This was a coupling
just waiting to be made. Praise to Chandos
for having ‘a listening ear’. Faultless
too is the seasonal timing. The disc
will also draw in a legion of RVW enthusiasts
who will have pounced on a CD that offers
premiere recordings of On Christmas
Night and the Fantasia at
least in this version. I was not aware
that The First Nowell had been
recorded by anyone else but this is
its first appearance on CD. RVW fans
need have no misgivings about the performances
either.
Christmas was one of
the wellsprings from which Vaughan Williams
drew his creativity. Quite apart from
these three works he is responsible
for arrangements of numerous carols
in the democratising English Hymnal
as well as the major tableaux cantata
Hodie. If you look at these dates
and add his hymnal work you can see
that the inspirational grip of carols
and Christmas – not quite the same thing
- on the agnostic composer was unremitting.
The Fantasia
on Christmas Carols was dedicated
to Cecil Sharp and is based on the four
carols: 'The Truth sent from above',
'Come all you worthy gentlemen', 'On
Christmas Night' and 'There is a fountain
filled with blood', plus hints of other
carols. This recording uses the alternative
scoring using an organ plus strings
accompaniment. The 1960s EMI Barry Rose/John
Barrow version also uses the string
version but no organ. John Barrow etches
the syllables with more precision than
Roberts but on the other hand Roberts
is rock-steady while Barrow leans on
more vibrato. The rumbling analogue
‘atmosphere’ of the Guildford version
is absent and the choir is recorded
with great subtlety and dynamics are
observed with fine and comely precision.
On Christmas
Night was originally called
A Christmas Carol. It derives
from an adaptation of the Dickens’ story.
This began as a ballet score commissioned
by Adolf Bolm, who had been a principal
dancer with Diaghilev. It was first
performed in 1926. The ballet must have
made a pleasing contrast with the usual
Nutcracker. While the Fantasia
is all serenity and mysticism, On
Christmas Night is much more varied.
In the Prelude and Marley’s Ghost we
are treated to some real grotesquerie
and grand guignol out of Pilgrim’s
Progress and Riders to the Sea.
Of course serenity is admitted at the
gate and The Spirit of Christmas
is touched with Dives and Lazarus
and the Falstaff-Father Christmas
amble of the bassoon surely is meant
to recall The Keel Row as is
Morris Jig. Sir Roger de Coverley
(also beloved of Frank Bridge) can
also be heard graciously stepping it
out at Fezziwig’s Party and under
its own name at track 9. There is a
magically entranced Midnight that
mixes The First Nowell and The
Truth sent from above. Out of this
hush also emerged, some years later,
Finzi’s Christmas choral piece In
Terra Pax. In The Black Nag,
not for the first time, the Hardyesque
country fiddler can be heard ‘bowing
it higher and higher’ amid the plumes
of breathy condensation. The Procession
of the Nativity mixes serene voices
from what he later used in the Prelude
to the music for the Forty-Ninth
Parallel with sensitively sung carols
and warmingly harmonised brass writing
topped off with the Nativity bells.
All ends in warmth and serenity.
The First Nowell
is a nativity play for soloists,
chorus and small orchestra, was arranged
and adapted from medieval pageants by
Simona Pakenham. It was incomplete when
the composer died in 1958 but the finishing
touches were made by Roy Douglas who
had often worked with the composer over
the years. I know the piece from the
centenary year (1972) BBC broadcast
in which Bernard Keefe conducted the
Serenata of London and the soloists
included Sally le Sage and John Carol
Case. That broadcast lasted far longer
than this adaptation because the BBC
included dramatisations of the Christmas
story. A number of traditional tunes
are included such as On Christmas
Night, The Cherry Tree Carol
and God rest you merry gentlemen.
Highlights include the baritone solo
and chorus episode Joseph and Mary
with a plangent introduction from
the harp. The longest episode is the
final one: The First Nowell for
soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra.
The effect is superbly carried off here.
This is enormously strengthened by the
purity of the chorus as well as the
crystal clarity of the solo singing
and the precise yet not stilted enunciation.
The piece ends not in a triumphant dazzle
of brass and bells but the quiescent
serenity associated - at least in this
season - with the Christ-child.
To complement this
collection do hear the composer’s major
Christmas choral work Hodie.
The pioneering 1960s version is on EMI
Classics (CDM 5 67427-2) from Janet
Baker, Richard Lewis and John Shirley-Quirk
with the Bach Choir, Choristers of Westminster
Abbey and London Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Sir David Willcocks. The
same disc also includes the Fantasia
on Christmas Carols from John Barrow,
the Choir of Guildford Cathedral and
String Orchestra all conducted by conducted
by Barry Rose. You can hear Richard
Hickox’s 1990 recording of Hodie
on EMI Classics (EMI CDC7 54128-2,
now deleted but surely to emerge on
the company’s British Composer series
if it has not already) with Elizabeth
Gale, Robert Tear and Stephen Roberts
with the St Paul’s Cathedral Choir and
the London Symphony Orchestra.
Speaking of neglected
Christmas music, how long will it be
before we have the first recording of
Cyril Rootham’s wonderful 45 minute
Ode on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity?
Let me be mildly heretical
for a few moments and again put in a
plea for realisations of the incomplete
opera Thomas The Rhymer and the
unfinished Cello Concerto. We are also
in need of premiere recordings of The
Folksongs of the Four Seasons and
realisations of the ‘other’ two Norfolk
Rhapsodies.
The presentation and
recording are excellent and the thorough
and interesting documentation is by
Stephen Connock, Chairman of the RVW
Society. http://www.rvwsociety.com/
Back to this release.
These are beautifully sensitive performances
atmospherically recorded; irresistible
to the growing clan of RVW enthusiasts.
The CD should also have a much broader
constituency as Christmas approaches.
There’s even a sprig of holly on the
CD!
Rob Barnett
for details 
Sarah Fox (soprano; mezzo) 
