Mass in G Minor

MASS IN G MINOR VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: string of works broadly appropriate to worship MASS IN G MINOR appeared in quick succession (more than half Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) of the music recorded here emerged during this Vaughan Williams wrote of music as a means of period). Some pieces were commissioned for Mass in G Minor ‘stretching out to the ultimate realities through specific events, or were inspired by particular 1 Kyrie [4.42] the medium of beauty’, enabling an experience performers. But the role of the War in prompting the intensified devotional fervour 2 Gloria in excelsis [4.18] of transcendence both for creator and receiver. Yet – even at its most personal and remote, apparent in many of the works he composed 3 Credo [6.53] as often on this disc – his church music also in its wake should not be overlooked. As a 4 Sanctus – Osanna I – Benedictus – Osanna II [5.21] stands as a public testament to his belief wagon orderly, one of Vaughan Williams’s more 5 Agnus Dei [4.41] in the role of art within the earthly harrowing duties was the recovery of bodies realm of a community’s everyday life. He wounded in battle. Ursula Vaughan Williams, 6 Te Deum in G [7.44] embraced the church as a place in which a his second wife and biographer, wrote that 7 O vos omnes [5.59] broad populace might regularly encounter a such work ‘gave Ralph vivid awareness of 8 Antiphon (from Five Mystical Songs) [3.15] shared cultural heritage, participating actively, how men died’. It is perhaps unsurprising 9 Rhosymedre [4.40] whether by singing or listening, in practical that in many of the texts to which he 0 O taste and see [1.46] music-making. Such social concerns help us to turned after the 1918 Armistice, the fragility and weakness of humanity becomes a q Prayer to the Father of Heaven [5.39] fathom why the ‘confirmed atheist’ described by philosopher Bertrand Russell devoted recurrent theme. w O, clap your hands [3.20] so much attention to the composition not e Lord, thou hast been our refuge [9.17] simply of liturgical music, but of a host of Although Vaughan Williams supposedly David Blackadder trumpet works associated in some way with the drifted toward agnosticism as the inter-war Judeo-Christian tradition. years progressed, he was never a practicing Total timings: [67.32] Christian, and recognized the validity of all It is surely no coincidence, though, that it religious faiths. His heightened exploration was only after active service during the First of Christian texts, symbols, and images after THE CHOIR OF ST JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE the War might rather be understood both as JOSEPH WICKS ORGAN World War that Vaughan Williams turned in ANDREW NETHSINGHA DIRECTOR earnest to the cultivation of liturgical music. an attempt to grapple anew with what might Following his demobilization in 1919, a lie, as he put it, ‘beyond sense and knowledge’, www.signumrecords.com - 3 - and to search for consolation in religious Symphony (1916–21), which casts a long sung by upper voices, punctuated by a solo celebration of musical craftsmanship conveyed and other inherited traditions amid a world shadow over much of the interwar music. alto’s expressive declamations. With ‘Jerusalem, as this prelude unfolds. The tune upon which irrevocably changed. Extreme dynamics, such as the pppp found convertere ad Dominum’ tenors and basses it is based was composed by John David in the Credo, tell of a heightened search for are heard, darkly, for the first time. It is both a Edwards (1805–85), vicar of Rhosymedre, The influence of sixteenth-century English expressive intensity. The Agnus Dei brings the consoling and a disquieting entry. North Wales, and had appeared in The church music has long been heard in the work to a close with a suddenly impassioned, English Hymnal, a project to which Vaughan searing, luminous Mass in G minor (1920–21). urgent plea for peace. Antiphon (1911) brings the ardent George Williams devoted considerable time as Doubtless its association with Richard Terry’s Herbert settings, Five Mystical Songs, to their editor between 1904 and 1906. After a choir at Westminster Cathedral (who gave The Te Deum in G (1928) adopts an altogether conclusion, shifting to a more immediate, simple introduction, the hymn tune enters the work its first liturgical performance in more public tone, suitable to its composition present, joyous realm than that traversed in the tenor voice, thereafter singing more 1923) has reinforced such assessments. Terry for the enthronement of Cosmo Lang as earlier. The organ’s introduction mounts from roundly in an upper register. A quiet repeat had garnered a reputation during the first Archbishop of Canterbury. The choir sings a pregnant murmur into an energetic pealing of the opening communicates a sense of two decades of the century as a pioneering first in celebratory unison, after which of bells. The musical evocation of bells endurance and security in cyclical return. presence in the revival of music by Tallis and antiphonal writing displays a characteristic is often heard in Vaughan Williams’s works, Byrd, among others. Yet, Vaughan Williams’s play with space and resonance. A flowing 6/4 especially at moments of conclusion. As in real O Taste and See (1952) was composed for Mass is stylistically more eclectic than has section brings contrast (with ‘Heaven and life, they issue a call to act – to gather, to respond. the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. generally been acknowledged, as recent earth are full of the Majesty of thy glory’). In They function here to underscore the choral The fragile, angelic treble solo with which scholarship suggests. If its imitative textures noisier moments, this music prefigures the culmination (where in previous songs the choir it begins is a poignant reinterpretation of and contrasts between soloists and full choir slightly later Benedicite (1929), especially in its is limited to supporting a baritone’s solos). a melodic fragment present in many of betray a debt to Renaissance traditions, its almost strident attempts to muster exuberance. Voices and bells thus work self-consciously Vaughan Williams’s early works, where it often peculiar modal harmony takes inspiration Muted prayers form a reticent and rather to enact the demands of the text – ‘Let all the appears in a more robust and jubilant guise. from Debussy’s music. But the Mass is ambivalent conclusion, of a kind often found world in every corner sing’. It is derived, in turn, from the hymn tune above all a major landmark in the emergence in Vaughan Williams’s post-War works. ‘Sine Nomine’, composed by Vaughan Williams of a new direction in Vaughan Williams’s From Three Preludes Founded on Welsh Hymn for The English Hymnal. own, increasingly individualistic style, already The pale, mysterious motet O vos omnes Tunes, Rhosymedre (1920) was dedicated apparent in such works as the Four Hymns (1922) is frequently heard as a companion to Alan Gray, Vaughan Williams’s erstwhile Prayer to the Father of Heaven (1948) sets for viola, tenor, and, piano (1914). The piece to the Mass. A setting of words from the organ teacher. Perhaps Gray had encouraged a the texts of John Skelton (c. 1463–1529), to timeless oscillations heard at the beginning Book of Lamentations, it was first performed student for whom the instrument inspired whose earthy, ribald poems Vaughan Williams of the Sanctus recall the opening of A Pastoral during Holy Week in 1922. The verses are limited interest, prompting the beneficent had earlier been drawn in his 1935 choral suite - 4 - - 5 - Five Tudor Portraits. This work is different lighter, diatonic ‘St Anne’ hymn tune (which, conductor’s reflectionS For me it was a revelation to learn of the way both in scale and tone, however. Composed as combined with Watts’s words, had been in which the composer may have actively sought to mark the centenary of Hubert Parry’s birth, included in Hymns Ancient & Modern in 1861). No bombs can rob us of the human voice. to create music that was not goal-directed, the eloquent dedication pays homage to ‘the The quotation of a popular hymn tune is a at least not in a conventional sense. Far memory of my master, Hubert Parry, not as familiar trope in Vaughan Williams’s work, The voice can be made the medium of the best and from the oft-quoted Warlock description of an attempt palely to reflect his incomparable and points to his participatory ethos: he deepest human emotion. Vaughan Williams’s style as being like a cow art, but in the hope that he would have would almost certainly have expected listeners looking over a gate, in fact the meandering found in this motet (to use his own words) to recognize the tune and to follow its These quotations from Vaughan Williams phrases can conjure up a profound sense “something characteristic”’. It is indeed difficult progression toward the final, blazing apotheosis date from the Second World War and from of the mental state of a person with to discern the influence of Parry’s music here. (reminiscent of a similar ‘breakthrough’ 40 years earlier. Of the eight friends who shell-shock. In his orchestral music, Vaughan But in the beautiful, strange harmonic shifts, moment in the earlier choral work, Toward volunteered together for the First World Williams invests solo viola lines with personal enlisted in the service of a nuanced and the Unknown Region (1905–6)). War, six were killed (including his friend and significance; could the solitary altos at the individual response to the text, it becomes a fellow composer, George Butterworth.) Much start and end of Kyrie represent the composer fitting tribute.

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