All lovers of English
music will have rejoiced at the reappearance
of the Lyrita label in recent months.
For many of us, at long last we’ve been
able to acquire on CD performances that
have languished in the vaults for many
years and I’m sure we’ve all had our
own favourite recordings that we’ve
welcomed back into circulation with
particular pleasure. In my case, this
present release includes the most longed-for
item in the whole Lyrita catalogue.
Back in the 1980s,
when I was working in Leeds I found
in the city’s music library an LP containing
two works previously unknown to me.
These were the Parry and Vaughan Williams
works that are included on this disc.
I borrowed the LP a good number of times
and enjoyed the Parry in particular
but I never got round to buying the
LP for myself and in due course it disappeared
from the shops. It wasn’t until some
twenty-five years later that I had the
chance to reacquaint myself with the
Ode on the Nativity when the
choir of which I’m a member celebrated
the 150th anniversary of
Parry’s birth by learning the work and
giving a series of performances. By
then I’d become familiar with a reasonable
amount of Parry’s music, thanks in particular
to Matthias Bamert’s fine recordings
for Chandos. The opportunity to learn
the Ode from the inside made
me realise what a very fine work it
is. The other two works on this CD are
available in other recordings but this
Willcocks performance is, thus far,
the only recording of the Parry. As
such, and on account also of the quality
of the work, I make no apology for devoting
the bulk of this review to the piece.
It’s one of Parry’s
last major works. He composed it for
the 1912 Three Choirs festival, which
was held that year in Hereford. Coincidentally
another Christmas work by an English
composer was premièred at the
same festival: Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia
on Christmas Carols. That piece
has secured the enduring place in the
repertoire that Parry’s work has not
attained. I honestly don’t think that
that’s any reflection on the respective
musical merits of the pieces. I suspect
that it has more to do with the fact
that RVW’s work is briefer, less extravagantly
scored and, in its use of traditional
carol melodies, more immediately appealing.
Parry’s work was out of print for a
good number of years and, indeed, when
our choir came to perform it in 1998
the choral scores were only just being
republished – by a small, independent
publishing house - and I seem to recall
that the orchestral parts were still
in manuscript.
I hope that the return
to circulation of this fine recording
will win new admirers for the piece
and lead to more performances for it’s
a quite splendid work and one that shows
Parry writing with all his great experience
of choral and orchestral writing. Anyone
who invested in Hyperion’s 1997 recording
of Job (1891/2) and who, like
me, was slightly disappointed with the
work can rest assured that Ode on
the Nativity is a much superior
creation. I think it helps that Parry
chose a fairly tightly constructed text.
The Ode by the Scottish poet, William
Dunbar (c1460 – c1520) is cast in seven
stanzas, of which Parry omitted the
fourth. He used an English translation
by an unknown hand. A particular help
in the musical structure is that each
of Dunbar’s stanzas ends with a one
line refrain: "Et nobis Puer natus
est" or a slight variant on those
words. Parry uses this line as a kind
of musical gathering point at the end
of each stanza.
The music, and the
way in which it is scored, is quintessential
Parry. The work begins with an orchestral
introduction, which is gently undulating
and pastoral at first but which soon
becomes more ardent. Willcocks shapes
this beautifully and then maintains
a good impetus as the chorus and soprano
soloist sing the first, innocently joyful
stanza. There’s a change of mood for
the maestoso second stanza [from 5:36]
as Dunbar bids Archangels and other
members of the heavenly host rejoice.
The music is grand at first but very
soon ("Star, planet, firmament
and sphere") becomes more excited
for a while before Parry relaxes most
winningly ("To him give loving,
most and least".)
The third stanza ("Sinners
be glad") begins with a lovely,
easeful soprano solo, which Teresa Cahill
sings very well indeed. This passage
[from 8:40] is vintage Parry both as
to melody and harmony. One small point
I noticed is that in the last couple
of bars of this solo Miss Cahill sings
a different word underlay to what is
in my score. It’s a very minor point
and it may well reflect the fairly recent
republication of the vocal materials
to which I referred earlier. The setting
of this entire stanza [to 11:31] is
quite enchanting and the performance
is excellent.
The ladies of the chorus
begin the fourth stanza ("Celestial
fowls in the air") This passage
is one of charming innocence and freshness
and the harmonic invention is, once
again, subtle and delights the ear.
The fifth stanza is more vigorous, culminating
in a grand passage ("From dead
take life now at the least"). This
is marked "Slow" in my score
and I just wondered if Willcocks could,
with advantage, have taken the passage
with even more breadth. After this the
chorus is split into two choirs for
the refrain that concludes this stanza
and the engineers manage the separation
very well [16:08]
And so to the final
stanza and a moment of true grandeur
("Sing, heaven imperial").
Willcocks handles the build up to this
moment marvellously and when the moment
arrives it is suitably majestic with
Teresa Cahill surmounting the ensemble
thrillingly. Another double choir section
follows immediately. This is marked
animato and the writing becomes
more exultant and the textures increasingly
complex until the work’s climax is reached
("All Gloria in excelsis
cry!") Willcocks and his forces
are fervent here and the music is put
over with real joy and celebration.
And then, almost as soon as the climax
has arrived it is past and Parry winds
down the piece in music of impressive
tranquillity, returning eventually to
the opening pastoral material. The very
end is glowing and the performers realise
it extremely well.
The choir sings with
huge commitment throughout the performance.
The orchestral playing has fire where
called for and sensitivity elsewhere.
Teresa Cahill sings the demanding solo
part very well indeed and Sir David
is the complete master of the score.
This may well be the only recording
the piece will ever receive. Praise
be that it’s such a good one.
Both of the other works
on this disc were, I believe, previously
unrecorded until these Lyrita versions
appeared on LP; that’s certainly the
case with The Sons of Light.
Subsequently both have been recorded
by other artists but these Lyrita issues
still have a strong claim on listeners’
attentions. I haven’t heard the Naxos
issue of the Holst but The Sons of
Light has come my way in a most
interesting compilation of works by
Vaughan
Williams. Comparing David Lloyd-Jones’s
Naxos version with the Willcocks reveals,
I think, that the earlier version has
several distinct advantages. The Willcocks
performance and its recorded sound have
greater impact and presence, I find.
This is especially apparent in the first
of the three settings that form the
piece, ‘Darkness and Light’. Much of
this is strong, vigorous music and,
good though the Naxos performance is,
that’s even more apparent under Willcocks.
There’s some vintage Vaughan Williams
orchestration to savour in this work;
after all, though RVW wrote it for a
chorus of children he expected a professional
symphony orchestra – Boult and the London
Philharmonic at the 1951 première
- to accompany them. The instrumental
scoring, for a substantial orchestra,
often brings to mind the last three
symphonies and Hodie, most of
which lay in the future, as Bernard
Benoliel points out in his notes. Particularly
worthy of note is the accompaniment
at the words "the dazzling plains
lie shadowless below". And I was
also struck, a little later on, by the
orchestration around 6:00 when the text
conjures up images of icy cold conditions
and the scoring is right out of the
almost-contemporaneous Sinfonia Antartica.
Incidentally, having commended Willcocks
for the drive and vigour of his reading
I should make it clear that he’s equally
responsive to the more subtle, reflective
passages in the music.
The work ends with
a powerful, jubilant march-like movement
setting Ursula Vaughan Williams’s poem
’The Messengers of Speech’ – all three
poems used are by her and were written
specially for this work. This seems
to me strongly to prefigure the last
movement of Hodie (1954) and
Willcocks brings it off splendidly.
Though the occasion for which The
Sons of Light was written meant
that it was first performed by a massed
choir of children Vaughan Williams made
few concessions to the youth of his
singers. Here the Bach Choir give a
splendid, ringing account of his music
and the highly colourful orchestration
is safe in the hands of the LPO. Good
though David Lloyd-Jones is, it’s Willcocks
who better conveys both the exuberance
and the poetry of The Sons of Light.
The Naxos version of this work is
a good one but I came away from my comparisons
with the firm view that the first recording
remains the best – but how good to have
choice in what is, after all, one of
RVW’s less frequently heard works.
I have to say I’m less
enamoured of The Mystic Trumpeter.
There’s nothing wrong with the performance
but I find it hard to get on with the
piece. I think there are two reasons
for this. One is the fact that Holst
chose to set the text solely for soprano
solo. There were several occasions when
I thought the music was crying out for
the intervention of a chorus, and so
were the words. Which brings me to my
second problem: this is a choice example
of Walt Whitman’s verse at its most
high-flown and orotund. Sometimes I
can take Whitman in musical settings
but this not one of them, I fear. The
imagery is just too earnest and flowery
for its own good.
Sheila Armstrong has
a devilishly tricky part to sing. It’s
wide ranging, not only in terms of vocal
compass but also in terms of emotional
range. Furthermore, at times Holst requires
his soloist to sing with great dramatic
power and at others with an almost confiding
intimacy. Miss Armstrong copes with
all these demands with conspicuous success
but, as I say, it might have made for
a better piece if Holst had employed
a chorus in some passages. The orchestration
gives more than a few hints of the mastery
that lay just a few years away but sometimes
it’s very heavy, lacking the great subtlety
that Holst was to develop. In her note
Imogen Holst quotes a perceptive critic
who, after the first performance in
1905, predicted that "the mind
which imagined it is bound one day to
achieve something approaching absolute
greatness." I think that’s a just
verdict but I doubt that even the spirited
advocacy of these present performers
will, on further listening, persuade
me to regard this as a favourite Holst
work.
I’m sure that other
collectors will have a different, more
positive view of The Mystic Trumpeter.
I hope many will share my liking
for The Sons of Light. But both
of these works are available in other
versions. This CD represents the only
opportunity at present to get to know
Parry’s magnificent Ode on the Nativity
and that’s the really urgent reason
for acquiring this disc. It’s been a
great thrill to return to this recording
but with the additional benefit now
of knowing the piece from the inside
as a result of performing it several
times. It’s a wonderful work, right
in the heart of the English choral tradition
and I urge all lovers of English music
of this period to seize this opportunity
to get to know it. You won’t regret
it.
With excellent sound,
splendid performances, authoritative
notes and fine music this CD is truly
a complete package. The reappearance
on CD of these performances is a cause
for great celebration.
John Quinn
For the original text of William Dunbar’s
poem, ‘On
the Nativity of Christ’ go to this
site
See also review by Rob
Barnett
for details
*
Teresa Cahill (soprano) 
Sound
Sample 
