Vaughan Williams: A Birthday Garland -Roderick Williams

Contents

1. Ralph Vaughan Williams: The splendour falls
2. Charles Wood: Fortune and her wheel
3. Ralph Vaughan Williams: Linden Lea
4. Maurice Ravel: Chanson écossaise
5. Max Bruch: O saw ye my father?
6. Rebecca Clarke: Down by the salley gardens
7. Grace Williams: Jim Cro
8. George Butterworth: Roving in the dew
9. Gustav Holst: Darest thou now O soul
10. Ina Boyle: The last invocation
11. Ivor Gurney: Reconciliation
12. Ralph Vaughan Williams: A clear midnight
13. Charles Villiers Stanford: Joy, shipmate, joy!
14. Ruth Gipps: The pulley
15. Ralph Vaughan Williams: The call
16. Ralph Vaughan Williams: The twilight people
17. Herbert Howells: The sorrow of love
18. Elizabeth Maconchy: The wind and the rain
19. Hubert Parry: Under the greenwood tree
20. Madeleine Dring: Take, O take those lips away
21. Ralph Vaughan Williams: When icicles hang by the wall
22. Gerald Finzi: Who is Silvia?
23. Ralph Vaughan Williams: I have trod the upwards and the downwards slope
24. Ralph Vaughan Williams: Menelaus

A square and candle-lighted boat

1. Sarah Cattley: Bedroom dawn
2. Sarah Cattley: The coast: Norfolk
3. Sarah Cattley: Bickers cottage
4. Sarah Cattley: The country bedroom
5. Sarah Cattley: Waking in the attic bedroom
6. Roderick Williams: The shepherd

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce Vaughan Williams – A Birthday Garland, the debut on disc of baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Susie Allan’s popular concert tribute to Ralph Vaughan Williams originally marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2022. Curating a “fantasy birthday party concert” in tribute to “the grand-daddy of 20th-century English song”, Williams has assembled pieces by RVW and 18 fellow composers. The result is a wide-ranging celebration of the rich variety of English song over a century and more that pays tribute to Vaughan Williams’ influence with songs inspired by poets ranging from Shakespeare and Tennyson to W.B. Yeats and Walt Whitman. First recordings include Herbert Howell’s The Sorrow of Love, a setting of the Irish poet Seamus O’Sullivan; Sarah Cattley’s A Square and Candle-lighted Boat, treating verses by RVW’s cousin, Frances Cornford; and Roderick Williams’ own distinctive take on William Blake’s The Shepherd. The 30-song recital includes songs by RVW’s teachers (Stanford, Parry, Wood, Bruch, Ravel), friends (Holst, Gurney, Howells, Butterworth, Finzi and others), and pupils (Grace Williams, Ina Boyle, Ruth Gipps, Elizabeth Maconchy and Madeleine Dring). Vaughan Williams’ biographer Simon Heffer provides authoritative booklet notes. SOMM’s previous Vaughan Williams releases include the widely acclaimed four-volume Vaughan Williams Live series (SOMM ARIADNE 5016, 5018, 5019-2, 5020); Mark Bebbington and Rebeca Omordia’s “compelling” (International Piano) survey of his Piano Music (SOMMCD 0164); and the “priceless document” (MusicWeb International) coupling the Fifth Symphony and Dona nobis pace (SOMMCD 071). Roderick Williams and Susie Allan’s previous SOMM releases include Celebrating English Song (SOMMCD 0177), lauded by Gramophone as “a treat”; the Ivor Gurney-focused Severn & Somme (SOMM 057), “strongly recommended” by BBC Music Magazine; and Somervell’s A Shropshire Lad and Maud (SOMMCD 0615), “performances of much beauty, empathy and sensitivity” (British Music Society).