Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music / Five Mystical Songs / Fantasia on Christmas Carols / Flos Campi ~ Best [Import]

Thomas Allen (Artist), John Connell (Artist), Arthur Davids (Artist), Maldwyn Davies (Artist), Anne Dawson (Artist), Ralph Vaughan Williams (Composer), Matthew Best (Conductor), Nobuko Imai (Performer), English Chamber Orchestra (Performer), Corydon Singers (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Nobuko Imai, English Chamber Orchestra, Corydon Singers
• Conductor: Matthew Best
• Composer: Ralph Vaughan Williams
• Audio CD (November 17, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Hyperion UK
• ASIN: B000002ZNQ
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,867 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #17 in Music > Classical > Instruments > Strings > Viola
  • #45 in Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Modern, 20th, & 21st Century > Composers > Vaughan Williams, Ralph

Track Listings

1. Serenade To Music

2. Serenade To Music: Five Mystical Songs - Easter

3. Serenade To Music: Five Mystical Songs - I Got Me Flowers

4. Serenade To Music: Five Mystical Songs - Love Bade Me Welcome

5. Serenade To Music: Five Mystical Songs - The Call

6. Serenade To Music: Five Mystical Songs - Antiphon

7. Serenade To Music: Fantasia On Christmas Carols

8. Serenade To Music: Flos Campi

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There'll always be an England!, February 19, 2001

By 

J. Anderson (Monterey, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music / Five Mystical Songs / Fantasia on Christmas Carols / Flos Campi ~ Best (Audio CD)

The best thing about this recording is the composite selection of this music on a single disc. The Corydon Singers, and particularly Thomas Allen (he of legendary career!) are quite fine, though quirkily I prefer John Shirley-Quirk's version of 'Five Mystical Songs' with Kings College Choir, especially his 'Love Bade Me Welcome' with its magnificent rendering of the last words "and I did sit and eat", which once heard will never forsake your memory. The spare yet intensely textured sound of the Corydon Singers is best suited to the diaphanous 'Serenade to Music'. Vaughan Williams' ability to set a text like no one else is a perfect partner to Shakespeare's arching mastery of the English language! It's a superb piece basically ignored in this country, as are most of VW's symphonies except for the ubiquitous No. 2. When have you heard an American orchestra perform the inventive Eighth or the redemptive Fifth? I agree that Boult's recordings of VW's music are a fine standard, &his 'Serenade' is especially fine, but this recording flourishes. Matthew Best gives space and reason to the beautiful ambience of the score. Flos Campi is well done here with Nobuko Imai's viola playing free of affectation as always, displaying an unpretentious mastery of the score. The 'Fantasia' (one of VW's favorite musical motives, even when not properly so called!) demonstrates Vaughan Williams' true veneration of the English hymn tune, a fetching gift that annointed all of us throughout his composing career, and perhaps more than anything secured for him a place in the pantheon of great composers. This is a successful disc of masterworks of an often misunderstood and certainly under-performed composer. The English Chamber Orchestra enjoys one subtle triumph after another in this recording - the strings are beautifully recorded, as is the singing. If it had been designed as a 2-disc effort and included 'Benedictus', the 'Mass in G', 'Sancta Civitas', and 'The Lark Ascending', we'd have close to a set of VW's essential choral and smaller orchestral works in one package!

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent recordings, and an outstanding "Serenade", December 19, 2000

By 

Samer T Ismail "SF & classical music fan" (Danbury, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music / Five Mystical Songs / Fantasia on Christmas Carols / Flos Campi ~ Best (Audio CD)

In the liner notes, Christopher Palmer notes that Rachmaninoff himself wept at the beauty of "Serenade to Music" at its 1938 première; this may rank as the finest setting of Shakespeare ever created [it sets parts of Jessica's and Lorenzo's speeches in Act V of "Merchant of Venice"].

I, too, have wept at the beauty of this recording. The sixteen soloists are all outstanding, by themselves and in the 'tutti' passages. As wonderful as other recordings have been (notably Bernstein and Boult), the singing in this one blows them all away. [It is worth noting that this may be the largest number of solos in any major work; even Mahler's "Symphony of a Thousand" calls for but eight.]

The remaining works are no less wonderful: just as the "Serenade" fades away, Thomas Allen and the Corydon Singers begin a magnificent recording of the "Five Mystical Songs" with an impassioned "Rise Heart", and the work only gets better from there. "Fantasia on Christmas Carols" is another of Vaughan Williams's masterpieces, both for its showmanship and restraint; Best's forces deliver both admirably. And finally, the "Flos Campi," with Nobuko Imai on viola, is simply ravishing.

This is one of my favorite disks, and one I would recommend highly to anyone.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some of the finest of English vocal music, January 9, 2001

By 

Mark Swinton - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music / Five Mystical Songs / Fantasia on Christmas Carols / Flos Campi ~ Best (Audio CD)

Of this collection, only the "Five Mystical Songs" will be familiar to most listeners. It is a treat to discover the remaining works all available in one package, and especially good to hear them.

"Serenade to Music" (with words by Shakespeare) is quintessential Vaughan Williams: a beautifully crafted piece echoing the height of Romanticism, with a unique and fascinating story behind it. The work was written for a Promenade Concert - more specifically, it was written for sixteen solo singers, who are identified by name in the published score and were amongst the best of their time. Not only was the piece a triumph for them at the concert, it also caught the attention of the composer Rachmaninov, who was moved to tears by the music. The piece is rarely performed because of the fact that it was specially composed for the first performers; as stated in the notes for this recording, it only works if the performers are of as high a standard as the originals. Hence, the "cast" of this CD includes some celebrated names from the world of vocal music: John Mark Ainsley, Thomas Allen, Maldwyn Davies, Anne Dawson, Martyn Hill, Diana Montague, Alan Opie and Jean Rigby are particular standouts. Their rendition is spell-binding and rivetting, although I find that there are moments when their more operatic traits get the better of them and ruin the tuning and clarity of melodic and harmonic details. I don't mean to say that it is a bad recording, but I have heard better ones (Sir Adrian Boult's will probably remain untouchable for a long time to come). Still, a pleasure to hear, and extremely moving - it's not hard to see why Rachmaninov was so deeply affected by the piece.

Thomas Allen also serves as baritone soloist for the "Five Mystical Songs" and the rarer "Fantasia on Christmas Carols." As a choral singer, I have had the pleasure of performing these works myself, and this recording conveys them as stirringly as I remember them. In the former work, the bulk of the music is carried by the baritone; the chorus comes into its own for the final movement, "Let all the world in every corner sing" but is otherwise a background force. In the latter work, based on carol tunes collected and arranged by Vaughan Williams as part of his work as editor of the English Hymnal and Oxford Book of Carols, the music is shared more substantially by soloist and chorus. These performances give the music a wonderful 'glow,' just as they ought to have. In the case of the "Fantasia," it's well worth saving that track until Christmas...

The last work on the disc is "Flos Campi," in which Vaughan Williams breaks with many tonal conventions in a stunning display of orchestration, filled with achingly beautiful melodic twists and lucious harmonies, hinting very strongly at the erotic. Nobuko Imai provides a characteristic viola solo, whilst the chorus is confined to textless vocalisation. The effect is pondered in much detail in the programme notes; suffice it to say, it is a work that will leave itself etched on the mind as one of the most haunting and mysterious ever written.

Throughout this recording, the English Chamber Orchestra plays to perfection with Matthew Best at the helm. His Corydon Singers prove their considerable strength as a choral group with effortless control. This is a wonderful document - whatever the season.