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The first release in Richard Hickox's Vaughan Williams symphony cycle for Chandos hits the bull's-eye in spectacular fashion with this tremendously powerful and deeply involving performance of the glorious Fifth. For all the spellbinding concentration and abundant character on show, what really marks out Hickox's interpretation as something special is its sheer depth of humanity and tender compassion. What's more, the London Symphony Orchestra respond with a luminous refinement and touching dedication that similarly graced their contribution to Andrè Previn's classic early-70's RCA version (the reading which Hickox's perhaps most closely resembles). First heard at a 1943 Prom, the Fifth actually borrows some of its ideas from VW's yet-to-be- completed "morality" based on John Bunyan's
The Pilgrim's Progress--as do two of Hickox's five enterprising couplings, the 1940 motet
Valiant-for-truth and the setting of Psalm 23. Chandos's programme concludes with the Prelude and Fugue in C minor, originally written in 1921 for organ but heard here in its opulent orchestral guise from 1930. The reverberant sound--so marvellously rich and glowing elsewhere--inclines to woolliness here. For the Fifth Symphony alone, however, this programme earns a sure-fire recommendation, for it is undoubtedly one of the finest VW performances of recent times.
--Andrew Achenbach
