Vaughan Williams: On Christmas Day - Folk Songs and Folk Carols

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Vaughan Williams: On Christmas Day - Folk Songs and Folk Carols:
$12.48

\" I\'VE ALWAYS LOVED CAROLS\" Vaughan Williams wrote to Cecil Sharp in 1911. He added that there was \'something remarkable and quite unlike anything else about them…..I\'ve always noticed what a peculiar atmosphere the major carol tunes have\'. Vaughan Williams first contact with folk-songs and carols dated from the 1880s. As he put it in his Musical Autobiography: I must have made my first contact with English folk-songs when I was a boy in the \'eighties through Stainer and Bramley\'s Christmas Carols New and Old. I remember clearly my reaction to the tune of the Cherry Tree Carol which was more than simple admiration for a fine tune, though I did not then naturally realise the implications involved in that sense of intimacy.Vaughan Williams had begun collecting folk-songs and carols in 1903. He noted down, for example, On Christmas Night in Horsham in 1904, God rest you merry in Cambridgeshire in August, 1906 and On Christmas Day in Castleton, Derbyshire in 1908. By 1911, his friend Cecil Sharp had published English Folk Carols, a collection of twenty-one carols, including many of Vaughan Williams\' favourites. He incorporated some of these lovely melodies in the Fantasia on Christmas Carols (1912) as well as in On Christmas Night (1926) and in the work he was composing when he died in 1958, The First Nowell. Many folk-songs and carols were included in the key work in this area – The Oxford Book of Carols – with Vaughan Williams as co-musical editor, along with Percy Dearmer (words) and Martin Shaw (music), which was published in 1928.Such a lifelong devotion to English carols – or \'poems for singing\' – reflects the freshness, compassion, nobility and tenderness of these songs. Many folk-carols have a simple narrative style, often using a \'burden\' – a refrain that also begins the carol. In ballad form, the carols can be lengthy, with short stanzas, often telling the story of the Nativity (also used in lullaby carols) or other periods from the life and death of Jesus. Legends and symbols abound in folk-carols and songs, most noticeably in this Albion collection in Down in yon forest (track 4). With strong poetic imagery, a sense of atmosphere and memorable tunes, carols evoke like nothing else the essential spirit of Christmas.This recording was made for Albion Records, a subsidiary of The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, a registered Charity.
ReviewsThis excellent CD assembles 20 of Vaughan Williams\'s own carol arrangements, with six folk songs for measure.The soloist is the young Derek Welton, whose manly, oaken baritone is offset by Iain Burnside\'s superbly supportive accompaniments. The \'Twelve Apostles\' and \'The Truth sent from above\'are particular highlights of this disc,but every track has something to offer.Highly recommended. Performance ***** Recording *****BBC Music Magazine
Welton is an excellent singer, his vibrant baritone perfect for swaggering nature of some of the songs, while he can scale down tenderly for others.International Record Review
Vaughan Williams is the focus on a disc spanning his Eight Traditional English Carols, the Six Studies in English Folk Songs and the Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire. Attractively performed by the Australian baritone Derek Welton and the pianist Iain Burnside, the programme makes for an evocative vista of bygone Christmas times.Sunday Telegraph