14th Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival
"highlights"
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Quintet for Piano and Strings in C minor
Xak Bjerken, piano
Lucy Chapman, violin
Cynthia Phelps, viola
Ronald Leonard, cello
Volkan Orhon, bass
Because of his deep assimilation of folk song of the British Isles and his appreciation for the modalities heard in ancient British music, Vaughan Williams wrote numerous works distinguished by their "Englishness." Acclaimed as the re-creator of his country's musical vernacular, Vaughan Williams achieved a reputation as one of Europe's most distinctive musical personalities by the beginning of World War I. Yet because composition never came easily to him he weathered a long and self-critical apprenticeship period. When the prolific Vaughan Williams wrote his early C minor Quintet (1903), he already had composed four of his most famous songs and a cantata to set words by British poet Dante Gabriel Rosetti. But the quintet's heavily marked and erased score reveals labor unusual for Vaughan Williams, suggesting that he did not feel control over the chamber medium. Revised over the course of two years, the quintet was finally premiered in December 1905 by some of the finest musicians in London. Although successful performances followed, Vaughan Williams withdrew the work in 1918. He did not altogether repudiate its material, however, for he quarried the Fantasia movement for themes to develop in his 1954 violin sonata.
Vaughan Williams' early unpublished works all carry an embargo forbidding performance. However, because of intense interest in his music written before 1908, after a forty year hiatus his widow Ursula agreed to the publication and performance of certain selected works, among which was the 1903 Quintet. Its first modern performance (1999) was held in London in association with the conference "Vaughan Williams in a New Century." In 2002 the quintet was published by the British firm Faber Music Ltd.
Created for the same combination of instruments as Schubert's "Trout" Quintet, the 1903 Quintet develops with the free Romanticism and the atmosphere of open-air freshness characteristic of Vaughan Williams throughout his career. The tempestuous first movement offers strong contrasts of mood and dynamics. After extensive exploration of the opening lyrical theme, first heard in Vaughan Williams's favorite viola voice, an emphatic idea is played in unison by all instruments. This motto recurs in the following movements as a unifying device.
The Andante, marked to be played "tenderly," offers expressive interludes for the piano. After a more agitated central section and interesting harmonic excursions, the movement closes quietly with a muted statement in the strings.
The Fantasia movement develops like the Elizabethan fantasy, a rhapsodic one-movement work that improvises on a principal motive. The movement opens with the theme (related to the strongly accented motto heard in the first movement) played in unison by all the strings. The piano offers a solo response. Designated "smooth and without expression," this soft beginning suggests an entrance from a remote point of time and distance. The ensuing sections, designated as "almost variations" by Vaughan Williams, unfold with sharp contrasts of tempo, mood and tonality. The movement closes in the same quiet atmosphere as its beginning.
Track Listings
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Quintet for Piano and Strings in C minor
8 I Allegro con fuoco 9:36
9 II Andante 9:10
10 III Fantasia (quasi variazioni) 10:02
Purchase Information
To purchase this CD please go to the Tucson Winter Chamber music Festival's Web-site.
