Vaughan Williams: The Pilgrim's Progress
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Music CD Cover
Performer: Richard AngasPerformer: Geoffrey Shaw
Performer: Geoffrey Ward
Performer: John Carol Case
Performer: John Noble
Performer: John Shirley-Quirk
Performer: Raimund Herincx
Performer: Terence Sharpe
Performer: Christopher Keyte
Performer: Robert Lloyd
Composer: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Conductor: Adrian Boult
Performer: Delia Wallis
Performer: Jean Temperley
Orchestra: London Philharmonic Chorus
Orchestra: London Philharmonic Orchestra
Performer: Doreen Price
Performer: Gloria Jennings
Performer: Marie Hayward
Edition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2005-07-13
Music Label: Angel Records
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Prologue: Bunyan In Prison
- Act I, Scene 1: The Pilgrim Meets Evangelist
- Act I, Scene 2: The House Beautiful
- Act I: Nocturne (Intermezzo)
- Act II, Scene 1: The Arming Of The Pilgrim
- Act II, Scene 2: The Pilgrim Meets Apollyon
- Act III, Scene 1: Vanity Fair 'Buy! What Will Ye Buy?'
- Act III, Scene 1: Vanity Fair 'I Buy The Truth!'
- Act III, Scene 2: The Pilgrim In Prison
- Act IV, Scene 1: The Pilgrim Meets Sinister By-Ends
- Act IV: Entr'acte
- Act IV, Scene 2: The Delectable Monsters 'Who So Dwelleth'
- Act IV, Scene 2: The Delectable Monsters 'The Lord Is My Shepherd'
- Act IV, Scene 3: The Pilgrim Reaches The End Of his Journey
- Act IV: Epilogue
- Sir Adrian In Rehearsal: Act III Scene 1
- Sir Adrian In Rehearsal: Act I Nocturne
- Sir Adrian In Rehearsal: Act IV Scene 1
- Sir Adrian In Rehearsal: Act IV Scene 2
- Sir Adrian In Rehearsal: Act II Scene 1
Free Music Notes for Vaughan Williams: The Pilgrim's Progress
Free Music Review: A work of Protestant faith that's unknown in the U.S.
Hit: 5 Stars
As a touchstone of English Protestant faith, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress has had more influence than any work other than the Bible. For generations every schoolchild knew its episodes, and when Thackeray entitled hsi most famous novel Vanity Fair, he assumed that any educated or even semi-educated reader would pick up the reference. Against that bacground, VW was setting a sacred text that was also a pillar of British culture.
He did an inspired job. This "Morality," which isn't quite an opera or an oratorio, is nobly conceived. Nobility is a hard mood to keep going without the risk of boredom, but VW supplies his loveliest melodies and considerable dramatic instincts here. The problem for us Americans is that we don't read Pilgrim's Progress, so any adaptation lacks the ring of familiarity. We are hearing for the first time a very long allegroy a la The Dream of Gerontius, another beloved English classic that has little currency in the U.S.
I only mention this because I avoided the opera for a long time thinking that it would feel too foreign or churchy. In fact, this work well could be his vocal masterpiece (despite some diffuse writing and a general sense of anti-climax towards the end); any lover of VW's music will be more satisfied, I think, than with Elgar's Gerontius--for one thing, Bunyan's words make a finer text than Cardinal Newman's earnest Victorian religiosity. The performance under Adrian Boult is all that one could ask for, and EMI's 1972 sound still comes across very well.
Even if the Pilgrim's soul journey doesn't matter to you, this CD can be appreciated sheerly for the sake of VW's gorgeous music.
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