Vaughan Williams: Job - A Masque For Dancing

Following on from their highly acclaimed cycle of the 9 Vaughan Williams symphonies, Andrew Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra have recorded a spectacular Job, taken from a live performance at the famed Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. Also on this album is the orchestral ballet Old King Cole, a riot of orchestral colors with some beautiful passages for solo violin. The Running Set, based on traditional dance tunes completes this dance themed program. Vaughan Williams' inspiration for Job arose from William Blake's illustrations for The Book of Job, a collection of water colors from 1805, and the later engravings from 1822. 1928 was the centenary of Blake's death, and he attempted to interest Serge Diaghilev, the foremost artistic power in the world of ballet to take it up but to no avail. The work has since become a concert piece after a handful of staged performances in the early 1930s. The score is in 9 sections telling the story of Job. The music is notable for it's dramatic contrasts. The music for God being powerful and majestic, that for Satan is powerfully dissonant with a violence that foreshadows music encountered in the composer's 4th and 6th symphonies and piano concerto. He had seen service in France in the First World War, and what he saw there undoubtedly colored his musical language, and the horrors endured by Job are depicted in some of his most driven and dissonant music.