Works by Vaughan Williams thread through the whole of this Proms season, marking the 50th anniversary of his death. On the exact date, the whole programme, with Andrew Davis conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, was given over to his music, and three undisputed masterpieces had been set aside for the occasion.
It turned out to be a slightly low-key, uninvolving affair. At least familiarity never dulls the impact of Fantasia On a Theme By Thomas Tallis, as mysteriously compelling as ever, even if Davis's performance was functional rather than truly eloquent - just as the Serenade to Music, given in its original version with 16 solo singers, sounded considerably less enchanted than it does in the right context.
Vaughan Williams's finest ballet score, Job: A Masque for Dancing, fared best of the three, perhaps because it is the most robust, but also, one sensed, because its quasi-symphonic structure gave Davis more to get to grips with. Even here, though, greater presence from the orchestra, especially the strings, would have made a world of difference.
Aficionados claim the Ninth Symphony as one of Vaughan Williams's greatest, too; yet it remains the least performed of his symphonies. His last major work, first performed four months before he died, made an appropriate ending to the tribute, illuminating a different side of his musical personality from the reflective, mystical world the rest of the programme had explored. Davis could not unwrap the symphony's enigmas, though, however much he relished the quirky scoring with flugelhorn and a trio of saxophones; it remained a work of glorious rugged moments that never quite cohered.
