Masses by Vaughan Williams and Rubbra

This record represents two notable firsts by London's Fleet Street Choir, which managed to premiere many important works even though it was an amateur ensemble.

Vaughan Williams

In the case of the Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor, this was the first LP version, recorded in Decca's West Hampstead studios in March 1953. The group had made the first-even recording of the piece in 1946, also for Decca.

The choir and its director, T. B. Lawrence, gave the first performance of Edmund Rubbra's Missa in Honorem Sancti Dominici in 1948. This is its first recording, also from March 1953. Lawrence died during the sessions, and the composer conducted the Kyrie and Gloria heard here.

Lawrence formed the choir in the 1920s, drawing its members from journalism and the printing trades. They gave a number of notable first performances, including Britten's A Ceremony of Carols and Hymn to St. Cecilia. (You can find a transfer of their 1943 recording of the latter at Bryan Bishop's Shellackophile blog.) Nonetheless, there is some evidence that Britten did not like the Hymn to St. Cecilia recording - a letter from his publisher tells him that "legally, I could not stop their issue". They also made the first recording of Byrd's Mass for Five Voices. Vaughan Williams and Rubbra both were influenced by the liturgical music of Byrd's 16th century contemporaries.

Rubbra

The performances here have their merits but are not all that one might hope. As the Gramophone reviewer, Alec Robertson, delicately puts it about the Rubbra mass, "The writing, harmonically, is sometimes very difficult for the singers and their intonation is not impeccable in the Kyrie". For "not impeccable" substitute "fairly painful" and you will be closer to the truth.

Despite its prominence in London musical life many decades ago, the Fleet Street Choir is largely forgotten and you will find little mention of it on the web, and no photographs, either of the choir or Lawrence. The overwrought portrait of Rubbra above is by the illustrator-photographer Peggy Delius, a niece of the composer. William Rothenstein did the Vaughan Williams portrait in 1919.

Addendum: note that the download also includes the choir's 1943 recording of Holst's "This I Have Done for My True Love," the fill-up to the Britten set mentioned above.