CHRISTMAS FANTASY. RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958). 1 Fantasia
on Christmas Carols (words: Trad.) 12'31. Donald Sweeney, bass.
Eloq uence
CHRISTMAS FANTASY VAUGHAN WILLIAMS · DELIUS FINZI · IRELAND · HOLST WARLOCK · HOWELLS
Choir of Winchester Cathedral Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
David Hill
CHRISTMAS FANTASY RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958) 1
Fantasia on Christmas Carols (words: Trad.)
12’31
Donald Sweeney, bass David Dunnett, organ Waynflete Singers
HERBERT HOWELLS (1892-1983) 2
A Spotless Rose (words: Anon.)
3’23
Donald Sweeney, bass
PETER WARLOCK (1894-1930) 3 4
Lullaby my Jesus (transcr. Carter; words: Carter) Balulalow (words: Wedderburn)
3’09 2’27
Nicholas Richardson, treble David Dunnett, organ
5
Benedicamus Domino (words: Anon.)
1’24
HERBERT HOWELLS (1892-1983) 6
Sing Lullaby (words: Harvey)
3’58
JOHN IRELAND (1879-1962) 7
The Holy Boy (arr. Hazell; words: Brown)
3’06
Stephen Ryde-Weller, treble Nicholas Richardson, treble
arr. GUSTAV HOLST (1874-1934) 8
Christmas Song (Personet hodie) (arr. Holst from Piæ cantiones 1582)
2’59
David Dunnett, organ
PETER WARLOCK (1894-1930) 9
Bethlehem Down (words: Blunt)
4’54
FREDERICK DELIUS (1862-1934) 0
Sleigh Ride (Winter Night) (ed. Beecham)
6’27
Trad. arr. RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958) !
Wassail Song
2’37
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958) @
The Blessed Son of God (words: Coverdale, after Luther)
2’33
GERALD FINZI (1901-1956) £ $
In terra pax (words: Bridges / St. Luke’s Gospel) A frosty Christmas Eve And lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them Libby Crabtree, soprano Donald Sweeney, bass Waynflete Singers
Choir of Winchester Cathedral Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra David Hill
Total timing: 66’07
7’34 7’56
It is difficult today to imagine the excitement that was created at the beginning of the last century when composers like Ralph Vaughan Williams discovered the rich seam of British folk music that had been handed down orally for generations. Realising that rapid changes in society were threatening the very existence of the traditional songs, they sought out the songs and their singers before it was too late. Soon they turned the intrinsic beauty of that legacy to good use in their own music, as in Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on Christmas Carols, composed in 1912. Here are melodies that are now part and parcel of our Christmas services and concerts; then, they were newly rediscovered gems. They include the melody collected in Hertfordshire to the words ‘This is the Truth sent from Above’, which the baritone soloist sings in an atmosphere of hushed reverence at the opening, and the joyous Sussex carol ‘On Christmas Night’, sung to Vaughan Williams by Mrs. Verrall of Monk’s Gate, Horsham, Sussex in 1905. The other carols include ‘Come All You Worthy Gentlemen’, ‘A Virgin Unspotted’, ‘The First Nowell’ and the Yorkshire carol ‘Wassail Bough’, which is slyly quoted in the orchestra. Finally after the chorus’s exultant salutation wishing all a ‘Happy New Year’, the music
quietens, as if it were the sounds of carollers fading on frosty air. A Spotless Rose, composed in 1918 by Herbert Howells, is the second of his Three CarolAnthems. It is a perfect miniature with a particularly inspired ending, an achingly beautiful cadence whose music combines at a stroke the dual images of the text – the warmth of light flooding into the world with Jesus’s birth juxtaposed with the raw cold of the winter’s night. Peter Warlock has been justly described as ‘the supreme carol composer of modern times and perhaps the greatest since the Middle Ages’, because his carols evoke in a particularly intense manner the sense of wonderment and awe at the appearance of the Christ child. Lullaby my Jesus is a modern arrangement of the Pieds-en-l’air movement from his Capriol Suite for strings. The haunting Balulalow was originally composed as a solo song in 1919 subtitled ‘A Cradle Song’. The words are a Scottish translation by the brothers Wedderburn of a poem by Luther. The celebratory Benedicamus Domino was written in 1918; its Latin words are found in the Sloane manuscript dating from the time of Henry VI. Sing Lullaby (1920), the last of Howell’s Three
Carol-Anthems, sets a text by the Gloucestershire poet F.W. Harvey. At the beginning, the eddying choral textures on the word ‘lullaby’ distil the poet’s image of gently falling snow. The Holy Boy, subtitled ‘A Carol of the Nativity’, was originally conceived by John Ireland for piano. It was composed on Christmas Day, 1913, the title being taken from a poem of Harold Munro, although it was not published until 1919 as one of the Four Piano Preludes. Such was its success that Ireland made several arrangements including choral versions with a poem by Herbert Brown. Chris Hazell’s version for this recording, scored for treble voices, choir and strings, is based on the composer’s 1938 voice and piano arrangement. Apart from his compositions Gustav Holst was renowned during his lifetime as an inspiring teacher and conductor, and many of his smaller-scale compositions were written for his pupils and amateur performers. The ‘Christmas Song’ Personet hodie (On this Day) is a fine example, the first of Three Carols for unison voices composed in 1916. The composition of Warlock’s Bethlehem Down arose through the mundane situation of the composer and his poet friend Bruce Blunt being
strapped for cash at Christmas 1927. (Both were notorious for their Bohemian behaviour and capacity for drinking.) To raise funds, they hit on the idea of writing a carol for publication in a daily newspaper. On a December night’s walk between two village pubs, Blunt conceived the words; Warlock dashed off the music in a few days and the carol duly appeared in The Daily Telegraph on Christmas Eve. Flushed with success Blunt recalled ‘we had an immortal carouse on the proceeds and decided to call ourselves “Carols Consolidated”’. Despite the flippancy of its creation, Bethlehem Down, with its caressing lilt and tenderness riven with melancholy, is a brilliant marriage of music and words. Norway, its landscape, heritage and people, was a formative influence on the young Frederick Delius. In 1887, whilst studying at Leipzig, he met Grieg who invited him to a party on Christmas Eve; at it Delius played a short piano piece called Norwegian Sleigh Ride which he orchestrated in 1889. Curiously, this delightful work was forgotten during Delius’s lifetime; it was revived by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1946 under the title Sleigh Ride, since when it has become a popular orchestral item at Christmas. The Wassail Song is the last of Vaughan
Williams’s Five English Folksongs arrangements made in 1913. ‘Wassail’ means ‘Good health’ and ‘wassailers’ were revellers who went from one household to another offering blessings on their crops and livestock. The traditional tune Vaughan Williams arranged is from Gloucestershire, and can be traced back to the eighteenth century. The Blessed Son of God is a peaceful unaccompanied movement from Vaughan Williams’ Christmas cantata Hodie (This Day) composed in 1954. As a young man in the 1920s, Gerald Finzi had been with the bellringers ringing in the New Year in the small church on the top of Churchdown Hill outside Gloucester. The experience was profound and intense and he never forgot it; three decades later it provided the inspiration for his Christmas cantata In terra pax. The first professional performance was given in a BBC broadcast in February 1955 in a version for chamber orchestra; and the following year Finzi scored the work for full orchestra, as recorded here. Although Finzi was an agnostic, the season of Christmas, set in the depths of winter when the world hangs poised at the turning point in the annual seasonal cycle, meant much to him, especially the silence of still, December days. It is in that chill quiet that In terra pax begins.
Extracts from Bridges’ poem frame the work and are set for the baritone soloist. It is as if the poet imagines the Christmas story translated to the English countryside. The chorus describes St. Luke’s narrative, and the soprano soloist is the voice of the angel. At the climax, the bells that peal out exultantly in the voices and orchestra are the remembered sounds of Finzi’s formative experience translated into music. As a quiet benediction at the end, the chorus sings ‘And on earth, peace, goodwill to all men’, words that to Finzi, a passionately committed pacifist, were at the heart of the Christmas message. Andrew Burn
Recording producer: Chris Hazell Recording engineers: Simon Eadon, Philip Siney Recording editor: Caroline Haigh Recording location: Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire, UK, January 1994 Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-Homji Art direction: Chilu · www.chilu.com Booklet editor: Bruce Raggatt
480 6554
