DiscountDelight - Vaughan Williams: Fantasies; The Lark Ascending; Five Variants

	List Price: $16.98 Our Price: $12.17 Your Save: $ 4.81 ( 28% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Manufacturer: Decca
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Binding: Audio CD EAN: 0028941459527 Label: Decca Manufacturer: Decca Number Of Discs: 1 Publisher: Decca Release Date: 1990-10-25 Studio: Decca
Related Items Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 5 Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music · Five Mystical Songs · Fantasia on Christmas Carols · Flos Campi / Sixtieen Soloists · Thomas Allen · Nobuko Imai · Corydon Singers · ECO · Matthew Best Vaughan Williams: Orchestral Works Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; Fantasia on Vaughan Williams: Phantasy Quintet/String Quartets 1 & 2
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: SIMPLY MAGNIFICENT Comment: THE LARK ASCENDING IS TRULY ONE OF THE GREATEST PIECES OF MUSIC EVER COMPOSED. ITS TRANSCENDANT BEAUTY COMPELS US TO ENVISION THAT LONE, SOLITARY LARK AS IT CLIMBS EVER HIGHER, AND SWOOPS EVER LOWER THROUGH OUR HEARTS, LEAVING ITS INDELLIBLE IMPRINT UPON OUR SOULS. MUSIC CAN SERVE NO GREATER PURPOSE THAN TO GIVE VOICE TO OUR SOULS. THIS PIECE DOES SO POWERFULLY. Customer Rating: Summary: Larks and Souls both ascend Comment: This recording is a timeless masterpiece. It will become one of your favorite CDs, I promise. "Fantasia on Greensleeves" is rich and expansive, grand and lush; building on the ancient tune in both pagentry and reflection. "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" is wonderful, a tapestry of folk tunes made large and sweeping. However the CD's major feature is the sublime, graceful, and healing "The Lark Ascending". What an amazing piece of music! If you have never heard this work of genius that transports your soul high above the earth, then you are in for a treat. The range of the piece is amazing, combining playful green pastoral melodies of a simple life which become almost sad meditative reflective haunting movements before expanding into large joyful and rich processions, like time and rivers. The violin, flute, and oboe are each given opportunties to transport us up into the air, over our lives, beyond our everyday vision, to a expansive musical vision of nature in all its abundant variations. At times the piece echoes traditional English folk songs, and then sweeps into meditative Japanese-influenced flute and violin interpretations, and then merges into a tapestry of full orchestration. The piece is meditative, sometimes almost tragic, but always a sublime musical interpretation of the majestic sweep of nature and the recurring voice of the tiny lark ascending like a spirit over the vista of it all. You owe it to yourself to own this CD. Customer Rating: Summary: The best versions of all the pieces.. Comment: This is the one I fell in love with in college so many years ago,and it was the first Vaughan Williams CD I purchased.I own everything of his on CD now,but this CD is my favorite.The beauty of "The Lark Ascending" is indescribable.I'll just say that it takes you away to a better,more peaceful time,and no matter how frazzled your nerves are,it will mellow you but good.The Thomas Tallis Fantasia piece is so gorgeous.Listen to the first few bars,and imagine yourself standing next to a ruined castle,the walls encumbered with ivy,the sun filtering through the ruins....That is the effect it has on me every time I listen.The Greensleeves Fantasia is another sumptuous composition,as are the Variants.I think old Ralph(Rafe) was the very best composer for strings.Second would be Delius. If you fall in love with this CD,I would recommend that you listen to Ralph's "Sinfonia Antartica." Completely unlike anything on this CD,but astounding nevertheless.Really...everything he composed is wonderful,so start with this CD and build yourself a R.V.W. library. Customer Rating: Summary: The Lark Ascending - Vaughan Williams Comment: I have been looking for The Lark Ascending for years and years. I didn't know the name or the artist I could only identify it by sound. I can't believe I have finally found it. I am getting married one day with The Lark Ascending in the background and I will also have it played at my funneral. I love it to death. I would have paid anything to have a copy and now I do. The Lark Ascending takes my mind away to another world and gives me so much peace and joy at the same time. I cried when I finally found the name and was able to purchase a copy of The Lark Ascending. A very special CD for me. The length of The Lark Ascending is great but I could listen to it all day!! Thank you Ralph Vaughan Williams. Customer Rating: Summary: English Beauty at it's Best! Comment: Simply awe inspiring. One of my all time favorite CDs. I could listen to this recording 24/7 and never get bored or tired with it. Iona Brown's playing is one of the best if not THE BEST during "The Lark Ascending". Who says the English can't compose, play or conduct music? Purchase this CD right now. You won't regret it. More Reviews
Editorial Reviews: Marriner's evergreen 1972 recording of favorite shorter works by Vaughan Williams has yet to be surpassed for warmth of conception and smoothness of execution. The soloists in these accounts (among them William Bennett in the Greensleeves Fantasia and Iona Brown in the Lark Ascending) are all first-rate, and the Academy's strings play with polish and great beauty of sound. The analog recording is excellent, and Marriner's remarkable empathy for the music comes across effortlessly. Some listeners may prefer the richer sonority and arrestingly mystical manner of Marriner's 1993 digital remake of the Tallis Fantasia for Philips, but this disc offers the most desirable coupling of other works and remains a first choice for those interested in getting to know the composer's finest short essays. --Ted Libbey