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Vaughan Williams: The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains

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Vaughn Williams' "A Song of Thanksgiving" is the greatest piece of music ever written that almost no one has heard. The version here, with John Gielgud doing the spoken parts, is so powerfully beautiful it is almost frightening. That's the best description I can come up with. Everything else on this CD is also wonderful and the sound quality is extraordinary.

Buy this now.

These pieces are surely among RVW's most beautiful music. As Chris Johnson writes, "Song of Thanksgiving" is powerful and beautiful, and so is "The 100th Psalm." "Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains" is as lovely as the corresponding sequence in RVW's opera "Pilgrim's Progress" but the finale in the Eternal City is more beautifully realized. I turn to this CD again and again!

I have to agree with Chris Johnson's description of the "Song of Thanksgiving" as "the greatest piece of music ever written that almost no one has heard." This is a piece that should be performed much more often, although it is hard to imagine a speaker better suited to the piece than the late Sir John Gielgud, whose own voice in this recording is itself a musical instrument. (The speaker in the only other recording I have heard is not nearly as good, although that recording has the virtue of bringing out the sound of the organ to grand and glorious effect.) If there is one tiny flaw in the present recording of the "Song," it is in the soprano's pronunciation of the very last syllable she sings (which is also the very last syllable of the whole piece), which seems to lag a bit. Otherwise, this is an absolutely first-rate performance of a very moving piece.
By the way, another unjustly neglected piece by Vaughan Williams is his "Pilgrim Pavement," which is available on a recording of the venerable fifth symphony. It is another piece that should be much more widely performed and recorded.

This is a pretty marvelous - and rather surprising - collection. None of the works here are, it seems, particularly well-known yet they represent Vaughan Williams at his most personal self and at least sometimes his most inspired; the reason is in part the fact that some of it contains music that was later utilized for other purposes, yet as the versions we get here show the original settings may be just as worthwhile.

A Song of Thanksgiving was written as something of a victory ode in 1944, after the D-Day. It is as such an occasional work, and this may surely have contributed to its relative neglect, though it is definitely not music of empty bombast (it even ends reflectively rather than victoriously). The text is based on a number of sources and the work is scored for speaker, soprano, children's chorus, chorus and orchestra and Vaughan Williams appears to have taken care to avoid presenting too many technical challenges for the performers. Yet it is a gorgeous work, perhaps even a forgotten masterpiece (as some other reviewers here have claimed); imaginative, beautiful, with a thoroughly memorable main big tune. It is also excellently performed here with Lynne Dawson an excellent soloist, John Gielgud captivating in the speaking role and thoroughly impressive choral contributions - this work (lasting a total of 16 minutes) would surely be worth acquiring this disc for on its own.

The Three Choral Hymns from 1930 are equally well performed; they are all beautiful works with deviously contrapuntal refrains, though they make less of a lasting impression I guess (some of "Now blessed be thou" was later used in Hodie). The Magnificat (1932) is striking for its mystical, otherworldly character with impressionistic elements - a stirring, even captivating experience; not a masterpiece, perhaps, but truly engaging nonetheless.

The main item on the disc is the operatic scena The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains (1922), part of the composer's almost lifelong engagement with Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress that would finally materialize as a full opera in 1952. Much of the music for Shepherds ended up in the opera's final scenes, but the original scena is still a work very well worth hearing. The character of the music is more intimate in the original, the drama is more focused and there is some very good musical elements (the effective ending) that never made it into the full opera. Were it not for Progress, Shepherds would have remained a masterpiece in the composer's catalogue, but even with the existence of the full opera this scena is a superb work in its own right. The performance on this disc is superb all around, with a stirring Bryn Terfel as the Pilgrim deserving particular praise.

Then, finally, there is The Hundredth Psalm, a small cantata from 1930. This is, I suppose, a rather minor work - it is based on a well-known chorale tune, and its best parts apparently made it into the Coronation Hymn several years later. It is still a beautiful piece, though, and it is - as the rest of the music here - performed with verve, ebullience, spirit, and tenderness. Throughout the sound is excellent, and despite the fact that most of the music here is less well-known, and in part contains first thoughts for more famous later works, it is all fascinating and generally very rewarding, with The Song of Thanksgiving in particular being far more than that. Strongly recommended, then, and not only to ardent fans of the composer.

...and one of them is the neglect these Vaughan Williams compositions have received. Friends, how can I describe my feelings for this disc, one that has touched me to the core every time I have listened to it? Here Vaughan Williams is at his very best, brimming with pastoral folksiness. But there's more to it than that; I don't know if I've ever heard any other Vaughan Williams that sends such memories sweeping over me. Vaughan Williams describes the world of my dreams, where days are spent wandering through the countryside, without a care in the world. It's sad to see that, when I posted this review, Amazon is no longer selling it. Just by it used from one of Amazon's independent sellers.

This disc starts out with "A Song of Thanksgiving", written to celebrate the victory of the Allies in WWII. I know it wasn't written with our American holiday in mind, but I tend to pull it out the most around Thanksgiving, as the lyrics are well suited to the general festive mood. It is overflowing with warm hymn-like tunes that will inevitably cause your spirit to soar. I don't know if I'll ever be able to listen to the glorious opening in B flat without chills going down my spine. But one of the most memorable moments comes in the eerie middle section in the minor, where the speaker reads verses in Isaiah, with the female choir echoing him, with the strings setting the background, going back and forth from G sharp minor and A minor chords. I could go into the joys hearing the boys' choir break forth into a luxuriant D Major, or the effect of the solo soprano offering the unaccompanied last word, but you get the idea.

The Three Choral Hymns cover in turn Easter, Christmas, and Whitsunday. Each of them are unique in their own way, proving what an exceptional choral writer Vaughan Williams really was. I'm not as touched by these works as the Song of Thanksgiving, but they're wonderful all the same.

The Magnificat was inspired by Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. It is a dreamy composition, quite unlike anything else I've ever heard by Vaughan Williams, possibly because Vaughan Williams was trying to sound like Debussy. There's restlessness to it, with a strong sense of melancholy. If you're looking a piece the captures the jubilancy of the virgin birth, this isn't it, but you don't want to miss the dark wonder of what Vaughan Williams conveys.

My personal favorite on the disc is the "Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains", with the text taken from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I haven't commented on the musicians up to this point, but given that a super star comes on the scene in the piece, I can't ignore him. His name is Bryn Terfel. There's no one else in the world that is more ideal when it comes to singing British music. His rich, booming voice that takes the role of "Pilgrim" is, on its own, worth the price of the entire disc. Vaughan Williams perfectly captures the mood that Bunyan describes in his allegory. It's beautifully elusive, with a decided yearning quality. It is the kind of music that sends you into a far off land, a land of long ago.

The Hundredth Psalm that concludes the disc takes the famous Doxology tune and transforms it into an amazing choral masterpiece. Vaughan Williams' rendition of the tune is sure to be the best we're ever going to hear. I certainly love it.

In closing, this is a wonderful disc, featuring music that we should all hear more often. Grab if it you get a chance.