Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Rise Heart
Five Mystical Songs (1911)
When I am Dead, My Dearest (1903)
Dreamland (1905)
Eight Folk Songs (arr. Roderick Williams)
Willow Wood (1903, rev 1908)
Roderick Williams (baritone)
Wiliam Vann (piano)
Sacconi Quartet
Levi Andreassen (double bass)
rec. 2025, St George’s, Headstone, London
Texts included
Albion Records ALBCD070 [60]

Albion here present a recital disc which will be of great interest to all those who love the music of Vaughan Williams, not least because most of the music appears in unfamiliar dress.

The inspired Five Mystical Songs is one of the composer’s best-loved vocal works. On this occasion, though, we are offered a rare recording – only the second, I understand – of VW’s own arrangement for baritone with the accompaniment provided by piano and string quintet. The only previous recording of which I’m aware, though I’ve not heard it, was made as long ago as 1994 (review) and I think it may only be available now as a download, whereas Albion offer a CD format as well.  As John Francis relates in his notes, Five Mystical Songs was premiered at the 1911 Three Choirs Festival in Worcester. On that occasion it was given in the version for solo voice (Campbell McInnes), orchestra and ad lib SATB choir; that has remained the most commonly-heard version and it’s certainly the one which is most frequently recorded. A few months after the premiere, the songs were first heard in London but on that occasion, they were performed by the same soloist, accompanied solely by piano (Hamilton Harty); that reduction was, apparently, the composer’s own. At some later date, VW arranged the songs for accompaniment by piano, string quartet and double bass; that version, first heard in 1925, is what we hear on this CD.

I’d not heard the songs in this version before and I found it a fascinating experience. It’s true that one loses the wider instrumental palette which the orchestral version brings, to say nothing of the benefit of the choir. That said, as I know from personal experience, the choir has a pretty limited role to play in the second and third songs, and it’s not involved at all in the fourth song; its principal contributions occur in the first and fifth songs. On the other hand, this reduced scoring brings definite benefits. For one thing, there’s a greater sense of intimacy resulting from the involvement of just six instrumentalists; togetherness between the players is a factor too. Rather to my surprise, I found myself preferring the chamber scoring in the third song, ‘Love bade me welcome’; here, I felt the instrumental parts were positively Ravelian. Incidentally, in this song the piano is silent for quite some time; its involvement begins at ‘I the unkind, ungrateful?’ where the music demands a more forthright approach.  From listening, I think it’s the strings who play the hushed ‘O sacrum convivium’ music which, in the full version, the choir sings to the word ‘Ah’.  In this present performance, the end of this song, even sans choir, is as serenely rapt as you could wish. It’s in the final song, ‘Let all the world’ that I miss the choir most – and the full orchestra – though there is a perfectly valid version just for solo voice; indeed, it’s included as an appendix to the Stainer & Bell vocal score. That version is what Williams sings and he gives a fervent, uplifting performance.

If I’ve drawn attention so far to what listeners who are used to the full version may miss, let me hasten to assure readers that there’s a huge amount to enjoy in this version and, of course, in this performance. Williams sings magnificently. His voice is ideally suited to VW’s vocal lines, not least the melismas. This is a singer who is renowned for his diction and his care for the enunciation of the words; those characteristics are fully on display here. Consistently, he invests the words with meaning; these are highly expressive renditions of the songs. I found myself warming more and more to the accompaniment. Yes, there are losses of colour as compared with the orchestral version but, on the other hand, these six players bring their own colourings to the music. They play marvellously and I’ve already mentioned the togetherness – that applies to togetherness with the soloist as well. Ensemble is consistently tight yet there’s a wonderful sense of freedom to the music-making. I enjoyed this account of the Five Mystical Songs very much indeed; I know I will return to this performance often and with pleasure.

Next on the programme is a pair of songs with piano accompaniment. When I am Dead, My Dearest is a setting of a poem by Christina Rossetti which VW made in 1903. It has been recorded once before, on Albion’s disc entitled Kissing Her Hair (review). Then it was sung – very nicely – by Sarah Fox, but now Roderick Williams has made the first recording by a male singer. So far as I can see, the text of Rossetti’s poem by no means precludes a male singer. It’s a good setting and Williams does it very well indeed. Dreamland is another Rossetti setting, this time from 1905. It has been recorded twice, I understand; one of the recordings was on the Kissing Her Hair album, but Williams again offers the first recording by a male singer. That’s wholly appropriate since John Francis tells us that the song was first performed by Gervase Elwes. I read in the notes an extract from a press review of that premiere in which the journalist, writing for The Times, expressed the view that the song was ‘thoughtful and nobly conceived’; I don’t think that’s a bad judgement. 

A few years ago, Albion issued four CDs of VW’s folk song settings. These were excellent recordings, which I enjoyed greatly (review ~ review ~ review ~ review). The artists who brought these settings so vividly to life were Mary Bevan, Toby Spence, Roderick Williams and pianist William Vann. Roderick Williams relates in the booklet that he was keen to sing some of the songs in concert and in 2021 he took advantage of an invitation to perform in a concert with the City of London Sinfonia to arrange some of them for string orchestra. I infer from what he says that initially he chose five songs. Subsequently, he revisited the arrangements, reducing the scoring. Three more arrangements followed a little later and the eight songs are presented here with accompaniment by string quartet. Unsurprisingly, the songs that Williams selected were among those which he had sung as part of Albion’s project; the exception is O Who is That That Raps at My Window? On the earlier Albion disc all three singers were involved in that number. I’ve encountered and greatly appreciated Williams’ work as an orchestrator of English songs in the past. He made a very fine CD of his orchestrations with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder a few years ago (review). That disc included his highly effective orchestration of VW’s cycle The House of Life which I first heard in concert back in 2017 (review). I wasn’t at all surprised, therefore, to find that his work on these folk songs has been very effective.

The songs have been well chosen to give almost a programme within a programme. The selection is varied, including as it does some typically robust folk tunes and also some gentle, melancholy items. I liked all of them but a few stood out for various reasons. She’s Like the Swallow is a song which Maud Karpeles collected in Newfoundland. The gentle melody, with a touch of melancholy, suits Williams’ gift for lyrical singing while the delicate string quartet writing is most effective. Barbara Ellen (not to be confused with the better-known song, ‘Barbara Allen’) was again collected by Karpeles, this time on a joint expedition with Cecil Sharp to the Appalachians. It’s a quite lengthy strophic song and I think that the accompaniment provided by gently fluid strings is more interesting than the piano version. In The Brewer the strings often sound like folk fiddlers, which I think is highly appropriate for this jaunty song. Equally appropriate is the mysterious, shimmering sound of the strings early on in O Who is That That Raps at My Window? This put me very much in mind of the mysterious evocation of nature at the start of the Norfolk Rhapsody. So, the accompaniments all work really well, but the prime factor in bringing these songs so strongly to life is the way that Roderick Williams delivers them. He is wonderfully expressive in the gentler songs and he shows his gift for characterisation in such jaunty, lively items as Harry the Tailor, The Saucy Bold Robber or Captain Grant. These folk song arrangements are winners.

To close, we hear the cantata, Willow Wood. This is a real rarity. VW composed it in 1903 as a setting for voice and piano and five years later he produced a version in which the soloist was accompanied by orchestra with a part for a wordless female chorus towards the end. In that larger-scale version the piece was recorded for the first time in 2005 by Roderick Williams with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir conducted by David Lloyd-Jones (review). As John Francis points out in his notes, Willow Wood can be grouped with the song cycle The House of Life. Not only are the compositions contemporaneous but both set sonnets from Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s collection of 101 sonnets which were published in 1883 under the title The House of Life. For Willow Wood, VW selected four consecutive sonnets (numbers 49-52) which he set as a continuous piece of music.

Though there are thematic links, the four settings all have different characteristics, as the texts demand. The first sonnet is gently ecstatic, the second is much more troubled in tone, rising to a very strong climax at the penultimate line which Williams delivers in impassioned fashion. The third sonnet mingles passion and regret while the fourth seems to have a mood of melancholy acceptance. Roderick Williams is a splendid advocate for the music and in William Vann he has the ideal partner. The piano part is wide ranging and sounds to be demanding but Vann delivers it marvellously. Comparing the two recordings of the cantata, there are gains and losses. One loses the range of orchestral colourings that can be heard in 1908 version – the chorus part is not significant and the piece loses little without the choir. On the other hand, there’s a greater sense of immediacy, I think, in the Albion performance and recording. Of necessity, Williams (and the orchestra) are balanced at a greater distance from the listener in the 2005 recording; the sessions took place in Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall. The Albion recording has the two performers closer – though not excessively so – and on balance I prefer this. Willow Wood may not be among VW’s very finest works but it’s a sincere, well-crafted work and its neglect is unjustified. The present performance makes the best possible case for it.  Incidentally, I was intrigued to read in the booklet that the score, as published in 1909, originally included an instrumental passage of 15 bars immediately before the last line of text is sung. However, a later edition of the score includes an instruction, by the composer, to omit the passage. That instruction is followed here; though I haven’t seen a score and am relying entirely on what I hear, I think the bars are omitted in the 2005 recording as well.

This is an absorbing disc. The folk songs work very well indeed in Roderick Williams’ arrangements; Willow Wood comes off very well indeed and the piano sextet version of the Five Mystical Songs is an important alternative to the fully-scored version we know so well. Without exception, the performances are superb. The recordings have been expertly managed by producer Andrew Walton and engineer Tim Burton. As is usual with Albion, the documentation is first class; John Francis’s notes are full of useful information, perceptively expressed.

This is an important disc for Vaughan Williams devotees.

John Quinn

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Folk Songs
Captain Grant
The Saucy Bold Robber
She’s Like the Swallow
Proud Nancy
Barbara Ellen
The Brewer
O Who is That That Raps at My Window?
Harry the Tailor