The Pilgrim's Progress on internet radio


My two photos were taken at the sessions in November 1970 and January 1971 for Sir Adrian Boult's classic EMI recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams morality The Pilgrims Progress, which is based on John Bunyan's allegory of the same name. The recording was made in the Kingsway Hall, and Sir Adrian can be seen conducting the soloists, and London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir above.

The lower photo was taken in the control room during a playback, and shows from left to right, Ursula Vaughan Williams, Christopher Bishop (producer), Sir Adrian Boult, John Noble (The Pilgrim), Ian Partridge, Gloria Jennings, Christopher Parker (balance engineer), in front John Alldis (chorus master) and Sheila Armstrong. Photo credits Godfrey McDominic/EMI.


The theme of my Overgrown Path radio programme at 5.00pm UK time this Sunday (Oct 7) will be Pilgrims of the Soul, and I will be playing the Prologue and Act 1 of this recording of The Pilgrim's Progress in the second part of the programme. (Which means two Pliable will be taking part, with the singing role taken by the tenor Wynford Evans). Act 1 contains several of the themes that Vaughan Williams used in his Fifth Symphony, including the Romanza that begins the symphony's lyrical slow movement.

Preceeding The Pilgrim's Progress will be a sequence from the concert of medieval and traditional pilgrim songs by Sarband and the Osnabrück Youth Choir that I featured here recently. This should be a fascinating programme. The music I'll be playing is below. More details at the foot of the post, or listen in real-time only by clicking on this image:



From Pilgrims of the Soul - Jaro 4248-2

Dum pater familias Codex Calixtinus
Laudemus virginem Llibre Vermell de Montserrat
Salve virgo regia (instrumental) Codex Ripoll (Paris, BN lat. 5312)
Splendens ceptigera Llibre Vernell

Ya rai'i z-ziba Traditional: Al-Andalus
Salve Regina Codex Las Huelgas

Nani nani Traditional Sephardic
O successores fortissimi leonis Hildegard von Bingen - 21' 55"

From The Pilgrim's Progress by Ralph Vaughan Williams - EMI CMS 7642122

Prologue
Act 1 - Scene 1: The Pilgrim Meets Evangelist
Scene 2 - The House Beautiful - 26' 44"

More on The Pilgrim's Progress here.
Listen to the Future Radio audio stream here. Convert Overgrown Path radio on-air times to your local time zone using this link. Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. If you are in the Norwich, UK area tune to 96.9FM. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

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