Posted by B.G. on July 30, 2003 at 17:20:04:
In Reply to: Vaughan Williams - why? posted by Chris on July 29, 2003 at 19:38:59:
What you state is a matter of taste and opinion. There may be more virtuositic concerti than the V-W, but I personally feel that it's popularity is totally justified. I might feel differerently about the John Williams IF I could actually play the thing. But as a listener, it doesn't do half as much for me as the V-W, even after having heard the V-W hundreds of times. I think that the V-W is not too long, and has a perfect balance between fast/technical stuff, and slow, gorgeous, lyrical stuff (second movement). Better still, the fast stuff actually has "good tunes" involved with it. It doesn't sound like something written just to sound technical and/or virtuostic. As a composition, there's an effortless quality to it, except for maybe the difficult woodwind parts. Anyway, that's just one person's opinion. I rarely tire of hearing different tubaists give their interpretations of the V-W. In the long run, I don't think that John Williams is half the composer that Vaughan Williams was. Again, that's just an opinion. Everybody has one.
Barry Guerrero