Vaughan Williams never completed in full score his seven-movement suite from the opera Sir John in Love, which had as its central character Shakespeare’s Falstaff. He left it in two-piano score with the opera’s working title Fat Knight, and it has become, in effect, a set of instructions for realising the orchestral suite Martin Yates has produced, incorporating the orchestration from the completed opera. The Henry V Overture, until now only known in the original version for band, is recorded in Martin Yates’s idiomatic orchestration, reminding us that Vaughan Williams produced a vivid evocation of the world of Shakespeare’s play that anticipated Walton’s more familiar film music of a decade later. Completing the programme is the orchestral version of the Serenade to Music, composed for Sir Henry Wood’s Jubilee and brilliantly played here by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Fat Knight (1929 ed 2015)
Orchestral suite from the opera Sir John in Love Realised from Vaughan Williams’s short score by Martin Yates (2015)

1. i A Street in Windsor (Act 1 from the beginning) (Allegro vivace – Andante)
2. ii Falstaff at the Garter Inn (Drinking Song Back and Side Go Bare) (Allegro)
3. iii Page’s House (Act 2: Introduction, First Scene and Finale) (Maestoso)
4. iv A Field near Windsor (Act 3: Entr’acte) (Allegro Moderato)
5. Greensleeves and Finale (Lento – Allegro non troppo)
6. v Ford and Mistress Ford (Act 4: Introduction and Entr’acte) (Andante piacevole)
7. vi Midnight in Windsor Forest by Moonlight (Lento – Molto moderato e pesante)
8. vii Finale (Moderato maestoso)

Henry V Overture (1934)
Orchestrated by Martin Yates (2015)
9. Andante maestoso – Allegro – Andante poco lento e sostenuto Andante maestoso – Moderato alla marcia

10. Serenade to Music (1938 arr 1940)
Andantino
Orchestral version with soloist JAMES CLARK violin

ROYAL SCOTTISH NATIONAL ORCHESTRA
conducted by MARTIN YATES
WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS [1-9]

All tracks available in stereo and multi-channel

This Hybrid CD can be played on any standard CD player

CDLX7328

“Martin Yates’s sparkling orchestration” “Yates secures some commendably alert playing from the RSNO, who seem to be thoroughly enjoying the whole experience” “Dutton’s multi-channel production, whose glowingly realistic sound emanates from the acoustically kind surroundings of Dundee’s Caird Hall.” Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone, June 2016