Vaughan Williams' Visionary 'Dona Nobis Pacem'

This post is the latest in a survey of the classic 1960s-70s HMV recordings of Ralph Vaughan Williams' compositions. Today the focus is his haunting Dona Nobis Pacem, a magnificent work from 1936, here in a committed 1973 performance led by Sir Adrian Boult, transferred from a vintage pressing.

In his High Fidelity review of the disc, Abram Chipman writes of the composer's spirit, which is reflected in this music. He called Vaughan Williams "uncommonly generous, courageous, tender, bluntly honest, compassionate, and radiating a life-affirming optimism that occurs on such a scale rarely in the tonal arts."

"One couldn’t find a more sterling example of that greatness of heart than in the major work on this new release."

Sir Adrian Boult

While bitterly denouncing the horrors of war - which the composer well knew first hand - Vaughan Williams also maintains hope for the future, as expressed in the texts he chose for the work, largely from Walt Whitman, but also from the Catholic Mass and the Bible.

Let me quote again from Chipman: "Vaughan Williams, in his 'give us peace' [i.e., dona nobis pacem] plea, stressed the humanity of war's victims above all else. Thus, the second movement (Beat! beat! drums!) represents the angry juggernaut of militarism tramping over the everyday life of people at their studies, at their love-making, at the plow, and caring for their children.

"The third movement is a visionary elegy for solo baritone, who whispers the poignant truth that 'my enemy ... a man divine as myself is dead.' The awesomely solemn fourth section is a Dirge for Two Veterans, father and son.

"The finale returns to the Biblical and sacred vision of sources of the opening, with a brilliantly festive vision of a better and more peaceful world. In Vaughan Williams' rapturous vision (composed contemporaneously with the Fourth Symphony), cynicism and despair are banished. There is indignation and pain, of course, but dominating all is a caressing warmth for the human life that might have been."

Sheila Armstrong and John Carol Case

The performance of this important work is all that it should be. Sir Adrian leads the London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra and has the great fortune to be working with two gifted soloists, soprano Sheila Armstrong, passionate and otherworldly at once in the opening Dona nobis pacem and the finale, and baritone John Carol Case, who presents the reconciliation elegy simply and eloquently.

Boult leads the Dirge for Two Veterans with great skill, the climaxes perfectly judged - as they are throughout this composition.

The recording from Kingsway Hall was considered to be a bit wooly on first release, but working from the original vinyl, the sound here is impressively live and impactful.

The LP is completed by Vaughan Williams' much earlier setting of Whitman's Toward the Unknown Region, which is well chosen for its compatibility with Dona Nobis Pacem, but is not in the composer's mature style. Its quality suffers only in comparison with the later work, however.

The download, as usual, includes complete scans, texts and reviews.

The link below is to the 16-bit, 44.1kHz version. A high resolution transfer is available upon request.

LINK to Dona Nobis Pacem and Toward the Unknown Region

The previous entries in this Vaughan Williams series have included:

• Five Tudor Portraits (Elizabeth Bainbridge, Jolhn Carol Case, conducted by David Willcocks)

• Riders to the Sea and Magnificat (Helen Watts, Margaret Price, conducted by Meredith Davies)

• An Oxford Elegy, Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, Flos Campi (John Westbrook, Cecil Aronowitz, Willcocks conducting)

• Mass in G minor, Five Mystical Songs (King's College Choir, John Shirley-Quirk, Willcocks conducting)

• Sancta Civitas, Benedicite (Heather Harper, Ian Partridge, Shirley-Quirk, Willcocks conducting)

• Hodie (Janet Baker, Richard Lewis, Shirley-Quirk, Willcocks conducting)

• Serenade to Music (with Symphony No. 5) (16 soloists, Boult conducting)

Sir Adrian Boult, producer Christopher Bishop, Sheila Armstrong, John Carol Case

Christmas Music by Bax, Holst, Rutter and Vaughan Williams

A quick post to conclude the Christmas season here - a very good LP of music by or arranged by the English composers Arnold Bax, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams and John Rutter.

The performers are the Plymouth Festival Chorus and Orchestra, a Minneapolis organization, under their long-time director Philip Brunelle. This record dates from 1984. It is a follow-up to a 1983 LP I shared last year.

Philip Brunelle conducts

The most interesting music on the LP is the contribution by Arnold Bax, his "Five Fantasies on Polish Carols." The carols themselves are lovely, and are set off by Bax's heavily chromatic orchestral style, such a contrast to the simple carols. The effect is heightened by the charming performance of the Bel Canto Voices, a choir of high school-age girls.

Sir Arnold Bax

The Holst carols come from 1907 and were originally set with piano accompaniment. Producer Cary John Franklin contributed the effective orchestrations heard here.

John Rutter is famous for his carol settings today; even 40 years ago he was renowned for his music. This LP adds seven of his works to the like number contained on the 1983 album I mentioned above. Also, a few weeks ago I shared a "Carols for Choirs" LP that includes five of his compositions.

Today's album share is completed by that Vaughan Williams seasonal staple, the "Fantasia on Greensleeves."

My best wishes to everyone for a fine holiday!

LINK

English Organ Music from Jennifer Bate

The British organist Jennifer Bate (1944-2020) was known for her dedication to Olivier Messiaen's compositions, but she also recorded the complete organ works of Mendelssohn, Franck and compatriot Peter Dickinson, as well as other music from her own land.

For this 1981 LP, titled An English Choice, she chose music of a lighter sort - all compositions but one dating from the first half of the 20th century, representing the famous (Elgar, Vaughan Williams) and those less well remembered (Harvey Grace, Norman Cocker).

Jennifer Bate

The longest work on the program is the Plymouth Suite by organist-composer Percy Whitlock (1903-46). Bate's concise and informative sleeve note explains its genesis: "His [Whitlock's] compositions for organ are firmly based in the English tradition — always tuneful, with a fine, broad sweep of melody, occasionally influenced harmonically by his admiration for Elgar and Delius. This fine Suite, published 1939, was written for the 1937 Congress of the Incorporated Association of Organists held in Plymouth, and the dedicatory initials at the head of each movement are those of members. In addition, the venue patently brought to mind sea-songs as well as the changing rhythms and moods of the sea."

Harvey Grace, Percy Whitlock

Appropriately, Bate recorded her recital on the Rushworth & Dreaper organ in St. Andrew's Church, Plymouth. It's a historic parish, dating to the 9th century, with parts of the present building dating from the 13th. The church was heavily damaged in the Second World War, and the organ installed in the postwar years.

St. Andrew's, Plymouth, before 1870

Ralph Vaughan Williams' beautiful Prelude on 'Rhosymedre' is one of a set of three organ pieces based on Welsh folk tunes. As Bate mentions in her notes, much of the interest in the piece is in the composer's opening theme, which then acts as accompaniment to the hymn tune. Percy Whitlock was a Vaughan Williams student.

Harvey Grace (1874–1944) was best known for being the long-time editor of The Musical Times and for being the organist of Chichester Cathedral. The first movement of Whitlock's Plymouth Suite is dedicated to him. Grace's contribution to the set is a Postlude on 'Martyrs', one of three Psalm Tune Postludes, this one based on a theme from the Scottish Psalter, 1635.

Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941) was a composer, educator and broadcaster who was organist at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and then Master of the King's Music from 1934 until his death. His Solemn Melody was originally written for organ and strings, and is here in an arrangement for organ alone by John E. West.

Henry Walford Davies, William Henry Harris

Sir Edward Elgar wrote his Imperial March for the 1897 Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. It's an early example of his patriotic marches, transcribed for organ by George C. Martin.

Sir William Henry Harris is represented by two brief works - A Fancy and Reverie. The former was dedicated to the memory of Percy Whitlock. The latter is one of Harris' Four Short Pieces. 

Harris was organist of New College, Oxford, Christ Church, Oxford and St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Bate writes, "He was highly respected as a fine player, excellent choir trainer, and composed very much in the Anglican tradition."

Rushworth & Dreaper Organ, St. Andrew's Church

Bate closes her program with Norman Cocker's Tuba Tune, a favorite of organists. Cocker was the organist at Manchester Cathedral for many years.

The LP's sound is good and the playing is splendid. As for the music, in his Gramophone review Gordon Reynolds wrote, "It is astonishing, and pleasing at the same time, to see the repertory of pre-World War II bobbing up again. Not only had all these pieces gone out of fashion, they were regarded even in their heyday as being rather below the salt, musically speaking. The earthy tunefulness, which made the aspiring organists of the thirties curl up, is the very quality which has guaranteed the resurrection of these pieces."

Below is an advertisement that the record company placed in The Gramophone, suggesting that the recording was on "the organ of the 'Pilgrim Fathers' church." Well, while it is said that the Pilgrims worshiped in St. Andrew's before embarking on their sea voyage, the organ, as mentioned above, is of recent provenance.

The Gramophone, February 1982

A Garland for the Queen

To celebrate a coronation 70 years ago, the Arts Council of Great Britain commissioned 10 leading composers to provide choral works in honor of the new Queen, Elizabeth II. In doing so, it was in effect recreating the famous choral compilation, The Triumphs of Oriana, that had attended the accession of Elizabeth I nearly 400 years earlier.

Sheet music

The resulting Garland for the Queen is unlikely to leave such a lasting impression, and was not particularly well received following its premiere by the Cambridge University Madrigal Society in the Royal Festival Hall. As critic John France noted, "it is conventionally regarded as being a generically substandard work from its ‘composer collective’."

That said, it is hard not to enjoy the works as prepared by the "collective" - Arthur Bliss, Arnold Bax, Michael Tippett, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Lennox Berkeley, John Ireland, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, Alan Rawsthorne and Edmund Rubbra. The first performance was led by Boris Ord, who recently appeared here leading music for an Easter service. He and his choir then recorded the program for a 1953 UK Columbia LP.

Today's post is devoted to what I believe to be the second recording of the "garland," as done by the Exultate Singers, conducted by Garrett O'Brien. That ensemble was previously heard here in a program of choral music composed for the 1953 coronation. (Both records were issued to commemorate the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.) The Singers also have appeared on the blog in a Vaughan Williams choral program.

Ad in The Gramophone, June 1977

In his Gramophone review, Roger Fiske wrote that the Singers "have a clean fresh youthful quality, especially the two soprano soloists. They have all been meticulously trained and agreeably recorded." He did complain about the sameness of the settings and the inability to understand the texts.

The latter complaint is a valid one, especially so in that RCA did not include texts with the LP. It's a shame because the words are by notable poets of the time - Henry Reed, Clifford Bax, Christopher Fry, Ursula Wood, Paul Dehn, James Kirkup, Walter de la Mare, Edmund Blunden, Louis MacNeice and Christopher Hassall. I have partially remedied the text void by hunting down the words for six of the 10 compositions.

Southwark Cathedral

I believe this program was recorded in London's Southwark Cathedral, where O'Brien was on the music staff.

In the process of posting three of the Exultate Singers' LPs, I have yet to find a photo of the group or its conductor. There is an ensemble with the same name today, but it doesn't seem to be related. RCA managed to misspell O'Brien's first name on the cover of this LP. Sic transit gloria mundi musicale.

ADDENDUM - A friend of the blog found a photo of Garrett O'Brien and the Exultate Singers, dating from a program in Grimsby, England in 1972 and taken from the local Evening Telegraph. He admits it is "laughably poor," but we can see O'Brien at the left and note that he wore sideburns in the fashion of the time, also glasses. See below.

Vaughan Williams' Lively Settings of John Skelton

Ralph Vaughan Williams' best known homage to the Tudor period is probably the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, a soaring, spiritual work that is a cathedral in sound. Much more earthy is the set of Five Tudor Portraits, settings of verses by the 16th century poet John Skelton.

Make no mistake, the music of the Portraits is entirely a pleasure to hear, a superb achievement by a huge, idiosyncratic talent in the prime of his career. (The work was written in 1936.) As for the verse, Skelton was a writer of prodigious talent and little discretion, both apparent in the works that Vaughan Williams set.

While Skelton was a most important poet, he also was a most intemperate one. A man of the upper class, he studied at Oxford and Cambridge, became a tutor to Henry VIII and eventually a cleric. He possessed a remarkable facility with words, which he used for purposes that encompassed burlesque and invective. We encounter both in the Five Tudor Portraits.

Perhaps the best known of the Portraits is "The Tunning [i.e., Brewing] of Elinor Rumming," a wild, misogynistic take-down of a possibly real alewife (that is, brewer) who was fined for shorting her clientele. Skelton goes to great lengths to express his disgust with Rumming, with overly vivid descriptions of her grotesque appearance to accusing her of plunking bird droppings in her libations to intimations of witchcraft.

The other major Portrait is that of that of "Jane Scroop (Her Lament for Philip Sparrow)," a 21-minute disquisition in verse about the death of a pet bird. Both it and Vaughan Williams' music are ingenious - and the words are touching - but did this small sorrow require an orchestra and chorus?

A third is "Epitaph on John Jayberd of Diss," in which Skelton makes known his distaste for the late Jayberd, "suspected by all, loved by none," in a sort of quasi-Latin verse that I could not understand, my last Latin lesson having occurred some 60 years ago. There is a free translation in the text booklet.

More to my taste is the simple song, "My Pretty Bess" and the concluding "Jolly Rutterkin."

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams' settings are, as always, glorious sounding, as are the performances by some of the best that Britain had to offer in 1969, the time of the recording. This is one of a series of HMV choral recordings made in the 1960s and conducted by David Willcocks, as here, or Sir Adrian Boult. All posts were taken from original pressings and possess exceptional sound.

John Carol Case, Elizabeth Bainbridge, David Willcocks

The primary soloist is contralto Elizabeth Bainbridge, who some reviewers found much too ladylike for Elinor Rumming. (Probably true, but perhaps just as well.) Baritone John Carol Case is excellent in "My Pretty Bess." Willcocks brought in his Bach Choir for this outing, and they do fine, although again, some would have liked them to be more earthy. The New Philharmonia Orchestra sounds splendid in the comfy acoustic of Kingsway Hall.

While this is not my favorite of the Vaughan Williams choral works, I will say that the music and performance are hard not to enjoy, even for someone out of sympathy with one of the most famous poets of the English language.

November 1969 Gramophone ad 

Vaughan Williams, Mendelssohn-Moscheles, Copland - Works for Two Pianos

Here is another transfer prepared as the result of a request. It features four unusual compositions for two pianos, including the premiere recording of a very good piece from Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The transfer comes from a circa 1979 LP issued by the American label Orion. Performing are two pianists who often recorded for that label - Evelinde Trenkner and Vladimir Pleshakov - although they appeared only one other time as a duo.

Vladimir Pleshakov and Evelinde Trenkner 

The major work on the first side is Vaughan Williams' Introduction and Fugue for Two Pianos, dating from 1946, between the composer's fifth and sixth symphonies.

In his sleeve note, Pleshakov writes, "The musical language is complex, a reflection of the composer's personality. There is an ever-present conflict between the lyricism implicit in his essentially vocal themes and the drama of his symphonic architecture. This very conflict generates the possibility of great and sublime music."

The other major work on the LP is a joint effort by Felix Mendelssohn and Ignaz Moscheles, the Variations on a Theme from Preciosa by Weber. Preciosa is an 1821 play by Pius Alexander Wolff with incidental music by Carl Maria von Weber. These days, only the overture is heard, and that only occasionally.

The music is never less than interesting, although it was essentially an occasional piece for performance by the two friends. This could well have been its first recording.

Filling out the two sides of the record are transcriptions by Aaron Copland from two of his early works. The Dance of the Adolescent is an arrangement of the first movement of his Dance Symphony. The Danza de Jalisco is based on one of the Two Mexican Pieces (which would become the Three Latin American Sketches).

The performances and sound are very good. Evelinde Trenkner (1933-2021) was a German pianist and piano teacher who often appeared in the duo piano repertory. Vladimir Pleshakov (1934- ) was born in Shanghai to Russian parents but has been resident in the US since 1955, receiving a doctorate from Stanford University.

Christmas Music by Vaughan Williams, Finzi and Rutter

To start off the holiday season this year, we have Christmas music from three favorite English composers - Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi and John Rutter. These come to us from a 1983 LP by Philip Brunelle and his Plymouth Festival Chorus and Orchestra.

The "Plymouth" in the title refers not to Massachusetts, but to Minneapolis' Plymouth Congregational Church, where Brunelle was and still is the choirmaster. Brunelle has had a notable career, making quite a few recordings, some of neglected operas (he was music director of Minnesota Opera for 17 years). I have in my collection his pioneering recordings of Britten's John Bunyan and Copland's The Tender Land.

In recent years, the Plymouth Festival Chorus has become known by the new-agey name "VocalEssence."

Vaughan Williams - Carols from The First Nowell

Philip Brunelle

Vaughan Williams' Christmas cantata Hodie is fairly well known, but his second effort at a holiday work, The First Nowell, much less so. In part this is because the latter is a very late work - so late that it was unfinished at the time of the composer's 1958 death. (Roy Douglas completed it.) But it is also because the music was written to accompany a nativity play, and is largely carol settings. Vaughan Williams arranged quite a number of carols through the years, so these are not unusual in his output.

Even so, these particular carols are treasurable pieces. Three are familiar - "On Christmas Night" (here in both orchestral and choral settings), "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," and "The First Nowell." "How Brightly Shone the Morning Star" is based on a chorale that Bach used in his cantata BWV 140, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.

Finzi - In Terra Pax

Gerald Finzi's In Terra Pax is, like The First Nowell, a late work, dating from 1954, two years before the composer's death. Similar to much of Finzi's music, it is both gorgeous and poignant. An article by John Bawden explains that "its genesis can be traced to an event some thirty years previously, when one Christmas Eve he [Finzi] had climbed up to the church at the top of his beloved Chosen Hill, between Gloucester and Cheltenham. The sound of the midnight bells ringing out across the frosty Gloucestershire valleys evidently made a lasting impression on him, retrospectively providing the idea for In Terra Pax, as he told Vaughan Williams."

The bells can be heard in the opening of the work, along with the melody of "The First Nowell." The words are a setting of Robert Bridges' "A Christmas Poem," dating from 1913, together with Biblical passages. (The texts can be found here.)

Brunelle and his choir

As Bawden writes, "Finzi, perhaps more than most, must have been aware of the terrible irony of Bridges’ reassuring Pax hominibus being swiftly followed by the outbreak of World War I, yet despite this, and despite his own terminal decline, In Terra Pax is a radiant, optimistic work of great beauty and sincerity; a miniature masterpiece that unites emotions, images and the familiar events of the Christmas story into a compelling musical narrative that is at once personal yet universal."

In Terra Pax is another English work that is in part a contemplation on the English countryside, a theme that flows through Vaughan Williams' work. On this blog, we have encountered this tendency most recently in his An Oxford Elegy.

Rutter - Carol Settings

Brunelle completes his program with the open rejoicing that John Rutter's contemporary carol settings represent. The conductor begins with "In Dulci Jubilo," another theme that was utilized by Bach, for both a chorale and chorale prelude.

Rutter also sets "Away in a Manger," "The Sans Day Carol" (which is related to "The Holly and the Ivy"), the French carols "Quelle Est Cet Odeur Agréable" and "Il Est Né le Divin Enfant," "Don in Yon Forest," and "I Saw Three Ships."

Philip Brunelle and John Rutter

These all display Rutter's gift for airy but satisfying settings, often flute-led, which are most appropriate for this joyous season.

Together with the Vaughan Williams and Finzi works, they make for a diverse but unified program that is a credit to this fine ensemble.

The sound as recorded was - as sometimes happened with early digital productions - both wooly and a bit strident, which I've addressed in the transfer. The result is very good.

Vaughan Williams - Choral and Organ Works

My recent post of Coronation choral music elicited a request for this elusive 1976 LP by the same forces - a set of choral and organ works by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

As before, the performers are the Exultate Singers led by Garrett O'Brien, with organist Timothy Farrell. RCA UK issued this disc; the previous item came out on Vista, producer Michael Smythe's own label. The recording location was London's Southwark Cathedral, where O'Brien was assistant organist.

Southwark Cathedral

The LP opens with one of the composer's apocalyptic compositions, A Vision of Aeroplanes from 1929. The work is a setting of a text from Chapter 1 of Ezekiel in which the prophet describes an overwhelming vision of God. The text is frightening in its intensity, which Vaughan Williams captures in both the organ and choral passages. 

The other choral works include the motet O vos omnes from 1922, A Choral Flourish from 1956 (a setting of Psalm 32), and The Hundredth Psalm from 1929.

The LP closes with The Voice Out of the Whirlwind from 1947. The "voice out of the whirlwind" is God's, as captured in a passage from the book of Job. The work includes music related to the composer's ballet Job. 

Texts of the choral works were not supplied with the album, but I've pulled them together because they are essential to understanding the composer's intent, particularly with A Vision of Aeroplanes.

The choral works are interspersed with organ preludes on Welsh tunes as set by Vaughan Williams in 1920 (Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn-Tunes) and 1956 (Two Preludes on Welsh Folk-Songs).

The Exultate Singers never made a huge impact, but they did make some excellent records in the mid to late 1970s. I will be presenting a few more later on.

Romances and Serenades from Cleveland

My last post from the Clevelanders and conductor Louis Lane elicited a plea from long-time blog follower Douglas (coppinsuk), who wanted to hear the companion LP Romances and Serenades from the same source.

I warned Douglas that my copy is in mono, but that was fine with him, and I hope with you. (The sound is excellent, regardless.)

The previous LP was called Rhapsody, and included the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and such. This program has nothing so beefy. In keeping with its title, the works are generally much lighter.

Louis Lane

The longest work is Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending. Britain's Classic FM says it is the nation's favorite classical work - and has been for 11 years.

The retailer Presto Music lists 168 releases of the piece, although presumably with some duplicates. So imagine a world where there was only one recording available - the 1952 effort by Jean Pougnet with Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic. That was the situation when this performance by Cleveland concertmaster Rafael Druian and the Cleveland Sinfonietta came on the market.

Rafael Druian

The reviewers uniformly praised the performance. Edward Greenfield in The Gramophone wrote, "I have a feeling that the very 'authenticity' of many English performances ... lies more than anything in their very tentativeness musically." He added, "Give me polish and confidence like this ... when it is allied with such warm, genuine emotions."

It's not just Druian who is outstanding here - there are notably assured contributions from the solo clarinet and horn. The cover notes say that the Sinfonietta is composed of "21 first-chair and supporting players from the internationally famous Cleveland Orchestra." This suggests that the musicians may be principal clarinet Robert Marcellus and principal horn Myron Bloom, but we can't be sure.

Druian also is featured in Delius' Serenade from Hassan, along with the orchestra's second harpist, Martha Dalton (who is identified on the label). Greenfield claims the overall performance is "soupy". This is the least successful item on the disc, but also its shortest.

Another English piece is contributed by Peter Warlock, his Serenade for Strings, sometimes called the Serenade for Frederick Delius on His 60th Birthday. Warlock wrote the piece in Delius' style. You can hear Constant Lambert's 1937 and 1941 recordings of the Warlock and Delius compositions via this post.

Much darker hued is the Sibelius Romance in C major of 1903. Greenfield says it emerges from this performance as "something more than an occasional piece."

The lightest work on the program is probably Jean Françaix's Serenade for Small Orchestra, a delightful piece that critics like to call "cheeky," and so it is. This is an accomplished performance, equal to the two previous recordings featured on this blog - a 1939 version from Hamburg under Eugen Jochum, and a 1968 reading from the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and Anshel Brusilow.

I mentioned that this record has fine sound - although I should note that it was bright enough to loosen your fillings until I adjusted the usual 1960s Columbia (and Epic) glare.

Vaughan Williams - 'Riders to the Sea' and 'Magnificat'

This is one of the more significant in my series of Vaughan Williams recordings from the original UK pressings, although the two works are not among his most popular.

I believe these were the first recordings of the Magnificat and Vaughan Williams' one-act opera Riders to the Sea, although both have been done once or twice since.

Magnificat

The record begins with the shorter work of the two, Vaughan Williams' 1932 setting of the Magnificat.

The setting is unlike any other I have encountered, and was much influenced by Holst, per Vaughan Williams expert Michael Kennedy in his sleeve note. He relates it to the composer's Flos Campi, recently heard here.

Helen Watts

"Religious exaltation, human feeling and oriental fervour [I believe he is referring to Holst's influence] are combined in the solo part and in the orchestral writing," Kennedy wrote. Contralto Helen Watts is entirely convincing as Mary. Christopher Hyde-Smith handles the important flute part, signifying the Holy Spirit, very well.

Riders to the Sea

The British Youth Opera production of Vaughan Williams' opera

The principal work on the LP is the composer's near verbatim setting of John Millington Synge's Riders to the Sea. The play dates to 1904; Vaughan Williams finished his setting in 1932.

Both play and opera are extraordinary. Synge's powerful drama of life and death on the Aran Islands is concentrated and affecting, and Vaughan Williams' music complements and elevates the text, as he often did in his settings.

The play - like life on the Aran Islands, which Synge knew well - is bleak, being the tale of the widow Maurya, who has lost her husband and four songs to drowning, and will soon experience the deaths of her two remaining sons. Virtually all the play involves dialogue between Maurya and her daughters Cathleen and Nora, with her youngest son Bartley insisting on taking horses to the mainland to be sold, against his mother's wishes. One of the horses - the pale one - knocks him over a cliff to be drowned.

A 1906 Abbey Theater staging of the play, with the Allgood sisters - Annie, Sara and Molly (Máire O’Neill)

"They are all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me," Maurya laments, while achieving peace in knowing that her pain is ended. "No man at all can be living forever, and we must be satisfied."

I am not doing justice to this compelling play - or Vaughan Williams' setting - so I urge you to read the cogent notes by Michael Kennedy on the sleeve. I also found this article on the symbolism in the Synge play to be illuminating. 

Synge was an remarkable talent who died young. I might mention that I posted Cyril Cusack's mid-50s production of Synge's Playboy of the Western World a decade ago. It is still available.

Benjamin Luxon, Norma Burrowes, Margaret Price

This performance could hardly be better. The soloists are all exemplary: Helen Watts as Maurya, sopranos Norma Burrowes and Margaret Price as Nora and Cathleen, and baritone Benjamin Luxon as Bartley. All were among the leading singers of the time in this repertoire. (Only Luxon is English. Burrowes is Irish; Watts and Price were Welsh.)

Meredith Davies

In both works, the soloists are complimented by the eloquent performances of the women's voices of the Ambrosian Singers and the Orchestra Nova of London, as led by Meredith Davies. The conductor made only a handful of recordings, all of Vaughan Williams and Delius and all worth hearing. He also was closely associated with Benjamin Britten, and was music director of the English Opera Group for a few years. The production, with its relatively subtle use of sound effects in Riders to the Sea, is first-rate, too. It's amazing that so much atmosphere could have been created in Abbey Road Studio No. 1.

My UK pressing is far superior to the US equivalent, as usual, although it was by no means perfect. It did clean up very well. The text insert was missing from my copy of the UK issue, so I have appended the US equivalent. As usual with these posts, the download includes several reviews.

Vaughan Williams: An Oxford Elegy, Dives and Lazarus, Flos Campi

Here is more of Ralph Vaughan Williams' music in the classic 1960s recordings led by David Willcocks, transferred from early HMV pressings.

This disc contains three of the composer's most interesting works. The longest piece is "An Oxford Elegy" from 1947-49. Sharing the other side of the disc are the "Five Variants of 'Dives and Lazarus'" from 1939 and "Flos Campi" from 1925. Cecil Aronowitz is the viola soloist in the latter work.

As before, my transfer comes from a vintage UK pressing, which is much more full-bodied and atmospheric than the later CD release - and superior to the US vinyl pressing as well.

An Oxford Elegy

"A Oxford Elegy" is among the most unusual works in Vaughan Williams' catalogue. It is a setting for speaker and orchestra of passages from two related poems by Matthew Arnold (1822-88), "The Scholar-Gypsy" and "Thyrsis."

Matthew Arnold

As is the case in many of the composer's works, the theme has to do with the loss of innocence and a spiritual quest. As were many of his contemporaries, Arnold was concerned with the Industrial Revolution's impact on society. The disillusioned "scholar-gypsy" of his poem left Oxford University behind to wander with a troupe of gypsies in search of meaning in life. In his excellent dissertation on this work, Robert Joseph Taylor explains that the poet imagines that the scholar has achieved immortality by pursuing the secret of human existence, and that his spirit can still to be found in the countryside near Oxford.

John Westbrook

It is a contemplative work, but also a most beautiful one that will be of interest both to those who love Arnold's poetry and Vaughan Williams' music. Even so, some critics believe that the juxtaposition of spoken word and music serves neither well. And clearly it does take concentration on the poetry to make the music come alive.

Fortunately, the performance at hand has an excellent speaker - the actor John Westbrook (1922-89) could hardly be bettered in the role. The performance of Vaughan Williams' music by the choir and orchestra also is very fine.

The download includes Taylor's dissertation, which contains a detailed explanation of how the composer combined and edited the two related Arnold poems into his text, as well as the final text itself.

Five Variants of 'Dives and Lazarus'

The "Five Variants of 'Dives and Lazarus'" is a gorgeous work, one that deserves some of the popularity of "A Lark Ascending" and the "Serenade to Music." Vaughan Williams first encountered the folk song "Dives and Lazarus" as far back as 1893. Through the years, he collected several variants of the tune, and it is these that constitute the raw material of his work.

Vaughan Williams and Willcocks

The "Five Variants" were written for the 1939 New York World's Fair. Adrian Boult led the premiere in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic. (That was quite an occasion - the program also included the first performances of Bliss' Piano Concerto and Bax's Seventh Symphony.)

Flos Campi

Cecil Aronowitz

Vaughan Williams' work for viola, wordless choir and orchestra, "Flos Campi," was inspired by passages from the Biblical "Song of Songs." Over time, this text has become seen as a metaphor of God's love for Israel, the church or his people, but the original meaning was frankly erotic. The composer himself wrote, "The title 'Flos Campi' [which translates as 'flower of the field'] was taken by some to connote an atmosphere of 'buttercups and daisies...' In reality, the piece is unabashedly sensual and lushly orchestrated, which is quite appropriate considering its subject matter."

The suite has six movements, played without pause, each headed by an unspoken passage from the "Song of Songs." The lover is represented by a solo viola, played at the work's premiere by Lionel Tertis and here by Cecil Aronowitz (1916-78), one of the founders of the Melos Ensemble.

Reginald Jacques

In this work and the "Oxford Elegy," the choral parts are taken by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which Willcocks then headed. The Jacques Orchestra appears in all three works. Conductor Reginald Jacques (1894-1969) founded the orchestra in 1936; its twin specialties were baroque and contemporary music. He also was the longtime conductor of the Bach Choir. (On this site, you can hear Jacques conducing that choir in their 1950 recording of Christmas carols.)

Jacques himself retired from conducting in 1960; succeeding him at the Bach Choir was Willcocks. The two had a close relationship, collaborating on the first volume of "Carols for Choirs" in 1961. The Jacques Orchestra continued recording after the founder's retirement; it produced a disc of carols and an LP of the music of Robert Still and Edmund Rubbra. This Vaughan Williams LP, which dates from 1968, may have been its last.  

HMV Ad in the February 1970 Gramophone