A Christmas Fantasia
Carols and Fantasias
Ashley Riches (bass-baritone), Jamie Andrews (organ)
Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea/William Vann
rec. 2024, Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, London
Albion Records ALBCD063 [64]

This is the fifth release from Albion Records this Autumn and the third time in recent years William Vann and his excellent Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea have focussed on Christmas music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The previous Christmas discs featured carols and arrangements that were intended as much for congregational use as expert choral singing. Here we are given a group of what might be termed “songs for Christmas” with compositions that are clearly aimed at trained choirs. Another difference is that while the programme here has Vaughan Williams at its centre, we are given works by eight other composers across the total of seventeen tracks. With the exception of conductor/director William Vann’s own Carol, these are composers and works that Vaughan Williams would have known.

Recently, I reviewed the other ‘Christmas’/Albion release; “Carols from Hertfordshire” which for all its many virtues feels more like a useful reference disc rather than concert to be listened to from beginning to end. On the other hand “A Christmas Fantasia” works very well as an hour well spent in the company of some familiar and many less-known works, all quite beautifully performed. This quite different response to the two discs is interesting given that three of the carols are in fact shared between the programmes. Christmas Now is Drawing near at Hand and On Christmas Day are the identical recordings while God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen has an alternative organ-accompanied final section tacked onto identical opening verses. The ‘sameness’ that I found an issue on the “Carols from Hertfordshire” disc is here balanced by the range of folk-carols to ‘art-songs’ offered on the Fantasias disc. I suspect another reason for the duplication was simply a case of time pressure.  Both discs – or at least the choir’s contribution to both discs – were recorded across the same intensive two session days in February 2024. To record 80+ minutes of choral music sung to this high level of technical and musical execution in just two days is very demanding.

The performances across this Fantasias disc are uniformly excellent and the programme well chosen. Alongside warmly familiar and touchingly sensitive items like John Ireland’s The Holy Boy or Herbert Howells’s Here is the Little Door, we are given a pair of Rebecca Clarke carols: There is no Rose and Ave Maria. The former is for solo baritone accompanied by a four part ATBB chorus. The latter is for three part SSA. For me, these were completely unfamiliar and something of a discovery – I see they were included in an ASV survey of the complete Choral Music of Clarke back in 2003. The soloist in There is no Rose is baritone Ashley Riches – one of three contributions to this disc and he sings all of them very well indeed.

The other less-known works all prove to be gems as well with the young Gerald Finzi’s The Brightness of this Day a personal highlight amongst highlights. It is always a pleasure too to hear music by Elizabeth Maconchy, and as the liner neatly puts it, her Nowell, Nowell, Nowell is “light joyful and elegant” – which is also an accurate summation of the singing by the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. A disc that includes music by Vaughan Williams’ friends and colleagues would not be complete without a work by Holst. The piece chosen here is the relatively unusual Christmas Day. The composer described this as a “choral fantasy on old carols” and it dates from 1910. I had not heard the organ accompanied version – it was included in the EM Records survey of the complete Holst Christmas Music. The orchestral version appears on a fine Naxos collection titled “In Terra Pax” where Hilary Davan-Whetton and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra accompany the City of London Choir. That whole disc is to be warmly recommended – interesting music very well performed. However, for this Holst work specifically I find myself preferring the more intimate scale and simplicity of the organ and chamber choir offered here. According to the as-ever informative and detailed liner (full sung texts as usual are included), Holst subsequently became dissatisfied with the work calling it “poor stuff and not worth doing”. That is a far too harsh a self-judgement. Across the work’s 6:39 duration Holst combines three familiar carols with The First Nowell a recurring counterpoint.  The combining of two quite different melodies was something Holst often tried to do sometimes with remarkable success – think the finale of St Paul’s Suite – and was sometimes more effortful. Perhaps the grafting of The First Nowell occasionally falls into the latter category but at other moments it is quite beautiful. Again, the singing of the choir here is ideal: pure, unforced and beautifully balanced so these melodies can intermingle in a way that can seem organic and convincing. 

The only work that does not fit into the “friends and colleagues” template is conductor William Vann’s own Carol. The text is by Ivor Gurney taken from the collection “Severn and Somme” and the liner notes that Finzi set this same text in 1925. The liner also acknowledges that this new work is “deliberately written as pastiche”. Certainly the pastiche is convincing in that the work sits in the company of the others without causing any stylistic ripple. Perhaps knowing it is a conscious imitation slightly diminishes emotional impact of the work since you are aware that the music is contrived albeit skilfully written and beautifully sung. This is one of half a dozen tracks that are accompanied by organist Jamie Andrews. He plays very sensitively and the Albion producers and engineers have achieved a very effective and satisfying balance between voices and organ.

All of the Vaughan Williams contributions to this collection aside from the Hertfordshire Carols are familiar but they are all a delight. The two excerpted “chorales” from Hodie – The Blessed Son of God and No Sad Thought have their greatest impact heard in the context of the larger work, but in isolation here they provide moments of gentle reflection and again sound especially well in this scale of performance. The only time I might have preferred a slightly earthier performance was the Wassail Song. The Chelsea Choir are a very well-mannered group of revellers. The longest and best-known work completes the collection: the Fantasia on Christmas Carols.  Written in 1912, this has become a stalwart of many such seasonal recorded collections and concerts. At the time of writing, Vaughan Williams was deeply immersed in the world of both folksong and the English hymn tradition and in many ways this works represents one of the high-water marks of this involvement. On disc at least, it is much more frequently encountered in the version for chorus and orchestra (strings or full) and certainly the final peroration of “We wish them a Happy New Year” can have an exultant joyful verve that only a full choir and orchestra can attain. But again, the more inward and thoughtful character of the very closing baritone solo singing the same line following on from the choir benefits from the intimate scale offered here.  I am not sure I have heard another commercial recording with just organ accompaniment but it works very well.

At the end of the Herefordshire Carols disc review I mentioned that that disc probably would not act as a “soundtrack for the festive season”. In contrast this collection presents a very well-constructed, beautifully performed programme of familiar and unknown that will surely bring great pleasure at any time of the year, not just Christmas.

Nick Barnard

Previous review: John France (September 2024)

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Contents
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Christmas Now is Drawing Near at Hand (Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire) (1920)
Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
Here Is the Little Door (Three Carol Anthems) (1918)
Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Blessed Son of God (Hodie) (1954)
John Ireland (1879-1962)
The Holy Boy (1913)
Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
There Is No Rose (1928)
Ave Maria (c.1937; publ.1998)
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Christmas Hymn (Three Choral Hymns) (1929)
William Vann (?)
Carol
Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889-1960)
While the Shepherds Were Watching  (A Saviour Born) (1952)
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Wassail Song (Five English Folk Songs) (1913)
Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)
The Brightness of this Day (1922/1923)
Ralph Vaughan Williams
No Sad Thought (Hodie) (1954)
Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
Christmas Day: A Choral Fantasy on Old Carols (1910)
Ralph Vaughan Williams
God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen (Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire)
Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994)
Nowell, Nowell, Nowell (1967)
Ralph Vaughan Williams
On Christmas Day (Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire)
Fantasia on Christmas Carols (1912)