Maybe this is just a subjective impression, but it seems that Vaughan Williams’ choral works are going out of fashion. A couple of decades ago it wasn’t unusual to see the occasional performance of Dona nobis pacem or the Five Tudor Portraits on the programs of orchestras and choral societies. EMI had boxed up all of its recordings of the choral music as a complement to its set of the complete symphonies, and although it was available in the USA only as an imported set, it sold briskly on LP thanks to the superior pressing quality and convenience of having all of that colorful, tuneful music in one convenient package. For some reason or other, that box never made it to CD as did Boult’s symphony cycle, perhaps because EMI was in the process of making modern digital recordings of many of the works.
Be that as it may, those new releases had an even more brief stay in the active catalog. Even the study scores have been taken out of circulation by Oxford University Press, a fact hardly conducive to the music’s wider exposure. I’m very happy to report, then, that Arkivmusic.com has made available “on demand” this excellent pairing of two of RVW’s major choral pieces in excellent performances, including the original booklet notes and texts. The solo singing, especially by Philip Langridge and Bryn Terfel, hardly could be bettered (try the Dirge for Two Veterans in Dona nobis pacem), and the choral singing is excellent too. Richard Hickox conducts confidently (he’s always at his best in choral music), and the digital sonics, while not state-of-the-art, are more than satisfactory in capturing the big moments. At least now we can continue to enjoy these works at home.
