Vaughan Williams - Tallis Fantasia | Stanislav Kochanovsky | WDR Sinfonieorchester

Vaughan Williams - Tallis Fantasia | Stanislav Kochanovsky | WDR Sinfonieorchester
沃恩威廉斯 - 塔利斯主題幻想曲 | 斯坦尼斯拉夫科恰諾夫斯基 | 西德廣播交響樂團

50,372 views Premiered Oct 12, 2024 KÖLNER PHILHARMONIE
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Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, played by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Stanislav Kochanovsky. Live recording from the Kölner Philharmonie, June 28, 2024.

Ralph Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

WDR Symphony Orchestra
Stanislav Kochanovsky, conductor

Introduction to the work:
In 1910, the renowned Three Choirs Festival approached the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams with a commission for an orchestral work to be performed before an oratorio by Edward Elgar, “The Dream of Gerontius”. A few years earlier, Vaughan Williams had co-edited a collection of the best English-language hymns. It includes a composition by Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585) from the
Archbishop Matthew Parker's Psalter. Decades later, John Addison, a hymn writer, added the following lines to Tallis' melody: “When rising from the bed of death, / O'erwhelmed with guilt and fear, / I see my Maker face to face, / O how shall I appear?” (“When rising from the bed of death, / overwhelmed with guilt and fear, / I see my Maker face to face, / Oh, how shall I appear?”) Vaughan Williams had published the melody of Tallis with this text. For his commissioned work, it seemed to him to be a suitable model with which to do justice to Elgar's oratorio.

There is an almost legendary anecdote about the two young composers Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney, when they traveled to the premiere on September 6, 1910 at Gloucester Cathedral. Their main interest was Elgar's work, but it was Vaughan Williams' Fantasia that so impressed them that they could not sleep and wandered through the streets of Gloucester at night. And this work does indeed radiate a magical power. Vaughan Williams presents the Tallis theme with heartfelt sincerity. He shaped the work for a string quartet with great subtlety, having two string orchestras correspond with each other, from which a string quartet is also temporarily extracted. The many-voiced sound tapestry is audibly inspired by Tallis' famous motet “Spem in alium” for 40 independent voices. Vaughan Williams, who was in his late 30s, had only recently developed his compositional sophistication through studies with Maurice Ravel in Paris, who also gave him decisive impulses in the art of instrumentation.

Text: Otto Hagedorn

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