Ralph Neville

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) Oboe Concerto in A minor with Strings (1944) 1. Rondo Pastorale 2. Minuet And Musette 3. Finale Celia Nicklin, oboe Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/Sir Neville Marriner Pigeonholed by many as an English nationalist composer, Vaughan Williams is under-appreciated despite his nine masterful symphonies. His compositions, like those of Dvorák and Bartok, were influenced and colored by the nationality of their composer, but were not dominated by it. Vaughan Williams sought to free English music from foreign domination so that it would truly be the music of the English people. It took a strong man to reject the overpowering German Romantic tradition. Undaunted, Vaughan Williams did just that; his music derives its character from English folk song and the English choral tradition. As an old man he said, to this day, the Beethoven idiom repels me. Rejected by Elgar, he took lessons from both the Frenchman Maurice Ravel and the German Max Bruch, but absorbed technique, not their style. The last fifteen years of Vaughan Williamss life brought with them unprecedented creativity. In 1953, he told a friend: I have so much music in my head I know I will never have time to write it down. Perhaps it was his experience writing film music that accounts for the new energy, expansiveness and rich sonorities in his late work. The Concerto for Oboe was written in 1944 for the virtuoso Leon Goossens. The intended premiere on July 5, 1944 was cancelled due <b>...</b>