Vaughan Williams CHANDOS Five Tudor Portraits Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus
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CHAN 9593 FRONT.qxd 16/1/08 4:16 pm Page 1 Chan 9593 Vaughan Williams CHANDOS Five Tudor Portraits Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus RICHARD HICKOX Jean Rigby · John Shirley-Quirk London Symphony Chorus · London Symphony Orchestra RICHARD HICKOX CHAN 9593 BOOK.qxd 16/1/08 4:17 pm Page 2 Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) Five Tudor Portraits* 44:48 1 I Ballad: The Tunning of Elinor Rumming 11:39 Robert Bourton bassoon 2 II Intermezzo: Pretty Bess 3:01 3 III Burlesca: Epitaph on John Jayberd of Diss 3:18 4 IV Romanza: Jane Scroop 22:21 (Her Lament for Philip Sparrow) Michael Cox flute . Tim Hugh cello 5 V Scherzo: Jolly Rutterkin 4:16 Royal College of Music Royal 6 Five Variants of ‘Dives and Lazarus’ 10:35 TT 55:32 Jean Rigby mezzo-soprano* John Shirley-Quirk baritone* London Symphony Chorus* Stephen Westrop chorus director London Symphony Orchestra Janice Graham leader* Vaughan Williams Richard Hickox 3 CHAN 9593 BOOK.qxd 16/1/08 4:17 pm Page 4 Vaughan Williams had known Skelton’s a roast pig’s ear’. The heavy pulse of the Vaughan Williams: Five Tudor Portraits etc. poetry since childhood. It was, however, music eases with a grazioso section before the Elgar who suggested to him in 1932 making opening style returns, leading to a climax at ‘an oratorio out of Elinor Rumming’. As ‘The devil and she be sib’. The ensuing Five Tudor Portraits responded wholeheartedly to the humour, Ursula Vaughan Williams put it, ‘…across allegro describes the people who visit the Ralph Vaughan Williams was sixty-two vivacity and humanity of Falstaff. He also the centuries, Skelton, tutor to Henry VIII, alehouse; it is riotous, rollicking music. Soon, when his ‘Choral Suite’ Five Tudor Portraits, charted the jealousies, intrigues, pranks and, Laureate, priest and poet, found a partner a bassoon solo, marked andante doloroso, based on the poetry of John Skelton, was especially, the romance of Shakespeare’s who shared his love of the variousness of introduces the contralto soloist (‘slightly finished in 1935. At an age when most characters with insight and empathy. Having humanity and the imagery of words’. nasal’ says the score at this point) as drunken people think of retirement, Vaughan successfully tackled Elizabethan England, The work was finished in June 1935, Alice. Muted trumpet and piccolo add their Williams was composing music of Vaughan Williams found a related stimulus Vaughan Williams having abandoned a sixth humorous comments to the soloist’s ribald remarkable and unexpected power, in the energy and bawdiness of the late ‘Portrait on “Margery Wentworth”’. It is gossip, before she falls asleep. From the quiet, expressiveness and technical assurance. His medieval poet John Skelton. scored for contralto (or mezzo), baritone, a few voices steal in leading to a riotous, Fourth Symphony, first performed in 1935, Skelton (1460–1529) had been tutor chorus and large orchestra and was first blustering drinking song, the movement startled audiences with its ferocity, many to the young Prince Henry, later King performed at the Norwich Festival on ending with a triple forte. hearing in its grinding dissonances the Henry VIII, and Poet Laureate from both 25 September 1936. The soloists were Astra The second Portrait is an Intermezzo composer’s response to tensions in Europe, Cambridge and Oxford Universities. He was Desmond and Roy Henderson and the entitled ‘My Pretty Bess’. It is one of presaging the Second World War. The Piano Rector from 1504 to 1529 at the Parish Festival Chorus and London Philharmonic Skelton’s tenderest poems which produces Concerto (1931) also has a percussive and Church of St Mary, the Virgin, in Diss, Orchestra were conducted by the composer. music of exquisite lyricism from Vaughan rhythmic quality which shows that no direct Norfolk. His poetry has religious themes, The work opens with the ‘Ballad: The Williams. The baritone is echoed by the external stimulus was necessary to compose not surprisingly, but his range is wide. Tunning of Elinor Rumming’. This is chorus to a gentle allegretto grazioso tempo. music quite different from the lyrical pre- Famed for his satire – he took refuge in Skelton in his coarse, racy style. It tells of an The soloist compares Bess to the flowers, war works such as the Fantasia on a Theme Westminster Abbey for attacking Cardinal alehouse in Leatherhead run by Elinor, who ‘my daisy delectable’, showing heart-easing by Thomas Tallis (1910) or the more austere Wolsey – he writes with humour and a brews ‘nappy ale’, and of the assorted warmth at ‘my joy inexplicable’. The poet’s post-war works such as the Mass in G minor wonderful vein of tenderness and humanity. colourful characters who visit the pub, most love is unrequited, and Vaughan Williams (1922). It is said that on one occasion Skelton stood of them poor and all of them thirsty. responds with great sensitivity to the poet’s Writing the opera Sir John in Love may in the pulpit of St Mary’s Church and boldly The ballad-style opening is marked allegro call for Bess to ‘come again to me, to me!’ have had a liberating effect for the composer, held up a love-child, fathered by himself, to pesante. It begins with a brief, invigorating, for ‘mine heart, it is with thee’. for in setting Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives show the congregation, daring anyone to orchestral passage before the chorus The ensuing ‘Burlesca: Epitaph on John of Windsor in 1928 Vaughan Williams find fault with it, or himself! introduces ‘comely Jill’, her face crinkled ‘like Jayberd of Diss’ is for male chorus and 4 5 CHAN 9593 BOOK.qxd 16/1/08 4:17 pm Page 6 orchestra only. John Jayberd was clearly a This opens a section of remarkable Lazarus, who begs for ‘some meat, some The Variants, with their rich string-writing, cantankerous, dislikeable clerk whose death tenderness as Jane remembers her poor dead drink, brother Diverus, for hunger starve I antiphonal effects and mellow colouring, no one mourns. The music is vivid, sparrow. A more agitated, descriptive passage shall’ was included by Vaughan Williams in may well recall the composer’s Fantasia on a powerful, raucous. The ‘monkish Latin’ is describes the funeral service, showing superb the Oxford Book of Carols, of which he was Theme by Thomas Tallis of thirty years mixed with English in a way reminiscent of orchestration and vividly imaginative scene- joint musical editor, in 1928. He had earlier. The tune is first announced in Orff’s Carmina burana. Vaughan Williams painting from Vaughan Williams, with the included the carol in the Twelve Traditional superbly rich harmonies in its 4/4 version – captures brilliantly the sardonic rejoicing at Dies irae again prominent. The soloist re- Carols from Hertfordshire in 1920, and back it is a wonderfully expressive opening. John Jayberd’s demise. enters dramatically with ‘Libera me’, before a in 1906 had added the tune to the words Variant I uses the harp antiphonally. Variant The fourth movement is a Romanza about poignant episode when soloist and chorus ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’ in the English II is quicker, in three-bar phrases. Variant III Jane Scroop, and tells of her lament for the sing farewell to Philip Sparrow, including a Hymnal. The tune also makes an appearance develops a modal version of the theme with death of Philip, her pet sparrow. It is the moving reminder of how pretty and gentle in the English Folk Song Suite of 1923. the solo violin and harps featuring longest of the Five Portraits, and sets extracts the bird was. The closing pages achieve Like Bushes and Briars and The Captain’s prominently. Variant IV leads with the violas from the poem described by Coleridge as genuine pathos. Apprentice, the haunting Dives and Lazarus in a jaunty 2/4. Variant V returns ‘exquisite and original’. Skelton tells movingly The final Portrait is ‘Jolly Rutterkin’, a melody had clearly made a deep impression majestically to the warmly expressive style of of the girl’s distress at her pet bird being eaten Scherzo. Trumpets call above horns and on Vaughan Williams. He had collected the opening, rising to a fine climax. The by Gib, the cat. Vaughan Williams is lower strings before the chorus enters with a many variations of the folk-carol since the work ends peacefully with a cello solo, as determined, as is Skelton before him, to avoid high- spirited ‘Hoyda, hoyda’. The baritone early years of the twentieth century. When, Vaughan Williams reflects on the beauty of parody. As the composer put it: continues the extrovert mood, moving to a in 1938, the British Council commissioned English folk song. There is no justification, I think, for describing fine climax at ‘Like a rutter Hoyda’. a piece for Sir Adrian Boult to conduct in these touching words as a ‘Parody’. Jane saw Vaughan Williams ends his Five Tudor Carnegie Hall, New York, to represent © 1998 Stephen Connock no reason, and I see no reason, why she should Portraits on an exuberant, optimistic note. English music at the World’s Fair in June Chairman, Ralph Vaughan Williams Society not pray for the peace of her sparrow’s soul. In this ‘Choral Suite’, Vaughan Williams 1939, Vaughan Williams returned to this Marked lento doloroso, the movement opens encompasses a wide range of human lovely melody and composed these Five Jean Rigby studied at the Royal with a mellow cello solo. The early experience. He portrays the vitality of Variants for strings and harp. Birmingham School of Music and then at introduction of the Dies irae confirms the Skelton’s Tudor England and shows the In a note on the score, Vaughan Williams the Royal Academy of Music with Patricia valedictory tone, as Jane asks ‘Wherefore and depth of his humanity in his response to wrote Clarke.