We need a RVW thread, otherwise we might get modded for going off topic on the Rodgers & Hammerstein thread!

I nominate Toscaviolin for President of the Fan Club BerkshireMum and me as founder members, and Clavicembalo as Honorary member due to his lineage, if not his affiliations







Yes, I'm very excited about that one

Earlier today I was listening to the Antartic Symphony and Toward the Unknown Region. I love both of those as well. Does anyone know why it's called Antartic rather than Antarctic?

I'll join. Played some RVW just this afternoon - Antiphon from his Five Mystical Songs - bit of a thrash, but came off OK!

I'd love to be able to play some RVW. I got very excited when I saw a RVW piece was on the G2 list (the Two-Part Invention in G). My teacher played it through for me last week and it's very Bach-esque(?) in style, which presumably explains why it's on the A List. The one I think I'd like to learn though is the Valse Lente which my teacher also played through - it's a little bit beyond my level at the moment, but maybe next year sometime.

The Valse Lente is or was on the grade 4 list - really lovely piece and interesting to work out the different modes he uses. I've taught it to a few people and there is a lot you can do with it - pedal effects and so on. I don't know the grade 2 piece so well, but I have the book with 5 or 6 pieces in. The Mystical Songs are absolutely beautiful - tricky to play and sing, but well worth a try, or just a listen if you prefer!

Oh dear, a lot beyond my level then! Still, something to aim for

Gosh! Honourary Membership, eh?



Sinfonia Antartica: 'sinfonia' is the Italian term for Symphony and 'articus' from the Latin!

I suppose, 'Antarctic Symphony' would be its Anglicized version.

Incidentally, I play his Suite of Six Short Pieces (a piano version of his chamber Charterhouse Suite) and what's more my debut at Dyrham (after my initiation of sightreading in B major!) consisted of playing three of its movements!

For piano I also like The Lake in the Mountains - a delicate little piece, not so easy to pull off though - and his Hymn Tune Prelude on 'Song 13' (Orlando Gibbons) - much of it distributed across three staves. there are also his Birthday Gifts, a set of three short pieces for piano (probably grade 5/6 I should think).

Apart from the Complete Syphonies I have various other recordings, one of them being the Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis - you should hear it performed at its 'home', in Gloucester Cathedral!

I would like to join as I love the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.

Also Folk Songs from Somerset, the English Folk Song suite and Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.

However, I suspect I will be black-balled as I still can't bring myself to like The Lark Ascending...

Have you tried listening to the Oboe Concerto?

For me it conjures up similar images of birds on the wing.

*puts hand up* please I'd like to join too.

I first heard the Tallis Fantasia when I was in my teens and always felt it was a piece that stood out. I forget who said of it ' either very old or very new'. Or something like that.

Clavi - thanks for your bit of history on the other thread re this - I don't think I knew some of those facts about the first performance. I always got a very strong image of a massive, cathedral-like building when listening to it: in fact I remember having a conversation about it with a fellow A-level student: she got images of the English countryside, and not of a building, but I couldn't lose the 'cathedral' picture. Possibly I had read somewhere that the first performance had been in Gloucester, although I don't remember being aware of that fact.

A church not far from here has a piano which is supposed to have belonged to RVW.

I rank RVW as Britain's greatest symphonist. I love the Elgar symphonies and Walton's first, but they only wrote two each, while RVW produced a greater variety and equally high quality within his nine. So far, having played in 1, 4, 5, 6 and 8, I am only just past half way, but I have also played in the Tallis Fantasia twice and in Sancta Civitas once. Other works for which I have a high regard are his overture to "The Wasps" and the original version of "On Wenlock Edge" with piano and string quartet.

Can I join, I have a compete set of his Symphonies, and often play them.
I also love 'Toward the Unknown Region' , 'Serenade to Music' and some more choral stuff. The Thomas Tallis thing however does nothing for me !
I also sang in a perfromance of Sea Symphony in the mid 70's in Harrogate with John Shirley Quirk as soloist. Cant remember who the soprano was though.

Thank you, I really ought to have known that!



The version of the Sea Symphony that I've got has John Shirley-Quirk with Heather Harper as the soprano. The orchestra is the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. I got this CD after you mentioned the Sea Symphony on another thread, so thank you fsm!

I will forever associate the Thomas Tallis piece with the YTV series about Hannah Hauxwell who lived on her own on a remote farm in Teesside. The original programme "Too Long a Winter" is on a video I've got which was recorded at the time, and the image of her getting water from the lake in the middle of winter is one which I will never forget. It was the most desolate scene, and heartrending to think that she struggled with such deprivations on her own, and the haunting music couldn't have been more perfect. I've seen it performed live at Leeds Town Hall and it's a piece I love very much.

I also love The Lark Ascending. Not sure why, because sometimes I hear other violin pieces on the radio and the very high notes hurt my hearing But The Lark Ascending always makes me want to hold my breath in anticipation, and thoughts of "England's green and pleasant land" make me quite emotional and remind me how lovely this country can be

I like RVW too. I love the Lark Ascending but I find it very difficult to listen to because of the great differences in volume (on the record player). It starts so quietly that I need to turn the thing way up to hear it, which means the later bits boom out too loud. I bet it's wonderful to hear live, I've never had the opportunity.

I think it's pleasant enough but not a great oboe concerto.

The Suite for Viola and Small Orchestra is excellent.

By the way he apparently had quite a fan club during his life time. Even as an old bloke he had no shortage of young, pretty, femail admirers.

The Sinfonia Antartica (without a c in the middle) was put together in about 1949 from music commissioned as the film score for "Scott of the Antarctic" (with a c in the middle) in 1947. The reason for dropping the c in the middle is that the title is translated into Italian (not latin).

The Antarctic is so called simply because it is the antipodes for the arctic.

The arctic is so called because it was the haunt of Ursus Arctos, the brown bear (and believe it or not, the region really is named after the bear not the other way around). Ursus Arctos is NOT the polar bear, nor is Ursus Arctos Horribilis (the Grizzly bear). The polar bear is Ursus Maritimus - the sea bear!

Rats! I thought it was a "Trucker's Symphony".

Thanks for starting up the fan club, skylark - I've never been a founder member of a forum club before!

Don't worry: "the explanation 'Articus' from the latin" is nonsense, see my previous post: Ursus Arctos, the brown (not polar) bear gave it's name to the arctic. The antarctic was simply the antipodes of the Arctic. RVW wrote the film score for Scott of the Antarctic in 1947 and liked it so much he used the score as the basis of his 7th Symphony in 1949 which he called the Antarctic Symphony, but in Italian: The Sinfonia Antartica. Sorry to repeat myself but . . .

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't "The Lark Ascending" a viola piece, not violin? This might be why the high notes don't hurt the ears (could be wrong on this one).

(And I'm not even particularly a RVW fan!)

No it's violin.

Sorry Robodoc. I never studied Latin, merely looked up the etymology of Arctic in the C.O.D and went from there, assuming that, like Sinfonia, it was Italian rather than Latin, but since I know very little Italian either - just the numbers - I plumped for the Latin instead!

Benjamin Britten's solo organ work Prelude & Fugue on a theme of Vittoria would have been " .... on a theme of Victoria", but he changed it, because he said it sounded too much like the station!

Not being beset by pushpull's admirable intellect, I love the oboe concerto.

Can I put in for membership please?

I liked it enough to buy the Oboe score with piano reduction, so that I can play the piano part and 'hear' the Oboe part playing above it.

Just listened to the Fifth Smphony (driving over M62 this morning), for the first time in ages. Some lovely lyrical passages and woodwind solo work.

I'm very fond of RVW not just because I love his music but also because he figures prominently in a science fiction series that I am very fond of. If anyone's ever read the Mythago cycle by Robert Holdstock, the second book contains a character known only as "Mr Williams", an elderly man who writes music based on folk songs.

When I was a student of composition I wrote a piece based on the Mythago cycle and its name is not unlike "Towards The Unknown Region". So in a way RVW was the inspiration for that too.

It's only an opinion.

[quote name='skylark' date='Sep 5 2010, 09:41 PM' post='985164']
We need a RVW thread, otherwise we might get modded for going off topic on the Rodgers & Hammerstein thread!

I nominate Toscaviolin for President of the Fan Club BerkshireMum and me as founder members, and Clavicembalo as Honorary member due to his lineage, if not his affiliations


WOW, a president,
L'il ole me, well I am glad to accept, although am really not worthy:notWorthy: but what a bit of fun.

I just got the score for Six Studies in English Folk Song (Violin Part & piano so my friend can play too)
and also Romance and Pastoral...to be honest this one is probably a bit beyond me but like a stretch!!
I have had Lark Ascending score , the arrangement for violin and piano, for years and every few months I have a go and surprisingly I can play quite a bit, of a fashion, if it is in 1st - 4th position, though some is literally "sky high" (gettit) and far too hard, plus it is meant to be full of vibrato which I can only do, a bit, on certain fingers so think I might be about 10 years off going public with it LOL!

Welcome all to the R.V.W. Fan Club (ABRSM Forum chapter)

I'm in! A fine set of diverse symphonies spanning the first half of the last century. Being slightly obsessive, I have bought two full sets (RLPO Handley and BBCSO Davies) plus a couple of the Hickox/LSO recordings and listen to all regularly.. And then there is the enormous contribution to choral music. I have also to explore the operatic stuff. Splendid, splendid..

That is very interesting, thanks for that explanation! Having done a bit more research on this, I gather that 'arctos" simply means "bear" in Greek so Ursus Arctos is just a combination of the Latin and Greek terms for the same animal.

We're meandering a bit from RVW but it's very interesting all the same, if you like entymology (which I do)


I don't feel we can have an RVW appreciation thread without mentioning Five Tudor Pieces which is wonderful, and which janj sang not long ago - see this thread.

Wasn't RVW a bear of a man?

Incidentally, pendant-personified here: you seem to have a cross between 'etymology' (which is what you meant) and 'entomology' - the study of insects!

OK, so if you mean to refer to RVW's The Wasps - Overture, why not do it directly?!

I'd say he was a cuddly teddy bear



Some people obviously have a bee in their bonnet about such things

There's always a sting in the tail!

May I join, please? I'm going to be singing my favourite RVW song, Silent Noon, at Cardiff.

Thats my favourite song too ! I even got it put in as test piece for open solo in the music festival committee I am on.
It can be sung by both male and female voices. I'd like to hear someone do it at a forums event I might go to (lucky045 or katyjay ?), then I could accompany! But probably it would just have to be a Leeds or Chester one