I've had a couple of friendly and very kind replies from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society. Sadly, there's no killer identification made, but the Chairman of the Society, who told me he is a fan of
Then Play On thinks the excerpt identifies the Fifth Symphony as an influence or feeling for the extract. I'm listening to it now.
Do you know, I think actually played the 'cello in a university orchestra performance of a movement or two of this 30 years ago... that rolling theme from the first movement is coming back to me.
Another member contacted me, sharing memories of going to Mac gigs many times in the Sixties, standing ten feet away from the band as Peter introduced Danny Kirwan as their new guitarist. Interestingly, he advised me that Rikky Rooksby author of
the Complete Guide to the Music of Fleetwood Mac is also a member of the RVW society. I don't own the book, but I remember leafing through it in the bookstore. If memory serves, he's a fair and objective reviewer, and it was pretty well written as well. I seem to recall he wrote something along the lines that much fun must have been had during the recording of
the Madge tracks.
I've just noticed another poster on the Talk Classical forum has suggested:
Sounds like Vaughan Williams fifth symphony, final movement as it gently fades away
http://www.talkclassical.com/43446-c...fleetwood.html
I must get back onto that site to thank Becca and Metarie Road. Many thanks to the RVW members! We have more in common than we dared imagine.
EDIT:
I guess the fact that Ricky Rooksby is a fan of RVW means that it's less likely that the excerpt was by him. He would have mentioned it in his track-by-track analysis in his book, I would have thought.
I couldn't hear it in the ending of the 5th symphony, btw.