New Release Round-up,
Celebrating Vaughan Williams at 150
Highlights from this year's plethora of new releases marking the composer's 150th birthday include world premiere recordings of Pan's Anniversary, the Communion Service in G minor and a number of folk-songs settings, a thrilling On Wenlock Edge from Scottish tenor Nicky Spence, Julius Drake and the Piatti Quartet, and symphonies from Sir Mark Elder and Martyn Brabbins.
Over in our Books Department, new publications include an insightful and wide-ranging biography by American musicologist Eric Saylor, and an exploration of the composer's relationship with Sir Adrian Boult (who conducted the world premieres of the Pastoral, Fourth and Sixth Symphonies) by Nigel Simeone.
Vaughan Williams: Symphonies Nos 6 & 8
Roderick Williams (baritone), BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Chorus, Martyn Brabbins
This penultimate release in Brabbins's Vaughan Williams series received five stars in the latest edition of BBC Music Magazine, with Stephen Johnson declaring that 'even against formidable competition [in No. 6], Martyn Brabbins impresses handsomely'. The symphonies are complemented by three choral folk-song arrangements ('Tarry Trowsers', 'The Carter', and 'Ward the Pirate'), and the 1941 setting of W E Henley's poem England, My England (with Roderick Williams as soloist).
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 7 'Sinfonia Antartica' & Symphony No. 9
Hallé Orchestra, Sopranos and Altos of the Hallé Choir, Lyn Fletcher (violin), Sir Mark Elder
The Hallé complete their Vaughan Williams cycle with the Sinfonia Antartica (which they premiered under Sir John Barbirolli in 1953) and what Gramophone's Andrew Achenbach described as 'an involving and memorably unforced Ninth that should, I think, be sought out by all admirers of the composer'. Also includes the Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 and The Lark Ascending (with the Hallé's former leader Lyn Fletcher as soloist).
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge & other songs
Nicky Spence (tenor), Julius Drake (piano), Timothy Ridout (viola) Piatti Quartet
Following their multi-award-winning recording of Janáček's Diary of One Who Disappeared in 2019, Spence and Drake team up for another programme of works by a composer who drew inspiration from folk-music. In addition to On Wenlock Edge, the album includes The House of Life, the Four Hymns from 1914 (in the version for tenor, viola and piano), and two numbers from the 15 Folk Songs from the Eastern Counties; the album was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award, thanks to the 'thrilling assurance, strength of imagination and rapt instinct' on display.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Colourise
London Choral Sinfonia, Roderick Williams (baritone), Andrew Staples (tenor), Elena Urioste (violin), Michael Waldron
This lovely album is book-ended by two of Vaughan Williams's most popular works: the programme opens with the Five Mystical Songs (in the composer's own version for voice, choir, piano and strings, recorded for the first time here) and closes with The Lark Ascending in an arrangement for solo violin, orchestra and chorus by Paul Drayton. Also receiving its world premiere recording is Lennox Berkeley's Variations on a Hymn by Orlando Gibbons, first performed at the Aldeburgh Festival almost exactly seventy years ago.
Read our interview with Michael Waldron about the project here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Following acclaimed recordings of music by Ruth Gipps, William Alwyn, Doreen Carwithen and Felix Mendelssohn, the Tippett Quartet celebrate Vaughan Williams with this recording of the two string quartets: No. 1 (composed in 1908, and influenced by the composer's studies with Bruch and Ravel) and No. 2 from 1944, which has a prominent role for the viola and was dedicated to Menges Quartet violist Jean Stewart. Holst's Phantasy on British Folksongs (1916) completes the programme.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Recorded on the 'Father Willis' organ of Truro Cathedral last August, this Vaughan Williams triptych comprises Briggs's own transcriptions of Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus and the Fifth Symphony, and a version of The Lark Ascending, which was regularly performed as a violin/organ piece in the first half of the twentieth century. Briggs's previous Vaughan Williams album, Bursts of Acclamation, was described as 'music-making of the highest order' by Gramophone and 'a goldmine for organ buffs' by BBC Music Magazine.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their recording of Vaughan Williams's early Suite for Four Hands on One Pianoforte and Herbert Murrill's transcription of Walton's Symphony No. 1, Arnold and Matthews team up again for Archibald Jacob's 1924 arrangement of the 1920 version of Vaughan Williams's London Symphony, plus Elizabeth Maconchy's unpublished Preludio, Fugato e Finale, and a new arrangement of Finzi's Eclogue for piano and organ.
Read David's interview with Lynn and Charles here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The main events on this programme are three pieces originally scored for brass band - the Henry the Fifth Overture, Prelude on Three Welsh Hymns and Variations for Brass Band - plus Phillip Littlemore's brass band version of the Tuba Concerto. Also includes a number of shorter pieces such as 'The Truth From Above', Prelude on Rhosymedre', 'Seventeen Come Sunday' and 'My Bonny Boy' in arrangements by Littlemore and Paul Hindmarsh.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams: Pan's Anniversary and Other Works
William Vann, Timothy West, Samuel West, Mary Bevan, Sophie Bevan, Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, Britten Sinfonia
This is the world premiere recording of the incidental music for Ben Jonson’s masque Pan’s Anniversary, which was adapted for the Shakespeare Birthday Celebration at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1905; the score includes four great hymns to Pan by Vaughan Williams, as well as several dance arrangements by his friend Holst. The album also includes Timothy Burke’s new arrangement of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for voices and string octet.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams: Earth's Wide Bounds
Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, William Vann, Joshua Ryan, Rowan Williams
The centrepiece on this choral compendium is the first complete recording of the Communion Service in G minor from 1923, adapted from the Mass in G minor (which was premiered the previous year) and using Maurice Jacobson's English translation of the liturgy. Also includes the first recording of the Walt Whitman setting By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame, which began life as a Ballade for quintet and was subsequently revised as a Nocturne in 1906.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Vaughan Williams: Folk Songs Volume 4
William Vann (piano), Mary Bevan (soprano), Nicky Spence (tenor), Roderick Williams (baritone)
The final instalment of Vann's Vaughan Williams series centres on the songs which were collected by Maud Karpeles in Newfoundland in 1929/30, most of which receive their world premiere recordings here; the best-known song from the set, 'She's Like the Swallow', was subsequently arranged by composers including Britten and Bob Chilcott. The programme also includes 'The Jolly Ploughboy', 'The Cuckoo and the Nightingale', 'Servant Man and Husbandman', and 'The Turtle Dove'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
In addition to a substantial selection of songs by Vaughan Williams's student Elizabeth Maconchy, this first volume of a planned pair of recitals marking the anniversary includes the Songs of Travel (which The Guardian noted 'is given new buoyancy when sung by a tenor instead of the more usual baritone'), 'The Woodspurge', and the Four Poems by Fredegond Shove (on texts by the daughter of Vaughan Williams's sister-in-law). Gramophone noted that the pair 'prove splendidly alert and sympathetic exponents of all this material', whilst BBC Music Magazine praised the 'honesty and clarity' of their interpretations.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Archive Issues
Vaughan Williams: Live, Vol. 1
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent
This collection of vintage recordings (newly remastered by Lani Spahr) opens with a 1957 Proms performance of The Wasps Overture, and also includes a 1964 account of Symphony No. 6 (also from the Proms) and the first-ever performance of the Ninth Symphony, given just four months before the composer’s death.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The performances here were captured at the Royal Albert Hall during the Proms in 1972 and 1975; reviewing for The Daily Telegraph, Anthony Payne described Boult's account as 'one of the most taut and concentrated interpretations I have ever heard of the work', whilst Martin Cotton applauded No. 6 for his 'sense of overall direction' and 'strong feeling for the structure and emotional depth of the work'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Collections and Box Sets
Vaughan Williams: Complete Symphonies
London Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Richard Hickox, Sir Andrew Davis
The first Vaughan Williams symphony cycle to be recorded in Surround Sound, this project was begun by Richard Hickox with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1999, and their ‘riveting’ account of A London Symphony was named Recording of the Year at the 2001 Gramophone Awards; after his death in 2008 the set was completed by Sir Andrew Davis and the Bergen Philharmonic.
Available Formats: 6 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recorded at Bridgewater Hall and released individually between 2011 and 2022, Elder's Vaughan Williams cycle was described by BBC Music Magazine as 'the finest since the two by Adrian Boult', whilst The Sunday Times hailed Elder as 'the country's foremost Vaughan Williamsian' in the wake of the original release of the London Symphony.
Available Format: 5 CDs
This freshened-up reissue of the EMI Collector's Edition from 2010 includes some new additions, omitting a handful of tracks for which the rights have now expired. Highlights include Sir Adrian Boult's recordings of Job and The Pilgrim’s Progress, the complete symphonies from Vernon Handley, songs and folksongs from Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Ian Partridge and Robert Tear, and the operas Riders to the Sea and Sir John in Love from Meredith Davies.
Available Format: 30 CDs
This collection includes Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 5 & 9 from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, The Lark Ascending with Jennifer Pike, the Mass in G minor & A Vision of Aeroplanes from the Choir of Clare College Cambridge, the cantata Willow-Wood with Roderick Williams, and the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Fantasia on Greensleeves from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and James Judd.
Available Format: 8 CDs
Books
From 1918 onwards, Adrian Boult became one of Vaughan Williams's most important interpreters, giving the world premieres of the Pastoral, Fourth and Sixth Symphonies. As this book shows, Boult's scores include numerous annotations derived from conversations and correspondence with Vaughan Williams. The evidence of these scores is considered alongside extensive correspondence between the pair, Boult's private diaries, and other relevant documents including contemporary press reports.
Available Format: Book
Drawing upon both recent scholarship and newly-accessible scores and correspondence, this book interweaves an exploration of Vaughan Williams's life - including new insights about his early career, military service in the Great War, and relationships with the women he loved and married - with chapters surveying his enormous body of music, spanning hymn tunes to operas, keyboard etudes to solo concerti, wind band music for amateurs to perhaps the finest symphonic cycle of the twentieth century.
(This title is currently reprinting and expected to be back in stock by the end of October - keep an eye out for David's full review of the book then...).
Available Format: Book
In January 1905 the young Vaughan Williams visited King's Lynn, Norfolk, and heard an old fisherman perform 'The Captain's Apprentice', a brutal tale of torture sung to the most beautiful tune he had ever heard. With this transformational moment at its heart, this book traces the contrasting lives of the well-to-do composer and a forgotten King's Lynn cabin boy who died at sea, bringing fresh perspectives on Edwardian folk-song.
Available Format: Book
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
