This disc offers a broad selection of Vaughan Williams’ chamber music written between 1912 and 1952, and it illustrates how the composer maintained an overall consistency of style over that 40-year period, particularly in his fascination with modal melodic and harmonic structures. The program begins with The Lake in the Mountains (1941), an atmospheric tone poem for solo piano that evokes the placid scene indicated by the title. The 1926 Six Studies in English Folksong for cello and piano continues in this same languorous vein, while the Phantasy Quintet, the earliest piece in this collection, displays a contrasting rhythmic energy and youthful freshness as well as a lyrical charm that always would be a component of the composer’s “light” music.
Next comes the A minor Violin Sonata, which not only is the latest, but also is the most substantial work here. With its broad, modal themes and episodic developmental sequences it stands as vintage late-Vaughan Williams. Finally we have the 1943 String Quartet No. 2, a work whose dramatic profile and emotional intensity reflect the wartime era during which it was composed. The Nash Ensemble’s sensitive, keenly focused, and beautifully played renderings fully realize all the disparate elements, from the terse to the transcendent, that comprise this beguiling music. Hyperion’s recording presents each instrumental grouping in a solid three-dimensional sound image with realistic dynamic range, making this exploration of the non-orchestral side of Vaughan Williams an aural delight you’ll want to regularly revisit. [10/5/2002]
