A Vision of Aeroplanes

[Justadad]

With Battle of Britain services looming, can anyone offer insight into the playing of this Vaughan Williams piece?

 

Best wishes

 

J

[MusingMuso]

With Battle of Britain services looming, can anyone offer insight into the playing of this Vaughan Williams piece?

 

Best wishes

 

J

 

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Nope.....sorry.

 

I'd go for "The dam busters" march by Coates. I know it isn't Battle of Britain, but it's close enough.

 

My favourite would be the "Spitfire" Prelude & Fugue by Walton, but I reckon that would be almost impossible as an organ transcription.

 

MM

[Vox Humana]

I'm not at all sure that this piece is done very often. It's never come my way. I've got a recoding of it on LP and always wondered why it's not heard more.

 

If Justason is down to play it at a service, then he ought to couple it with Messiaen's Les yeux dans les roues for the fignal voluntary (says he who once spent four hours a day for a month learning the first page, only to find he'd forgotten it completely within a week of starting on the second page).

[Vox Humana]

By the way, for anyone who doesn't know the RVW piece, it's a setting for choir and organ of the opening of Ezekiel I, which has been interpreted as a vision of aeroplanes (UFOs too, I think).

[Philip J Wells]

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My favourite would be the "Spitfire" Prelude & Fugue by Walton, but I reckon that would be almost impossible as an organ transcription.

 

MM

 

It's been done. Ashley Grote played the arrangement by Tom Winpenny of the Walton, Prelude and Fugue 'The Spitfire' as an outgoing voluntary at the final Choral Evensong at this years 3 Choirs festival. Unfortunately I did not hear it but it would come as no surprise to learn he used the new solo Trompette Harmonique. It sounded pretty good a few months previously in one of his recitals, pre the new reed.

PJW

[John Robinson]

I like both the pieces heard in the film 'Battle of Britain' although, if I am not to be considered disloyal, I prefer the Luftwaffe one to the RAF one!

 

I don't suppose either has been transcribed for organ, though.

[Justadad]

Thanks Vox, I'll pass that on. But why Les yeux dans tes roues?

 

Best wishes

 

J

 

 

I'm not at all sure that this piece is done very often. It's never come my way. I've got a recoding of it on LP and always wondered why it's not heard more.

 

If Justason is down to play it at a service, then he ought to couple it with Messiaen's Les yeux dans les roues for the fignal voluntary (says he who once spent four hours a day for a month learning the first page, only to find he'd forgotten it completely within a week of starting on the second page).

[Vox Humana]

Les yeux dans les roues (The Eyes in the Wheels) refers to the same vision.

 

"16 The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.

 

"17 When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went.

 

"18 As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four."

 

I think it'sa tremendous piece, but it's a real sod and I take my hat off to anyone who can get their head around it. It's nothing more than a succession of random Schoenbergian twelve-note rows in left hand, right hand and pedals.

[Vox Humana]

As here:

[Contrabombarde]

I like both the pieces heard in the film 'Battle of Britain' although, if I am not to be considered disloyal, I prefer the Luftwaffe one to the RAF one!

 

I don't suppose either has been transcribed for organ, though.

 

Wonderful thing, Google.

 

The Prelude (not sure about the Fugue) was transcribed in 1966 by Dennis Morrell and sold both separately (OUP 019 3744725) and within A Walton Organ Album (1996), OUP 019 3758709.

 

Don't know if that is the version being played here, but here's a link to a (somewhat clinical I felt) performance on the Mormon Monster (Tabernacle organ). Gives you a feel for the registration possibilties:

 

And if you're quick, someone is listing both items in their current used organ sheet music catelogue at http://usedorganmusic.co.uk/cat0710.pdf

[Justadad]

I passed on the suggestion of Les yeux, Vox, and it went down like a Lancaster with one wing largely, apparently, on account of it being 'difficult'. He has, it seems, been asked to play the Spitfire P&F mentioned above.

 

Best wishes

 

J

 

Les yeux dans les roues (The Eyes in the Wheels) refers to the same vision.

 

"16 The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.

 

"17 When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went.

 

"18 As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four."

 

I think it'sa tremendous piece, but it's a real sod and I take my hat off to anyone who can get their head around it. It's nothing more than a succession of random Schoenbergian twelve-note rows in left hand, right hand and pedals.