Carols from Herefordshire
Arrangements by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Ella Mary Leather
Derek Welton (bass-baritone)
Iain Burnside (piano)
Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea/William Vann 
rec. 2011, Potton Hall, UK (Welton), 2024, Holy Trinity, Sloane Square, London (Vann)
Albion Records ALBCD064 [58]

This latest release from Albion Records is not as new as it might first appear.  Under the collective title “Carols from Herefordshire” the disc brings together both versions of the same set of twelve carols that Vaughan Williams published in 1920 with the title “Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire”. As published [viewable on IMSLP here] these could be performed either by “unison voices and keyboard or unaccompanied mixed chorus”. In 2011 Albion recorded the former performed as solo songs by bass-baritone Derek Welton accompanied by Iain Burnside on piano. Those same – very fine and sensitively sung – performances are included here alongside newly recorded performances of the four part choral versions. As I had not heard the earlier incarnation, I was not familiar with these settings nor worried about the duplication of recordings.

Although Vaughan Williams is clearly the famous name here, much of the credit for the original collecting of these songs must go to Ella Mary Leather – who is named as joint collector, editor and even arranger on the sheet music. As far back as 1908 Leather was using a phonograph to make in-situ recordings of the original singers. Vaughan Williams transcribed these cylinders as well as ‘field-collecting’ many songs himself. The ever-excellent Albion liner tantalisingly tells that Leather “during her life, made more phonographic recordings than any other collector, but only four cylinders have survived”. As an aside – it might have been interesting to include these original phonographs if that were possible.

The word “carol” has become synonymous with Christmas but the important qualification here is folk-carol. Of course, there is an enduring debate about the ethnological value of the arrangements since – often with the best of intentions – the transcribers would smooth out rhythms and pitches, change words and meter and add harmonies quite alien to the monophonic original songs. In the context that they are presented, I find the main interest to be how immersion in the folk-music tradition profoundly and enduringly impacted Vaughan Williams’ own work – and to be blunt, it is better that these songs have survived even in an unoriginal form than to have been completely lost as otherwise they surely must.

The choice has been made to present the twelve carols in their unaccompanied SATB versions first, followed by the exact same songs in the same order for voice and piano. Even a cursory glance at the IMSLP version will show that the choir versions are very simple indeed – quite often as little as eight or so bars per verse written out in classic hymn style with two voices per stave. My guess is that this simplicity was a choice to allow even amateur groups to sight sing and enjoy these touchingly beautiful melodies and songs. The dilemma for as polished a group as the fourteen voices of the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea is how to maintain interest and variety across twelve essentially very similar pieces. I doubt, at point of publication, there was ever an intent that they should be sung as a complete continuous set. The solution by conductor/director William Vann is both pragmatic and effective.  He has subtly varied the arrangements as published by allocating parts to solo voices, leaving some parts out for verses to underline the narrative, making extensive use of dynamics and word pointing that is simply not in the published original. Occasionally, he opts for one line to be taken solo (or by a solo group) with the remaining choir members singing on an “ah” or similar sound. The liner gives useful detail about the origins of each song and which of the verses in the 1920 publication have been used. Important to note though that these arrangements were never intended to be as sophisticated or complex as say those by Percy Grainger. So while this cannot be said to be wholly ‘authentic’ RVW it works rather well. Especially given the beauty of the solo and collective sound of the choir. They have exactly the right youthful pure and unaffected tone for this kind of music. The acoustic of Holy Trinity Church Sloane Square is generous and full which supports the choir well. Alongside his editing of these arrangements, Vann is very good at making his musical points carefully and effectively. He keeps tempi flowing, he avoids any fussy word-pointing or mannered phrasing. Of course the hard-line folklorists will still argue that this is an uneasy alliance between folk and art music but I find both arrangements and performances here to be rather beautiful.

Since 2011 Derek Welton’s career has been going from strength to strength.  He is now very well regarded as an operatic baritone specialising in big Germanic operatic roles including the Ring, but he is really very good indeed in these ‘slight’ folksongs too. Vaughan Williams creates a more independent role for the pianist which Iain Burnside plays with all the finesse and sensitivity one could wish for, but it is Welton’s natural phrasing and the sheer ease and beauty of his voice that lingers in the memory. Again, the goal of Vaughan Williams and Leather was to present this music in an unadorned and simple way but Welton’s skill is to be simple without being plain and expressive but without mannerism.

There is much to admire and certainly much to enjoy with this release. Albion Record’s technical presentation alongside the liner booklet and all the detailed information it contains is a pleasure in itself. None of the melodies here is particularly famous or well known; God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen is not the familiar tune while Dives and Lazarus is also not the version that Vaughan Williams would subsequently use in his string orchestra work of the same name. Having said that, this is something of a niche project within a niche. As we enter the Autumn months of the year, inevitably thoughts start to turn towards Christmas and the next new collection of music to be this year’s soundtrack for the Festive Season. This disc feels more like a reference item; very fine though both sets of performances are, there is a degree of ‘sameness’ to the original musical material that makes listening to the complete disc at a single sitting less compelling than many other collections.

Nick Barnard

Previous review: John France (October 2024)

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Contents (both performances contain the same twelve songs presented in the same order):
The Holy Well (first version)
The Holy Well (second version)
Christmas now is drawing near at hand
Joseph and Mary
The Angel Gabriel
God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen
New Year’s Carol
On Christmas Day
Dives and Lazarus
The Miraculous Harvest
The Saviour’s Love
The Seven Virgins