Lunchtime Music: Vaughan Williams, Dvořák

Vaughan Williams Phantasy Quintet
Dvořák Quintet Op.97

Oliver Heath violin
Shuwei Zuo violin
Christine Anderson viola
Jinhe Huang viola
Nicholas Trygstad cello

English folksong, lusty dancing, evocative melodies and even a hint of a lark, Vaughan Williams’s Phantasy Quintet combines all these in a freestyle fantasia (or ‘phantasy’) form beloved by the work’s commissioner, Walter Wilson Cobbett.

From the very opening bars of Dvořák’s Quintet we are in the same territory as his much-loved String Quartet, Op. 96 ‘American’, and it creates an equally distinctive impression of his first summer holiday in America, in Spillville, Iowa.  Native American themes and drumming rhythms are evident throughout and a glorious variation movement forms the heart of the work.

Running time approx. 55 minutes