Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 6.- LSO/Pappano

 Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 6.

London Symphony Orchestra/Pappano - 2020

Overall Pappano and the LSO bring in a reasonably good, live performance but with some problems which somewhat lessen the impact.  But this is not what we want and need in this most tumultuous of symphonies.  Anything which is short of terrifying won't do.

It's a difficult symphony to get wrong to do in this most impactful of symphonies. The path Pappano takes is quick progress in the first three movements and somewhat dour in the final movement. And as it goes, this last movement suffers the usual problem of being too loud and the LSO strings are somewhat ragged at times.

The rest of the reading is fine but not special where things go wrong I suspect there’s equal blame between conductor and recording engineers. The woodwind disappear from the sound stage too often and elsewhere there are not prominent enough. 

Recording 6 out of 10

Interpretation 6 out of 10

Performance 7 out of 10.