the most beautiful symphonic movement ever written. Your comments on RVW have encouraged me to explore many more of his works, so many of them treasures which, as you say, should be performed more widely.

Over the years (I'm 83), I've listened to so much music (great music!), but when I discovered RVW about 25 years ago, I was given the greatest gift. He eclipsed all other composers in terms of the scope of his creations. The man who wrote Job also wrote the Romanza, which you just played, as well as more beautiful choral music than any other composer, at least of the 20th century. He found the heart of the tuba, as well as of the oboe. He wrote a romance for harmonica. What a marvelous composer. What joy he's given me. Thank you for, not only this podcast, but all the rest of your talks. J/J (John Shea, from Baltimore).

About RVW 5, yes! I can't speak to British provincialism. I think the problem is snobbery: If so much of his music is so approachable and achingly beautiful, it must not be serious. The listener must have to work hard using knowledge and skills not shared with the great unwashed masses. Peter Schickele used to have a radio show. His closing line was a quote attributed to Duke Ellington, another composer under-appreciated by the snobs, "If it sounds good, it is good."

I’m also gratified RVW is getting so much support in these comments. He truly was a great melodist. I love so many of Vaughan Williams’s less-famous symphonies, I tend to take the gorgeousness of his 5th for granted. I’ll endeavor to do that no longer.

RVW may be my favorite composer. I love his art songs, which rarely get performed--especially the Ten Blake Songs for tenor and oboe.

Allright, Dave, I'm going to say this and then I'll shut up. I don't think he ever wrote a truly bad piece of music. Also, he had a wonderful sense of humor. Pictures of the man, or videos, show a guy you'd want to invite over, a warm avuncular fellow who'd be easy to chat with. Most composers project a certain coolness, but RVW was just a regular guy who happened to be a genius. J/J from Baltimore

'The Lark Ascending' is my favourite violin piece.

The main theme from the final movement of the Oboe Concerto is one of RVW's loveliest.

i was thrilled by this result as i am passionately fond of R.V.W.s music.I regard him as one of the great symphonists of the 20th C.Thanks for your wonderful talks.I am broke but happy.!Copeland regretted his attack on the music of R.V.W. in later life..Thanks for making the pandemic a little more bearable.ROBERT J.PARRY

so happy RVW lived so long to give us so much wonderful music - my favorite RVW work is "In The Fen Country" - for me it is the most superb integration of spiritual mystery and pastoral beauty

I'm so glad you mentioned my comment....Thanks David

The English musical Establishment is a strange, double-headed beast: on one hand protective of its composers like you say but also cringing about them and disbelieving that anyone could see any good in anything English. You can actually see elements of the latter in praise given to Britten, pointing to how he despised RVW and English musical traditions; also for Elgar on account of his being essentially a 'continental composer'. Vaughan Williams' own qualities are sometimes attributed to him having studied with Ravel. There is a long tradition of self-hatred in English intellectual and artistic activity - something that VW explicitly looked to counter. I think that is, if anything, a more important factor in why his music does not 'travel' widely.

This is for me an real coincidence: a couple of nights ago I couldn't sleep, and one of the main culprits was that I was tormented by RVW's Romanza from the 5th. So, I'm late to the party but still I have to add my quick homage to this incredible piece of music. I feel nothing serene in this music: I feel an ordinated but painful attempt to say something definitive, something important, something life-altering - and that something finally comes out in the two incredibly moving climaxes. It could be some sort of acceptance, but a sorrowful one. For me the real star here is not the melody per se, it's the emotional labor. Anyways: what a gut-wrenching beauty! P.S. incidentally, I really happen to love Haitink's rendition of this movement!

I'm glad to see Vaughn Williams getting so much love. He really wrote some wonderful music. The first piece I heard is his "English Folk Song Suite" which I played in my high school band.

Also, it is not only the beauty of his melodies themselves, but also their accompanying HARMONIES. RVW has such an emotionally rich and varied harmonic palette that carries the listener on the wings of his imagination.

RVW travels exceptionally well! Several years ago I travelled to see a friend of mine on the Big Island, Hawaii. As we drove up to the top of Mauna Kea, I thought to play that most 'English' of sounds, the Tallis Fantasia, a piece I personally associated with the English countryside, oak trees lining Worcestershire streams, misty Norfolk winter mornings and the smell of burning leaves in the autumn. My native of Hawaii friend, after being completely silent throughout the whole piece, exclaimed at the end that he thought it to be the most perfect soundtrack to our drive to the volcanic summit.... He thought it suited the place perfectly..... Amazing and awesome.....

I heartily agree with your observation that orchestras in the US don't play Vaughan Williams's music enough. I've attended every local performance (and some out of town performances as well; I flew from DC to SF to see a staging of "A Pilgrim's Progress") of his music since I first discovered him 40 years ago when the chorus I sang in in college did an all Vaughn Williams program (Floss Campi, Five Tudor portraits, and Dona Nobis Pacem), and I've only been able to hear 5 of the 9 symphonies! I live in Maryland, and when Leonard Slatkin, who recorded all the RVW symphonies with the St Louis Symphony, became music director of the NSO, I expected that I'd get to hear more RVW. No such luck. He only programmed one Vaughan Williams symphony in his 12 years as NSO music director.

I Love that Vaughn Williams is getting so much support, so I will add what I believe is his most beautiful work (melody), the Serenade to Music. It is the Boult (EMI stereo) recording that introduced me to this magnificent work. The entire work is one of the most experiences I have ever experienced.

I'm not surprised VW got so many votes. When I first met the lovely Montreal girl who became my wife she had never heard of Vaughan Williams but it wasn't long before she was insisting I again "play that one with the funny head on the cover!" - the lp of Previn's recording of the 5th with a cover featuring Nick Aristovulos's plastic sculpture of VW's head. She now votes VW as her all-time favourite. Alongside Joni Mitchell. Your comments on the English musical establishment's peculiarities are apropos. Previn was probably the first American conductor to be granted grudging praise for his recordings of English music, partly because even they couldn't find serious fault with his first recording of Walton 1, later because he had the LSO.

I collect Requiem Masses: so one of my greatest regrets is that RVW did not produce a Requiem. I'm sure it would have been up there with Faure and Durufle, in terms of beauty. Now aged seventy-one, one of the greatest privileges I had - when an infant at school - was having RVW's 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis' played over my Primary School's speaker-system, whilst we little ones were being prepared for Morning Assembly. There were some fabulous Teachers back in the 1950s! I have just re-joined The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society: and would commend it to anyone who loves the man's music.

Another great British tunesmith treated abominably by the British musical establishment was Malcolm Arnold. I have already nominated the melody from Scottish Dance No.3 but really there are so many other examples in his symphonies, concertos and chamber music. The overture The Padstow Lifeboat for brass band can only have been written by a Brit and some of his film scores are gems - Hobson’s Choice, Whistle Down the Wind and of course his adaptation of the Colonel Bogey March for Bridge Over the River Kwai.

How have I reached my fifties whithout having heard this? Time to get serious about RVW symphonies. Thanks for this

I am not surprised at all that RVW has received the most nominations so far, and especially the Romanza from Symphony 5. The beauty of this movment is truly ineffable. My RVW nomination would be for the Pavane of the Sons of the Morning from *Job*. That passage was what got me hooked on the composer; a love affair that has endured for decades. Thanks, Dave, for highlighting RVW not only for this segment, but for several other of your Chats as well (particularly the one on *Job*).

I certainly agree about the big tune in The Wasps overture, especially when it's reprised at the end. That's what I'd pick for RVW. You mention the British "insular" attitude. Another impediment to RVW and other British composers being played more widely is a prejudice about "English composers". I ran across it constantly in my old record store days. People just assumed these composers were no good. Perhaps a leftover from the Germans calling England "The Land without music"? I think Elgar, RVW, Britten, Purcell and others wrote some really beautiful stuff.

This video prompted me to open the Boult/RVW EMI box today and listen to symphony #5 including the gorgeous Romanza, then go on to a disc with the Concerto for 2 Pianos and Job, which I hadn't heard before and David believes to be RVW's greatest work as discussed in a previous video. Wow, what a great piece it is, and an orchestral showpiece with wide dynamic range to boot. The sound quality of the 1967 recording, remastered in 1988, is outstanding. It's a disc you could use to audition stereo equipment. Job has 2 more beautiful RVW melodies in the Elihu's Dance of Youth and Beauty movement and the following Pavane of Sons of the Morning.

How extraordinary, yet how gratifying. I have long believed that RVW was a major league composer but vastly underrated and under-performed even in the UK. The received idea is that his music 'doesn't travel', but there is a lot of truth in what you say, Mr H, about British provincialism.

there are so many beautiful tunes by VW, but the Romanza is achingly beautiful (there is an off the air 1952 recording of VW conducting (he was 80 by then) this symphony in rather good sound, he must have been a good interpretator of his own works). I've complained many times that he is so neglected in the concert hall, alas to no avail. The Rotterdam Phil played his 5th under Spano in the 90s, i remember it very well, for it was very beautiful

Among probably scores of other examples, the Lento of the London Symphony just gets me. Remember seeing Slatkin in tears at the Proms whilst playing it. Not surprisingly!!!

Love this topic and sharing thoughts. RVW, Talent on loan from God.

Thank you again, David. I love the phrase you used-“aching timelessness”-awesome. I will add two reasons, based on my reading and experience at music school, to the one you mentioned about why RVW’s reputation and performances had suffered for so long-thankfully this has been changing in the last 20 years or so. First, as another commenter notes below, there is both an insularity as well as insecurity problem in the British approach. Since many were so nervous about the Englishness of RVW, they simply assumed-if they loved his music-that only THEY could appreciate it, or on the other hand, if they hated it, that they must attack the music’s national quality and ostensible insularity. There was a modernist turn after the war in England when many European musical refugees came to England. Then it was that many British put down RVW at the expense of Britten and Tippett because they thought that these composers would “travel better” and they were embarrassed by RVW’s national and comparatively conservative style. The other major and related factor was the long-standing assumption by many European critics, musicologists, and theorists of their tradition’s superiority, and the resultant corresponding condescending view of the music-especially nationally inflected music-of other nations. At the time I was in music school 20 years ago (at a rather well-known school) RVW was not so much as even mentioned. There were no classes on English composers. In this kind of environment, performers and conductors would tend to ignore the music. However, my impression is that most of the above is changing and the old debates seem petty and irrelevant. The blossoming of recordings of RVW shows this, and I am seeing more and more performances online of his music around the world. That being said, you are right that there’s still a lot of room for improvement. Much of it begins at the education level. The music has to be taken seriously because it is truly great.

I've spent the last year digging deeper into RVWs works and getting to know more of them. Thanks for much for all the enthusiasm you bring to English music, and enthusing about the work of non-Brits who programme and record it. RVW is as English as Debussy is French, but that's the joy in that the music is universal, not provincial. Can you imagine French complaining that their Debussy is played all over the world by performers around the globe.

I have been privileged to know two composers of classical music here in the UK. One - Peter Morris who makes his living in contemporary music instead; and the other (whose music was brought to my attention by the former) - George Lloyd. They both wrote in the tonal/melodic style and suffered the vagaries of atonal fashion being promoted by the post-war British musical establishment. Vaughan Williams was able to survive across those artistic restrictions - not least because he had emerged from a distant generation and was already well stablished through his wide-ranging gifts in creative composition. I am grateful that genius in composing melodious works survives despite fads and fashions of the "squeaky door" variety. Such music is timeless and the finale of Lloyd's 11th Symphony never fails to send a shiver down my spine..

I am late to this party. But this symphony, the fifth, and this romanza, is one of my cherished works of music. I came late to vaughan williams, but feel he can be classed with any of the greats. A powerful sense of repose, and beauty, with an underlying sadness. His ninth, also can sit with mahler or Bruckner in the pantheon of ninth. Thank you ! Paul

I am so pleased to see more of the Ralph Vaughan W getting some love outside of England! I want to propose another small and rarely played work for the world’s most beautiful melodies: Maurice Duruflé’s Prélude sur l'introït de l'epiphanie, op.13. I love the haunting quality of the A theme that stays with you long after the organist finishes this short prelude. I enjoy this little gem so much that I even arranged it for string quartet! (Easiest arrangement ever - just look at the score to see why.) The B theme is very nice as well, and my violist girlfriend is grateful:) However, the dual nature of main melody to be both kinetic and capable of suspending time really gets under my skin. It makes me wish the work were larger in proportion. However, I enjoy it for what it is: A small beautiful gem that stays with you far beyond the few minute duration of the work.

I am surprised that Vaughan Williams got so many votes. No question about it, he wrote some great tunes, but I've always loved the atmosphere he creates in many of his best works (serene in the Fantasia and 5th Symphony, desolate in the 7th and 9th Symphony, a bit of both in the Pastoral Symphony), which tend to linger in my memory more than the tunes themselves. On the general topic, I was reminded of another favorite tune from Vaughan William's colleague Gustav Holst; the majestic melody from the middle of "Jupiter" from "The Planets." Actually, I love pretty much all of "The Planets".

You're right about JOB, for sure. But, the "big tune" from THE WASPS is the most beautiful melody I've heard in 65 years of listening to thousands of pieces of music. I'm so glad you highlighted it here.

A well chosen example of RVW at his best, one among many others!

I am Chanoch Kronman from Israel. May I add a piece which is orders of magnitude less known? I am referring to the irresistible melody of the third movement ("Moonlight") of Frank Bridge's The Sea. It has tons of restraint beauty, which unfold upon repeated listening, utterly captivating. The anonymity of the entire work is truly amazing and frustrating. Thank you Dave for everything.

Probably the most touching british melody alongside Elgar's Nimrod, ofc. They really sound like tunes of a monumental war movie or an epos like THE LORD OF THE RINGS! What an awesome new format this is, David!

Hearing Ashkenazy conduct VW's 5th in Shanghai (Shanghai PO), shortly after the Cultural Revolution had sort of finished....incredibly moving. Instruments in dreadful condition, playing of western music forbidden, for many years. The music had been requested to be brought out to them, and Previn should have been the conductor, but had suffered some kind of injury. I don't know if VA had ever conducted any VW before. I think not. I will never forget that.

If you like this symphony, check out Pilgrim's Progress, from which the Big Tune originated.

Well, at least I found here a treasure trove of NEW pieces to listen!

I would say that one of my absolute favourite melodies is the one from the third movement of Mendelssohn's F minor quartet. It is one of those melodies which is difficult to whether it is major and minor at first and contains profound grieving sadness mixed with wistfulness.

Dear David, I've made this recommendation already, but I think not in the proper way: I'd like to nominate the Agnus Dei from Frank Martin's mass for double choir. The one choir sings this flouting, spherical, angelic "eternal melody", while the second one lays a foundation of the most beautiful ambiguous chords possible. I'm sorry for the Kitsch, I don't know any other way to describe it. I've sung this piece twice in my life, both times with very good choires, those were the most fulfilling musical experiences of my life. And I think it shares some features with Vaughan Williams' style. The only problem: A lot of recordings tend to rush through it, that destroys the beauty in my opinion: You really have to savor it to feel the whole experience. A very good recording for this is The Sixteen with Harry Christophers as conductor. Sincerely, Gabriel Bittner from Bavaria, Germany

This was my choice, the piece and movement that pulled me into classical music years ago. Have seen this performed live twice, surprisingly by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra both times as Robert Spano has been a big advocate of RVW music. Glad to see it is getting this treatment.

A rather out of the way but absolutely irresistible melody, to my ear, is the Andante of Czeslaw Marek''s Serenade for Violin and Orchestra. The whole movement is a lyrical outpouring and all the subsidiary melodies are exquisite but his treatment of the main theme never fails to enchant me. It's one of the pieces where the melody increases in beauty with every repetition.

His Hodie is one great tune after another. See: It Was the Winter Wild.

After Andrew Manze's conducting performance of VW's Fifth Symphony at the Proms from a few years ago the commentator said something like it "might not have done so well in any context other than the BBC Proms" ! There it is, exactly what you were saying about the proprietary feelings of the British toward their own composers! Anyway, I'm happy to see VW's Romanza received so many votes. And thanks for reading my comment! ~John

The winsome violin melody in the finale of Shostakovich 15, just after the Wagner Seigfried quotation. When I first heard it (in Haitink's LPO recording), after all the dark tragedy and irony of the preceding three movements, it froze me in my place. Nakedly vulnerable.

I was a Columbia House subscriber as a kid -- my core Deutsche Grammophon collection came from that subscription!

I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up with the recommendations for Most Beautiful Melodies, but I'd like to nominate the Ballada from the Janacek Violin Sonata. The irregular rhythms in the main tune always catch my ear, and some of the piano figuration at the opening is so delicate.

Next try: Haydn: String Quartet Op. 1 No. 1 in B flat - Adagio First, it is remarkable that Haydn started his chamber music journey with such a masterpiece, it could have been what is commonly considered a "late work". Full of wisdom and sheer beauty, it is on the edge of being sad or full of melancholy, but it never gets there. It introduces a decent human insight, varies it and then exaggerates it beyond simple beauty. It is a piece not only reflecting Haydns character, but somehow expressing an attitude towards life. Whatever I experience in my life, hearing this piece I come to the conclusion that it is good and has/had beautiful pieces in it.

For me the most beautiful piece of RVW is Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus. Maybe the version that has a single large tree and a green soft hill on the record cover. Cheers!

I want to nominate Schnittke’s Andante from String Quartet no. 3 as the most beautiful melody in the world! It has such a wonderful calm opening and some good string intensity as well. But the recurring, sort of, dreamy and hazy melody that emerges briefly after each heightened intensity is just a wonderful sequence of beautiful string work. This piece really put the any string quartet to the test. I first heard it with The Danish String Quartet on their Prism I. I never thought I would like a composer like Schnittke, it’s way too modern for me, but this piece has really given me a way into his world.

Hello, I'm Jan Boudestein (or call me John). I am going into this with trepidation, knowing the issues with Mahler's unfinished Tenth symphony. Anyhow, I have always had this feeling that the promise of what the Tenth symphony could have been is a part of the attraction of it, besides its interesting tunes. There are of course so many beautiful melodies in all of Mahler's music, but the flute solo (main theme?) from the Tenth's Finale fascinates me. After all that has gone on before, this melody has a pure, stark beauty to it that feels like it wraps up all of life in a kind of uneasy resignation and acceptance - but which still must indeed culminate in the Finale's final outburst: indeed a big, melancholy 'shout to the world', as I think one conductor (by the name of Riccardo Chailly) called it. (P.S. I think Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony is truly great. Wonderfully contemplative and autumnal. I love the recording by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Spano, on Telarc, which is coupled with the Tallis Fantasia and the Serenade to Music)

Hello, my name is Alex. For me, the most beautiful melody is from the Pastorale (first movement) of Alfred Schnittke's Suite In Old Style. Tonal and quite satisfying, it sways with such an air of dance-like freedom that, ultimately, gives it it's neo-classical charm. It's emotional power and also its relatively simple harmonic form gives it weight on me, that helps me feel happy and to help with a depression wrought on from this pandemic. This is my choice, and also-- if I may be cheeky-- what are your opinions on Schnittke? Thanks. 😊

It never even occurred to me that Vaughan Williams was English; when I listen to music it's the music that has all the attention--but here is where I'll introduce an alternative to my other, first choice, and also this understandable outpouring for Vaughan Williams: It's the "Romance" from Shostakovich's score for the film "The Gadfly" ... the violins literally weep throughout in an outpouring of melancholy; and in particular, Emin Khachaturian conducting the USSR Cinema Symphony Orchestra (the music throughout the whole score is nothing short of sublime). David, if you don't have this in your collection ... maybe you do, but if not please get it if you can: Khachaturian is brilliant in his timing, fast where it needs to be and paced just right for the slower movements--I find other recordings of this exceptional piece of sadly neglected music, which is nothing short of a masteriece, poorly balanced in the faster and slower movements even to the point of absurdity. Khachaturian has a deeper appreciation and feeling for the music and it really comes across in this edition of "The Gadfly". I used one of the other recordings I had of it as coaster as you would say; and since have thrown it out with the trash.

"The man could write tunes..." and - he arranged Protestant hymns (some great tunes). I first saw his name in the Pilgrim Hymnal at our Congregational Church. His expression of spirituality in this symphony is simply overwhelming. What did he owe to Ravel? What does he have in common with Poulenc?

To me the melodies themselves are a little nondescript and meandering, but I think it’s the very consonant harmony and counterpoint, the gentle orchestration and dynamics, that create the beautiful sense of calm, punctuated by moments of swelling emotion, and boy is Vaughan-Williams great at that! In terms of pure melody I’m more impressed by one that can have that effect with a single voice. (Like the Bottesini Elegy #2 I mentioned, and I apologize there’s no cd to point to; I can understand if you don’t want to feature a KZfaq video on your channel - your channel, your rules! Or maybe the beginning of Brahms’s violin sonata #1, for instance, my preference being Perlman/Barenboim). Though I guess I go maybe more for wrenching emotions in a melody than just calm! To suggest something else obscure that even you may or may not be familiar with, I’d also nominate Árni Egilsson’s “An Olde Fashioned Bass Piece” (again as played by Mikyung Sung, and only available on her website since it’s buried uncredited in the middle of a four-hour Korean livestream where I’m sure nobody would ever discover it! Her Kol Nidrei from the same livestream is also the best I have heard on any instrument.) One single gorgeous unaccompanied voice, with the occasional double stop, like a Bach cello suite.

An aside about RVW: I heard a story about RVW visiting a school room and his talking about his art. The only comment was from a student that his socks didn't match. (RVW was not known for sartorial splendor.) The lesson is that for composers, before you think about melody, harmony, counterpoint etc. make sure your socks match and for God's sake wear socks. I knew his great niece Sally Wedgewood and she was the funniest wackiest but nicest person I ever me.

I wouldn’t call this a “pretty” melody, but it has painted a beautiful picture in my mind ever since I first heard it 35 years ago. Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 has a wonderful interplay between the masculine and the feminine, the severe and the merciful, the hard and the soft. It’s throughout the whole symphony, but it’s spelled out most explicitly in the first theme of the first movement. The first bit is very authoritative, with three forceful “commands”, but is immediately answered with a soft appeal. It could sound like a simpering child saying, “But Dad, I don’t WANT to join the Army,” or it could sound like a mother saying, “Be gentle with him Dear, he’s only a child.” Please don’t psychoanalyze me for hearing voices --- the dynamic is, or should be, unmistakable from the music. The second and third movements continue the masculine/feminine dialogue, especially the tender Andante cantabile, and the finale sounds like the romping of a happy united family running on all cylinders. So satisfying… On a related note, I detect something similar in the klezmer/Frère Jacques interplay in the third movement of Mahler’s first symphony. Sadly, I don’t recall any Titan ever getting Jupiter’s blessing. It sounds like little Gustav’s resolution was a solitary one.

Many thanks for your wonderful talks. I've become adicted! You have frequently commented on British/English critics or 'music establishment', whatever that is, doing down the performance of English music by non-British orchestras and conductors. You may be referring to critics in The Gramophone, especially going back fifty years or so. I just don't recognise this parochialism in British reviewers of today and certainly not among ordinary music lovers. I for one search out performances of the English music I love as performed in other countries. It's easy to do that now on KZfaq, of course. That RVW is admired and played in Argentina, say, is just wonderful of course. It amazes me that any English person would think otherwise. So, I'm not saying you are wrong, just that it is not something I experience here on the ground in England.

If I ever make my conducting debut we're playing the Wasps overture. Did the big tune not come from a folk song ? Ditto the tune in the 1st movement of the 6th ? I'd love to see a compendium of the songs he collected. As readers may know, many found their way into The English Hymnal, that he edited. Choristers love those tunes, and the arrangements are superlative.

A long time ago I read in an audiophile magazine that "The English hate music, but they love the noises it makes". More true for Audiophiles then for lovers of English music methinks . RVW is lovely stuff indeed

as an Englishman i can only agree about the snobby attitude of the music establishment in this county RWV works should championed around the world . I constantly look for non English performances on you tube it gives me a thrill to see professional orchestras perhaps giving there first performances of his works , this also applies to other British composers as well .

I haven't listened all the way through yet, so I don't mean to repeat... but one of the best snarky composer quotes of all times is by Copland on this piece, which he hated, I guess. I paraphrase... "Listening to the RVW 5th is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes." HA HA! I love this piece.

Yes-and just imagine how much more transcendent and ethereal it would be if Furtwängler was conducting. 😉

Best recording of RVWs 5th out there? Heard the new Brabbins’ recording is very good, but any others?

I nominate the second theme of Mendelssohn’s “Die Hebriden,” when the clarinets play it towards the end. It’s one of those tunes that’s poignant and moving to the point of seeming like a kind of sorcery. It’s magic that people can create something so beautiful. It was one of the first melodies I came to love when I was a boy, listening to my dad’s classical records. He had a Mendelssohn album by the Utah Symphony Orchestra, with Joseph Silverstein from the Boston Symphony playing the Violin Concerto. What’s your favorite recording of the piece? I’m still looking for one that makes the music as perfect in performance as it is in my mind. -Brian Linnell, Omaha, Nebraska

Why always orchestral melodies? My "Magic Melody Moment "comes from a CBS -Cd with John Williams on guitar: Cordoba from Albeniz. After the introduction John Williams changes from classical to electric guitar ( I think) and plays a very beautiful Hymn-like melody , which stops all rumours of the world . It's like Churchbells ringing in the night.

Hi David, i want to hear your opinion about elisabeth schwarzkopf

Funny enough I am of the opinion that Vaughan Williams could never surpass George Butterworth's "The Banks of Green Willow". Something about this melody that is very beautiful and such a memorable tune . It creates a picture of walks along the riverbank. Just look at Constables 'The Hay Wain' or 'The Lock'. They fit hand in glove.