Music of My Heart's "Commemorative Coronation Release"

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee reminded me of this LP, which I purchased in a used record shop in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1984 or 1985: Ralph Vaughan Williams' "A Pastoral Symphony." As the cover indicates, this album was a "special commemorative coronation release" from 1952 or 1953.  I already loved an album called "The Pastoral Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams," also conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.  So this old LP (over thirty years old when I bought it, and containing no other music but this four-movement piece on two sides) seemed intriguing.

Oh my goodness.  The symphony became not only one of my two favorite symphonies (a tie with RVW's fifth), but it has remained, for nearly thirty years, among the music I feel most deeply in my heart. What a result, from dropping by a vinyl shop!  I associated the music with the timber and fields of my native Fayette County, Illinois (although of course RVW was English and the symphony is a kind of war requiem, inspired by French landscapes where he served during World War I).  We all have private and personal associations with beloved music.  The symphony, and the feelings of home and the memories evoked by it, combine to form a beautiful place in my heart.

The liner notes by Hubert Foss read: "The modal, peaceful mood of the music is set in the opening bars of the first movement, with two continuous melodic phrases: one based on a rising fifth and heard low down on 'cellos, basses, and harp, the other in the treble register, with a falling fifth and some full-tone arabesques played on a solo violin. The cor anglais soon introduces another melismatic idea....The following movement moves along at no greater speed, like a small West Country river; the material is again fragmentary---a phrase on the solo horn, and then another on a low flute and solo viola in unison. Later in the movement comes a long call (pianissimo) on a single trumpet...The third movement may be called a quasi-scherzo; for all its marking of moderato pestante, the music shows more signs of activity, as of things living and growing in the countryside. The opening phrase is little more than a figure, which develops a tune on the brass, and after a gentle climax gives way to a birdlike arabesque on a solo flute, answered by a solo violin.  A piu mosso section has a more blustering feeling, with a broad, robust tune announced on trumpets and tenor trombones.....The finale opens with a long beetles and wordless recitative for a solo soprano over a soft drum-roll. Soon the music settles down to a warm melody of irregular phrase-rhythm but somewhat more familiar idiom.  It is first played by the choir of woodwind, and develops into other phrases, some quite insistent though soft, and one (on the flute) long and expressive. The work ends with a shortened version of the soprano, this time accompanied only by a single octave A high on muted violins."

Here is the gorgeous finale, conducted by Richard Hickox and Rebecca Evans, soprano.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MWsJDh_nm4