Pan's Anniversary Britten Sinfonia, Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, Graham Ross & William Vann

• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958): Pan's Anniversary:
• 1 Williams: Pan's Anniversary: Introduction 01:56
• Traditional: Pan's Anniversary:
• 2 Traditional: Pan's Anniversary: Presentation of the Nymphs 01:51
• Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637): Pan's Anniversary:
• 3 Jonson: Pan's Anniversary: Well Done My Pretty Ones 00:44
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Pan's Anniversary:
• 4 Williams: Pan's Anniversary: Loud Music 00:27
• Ben Jonson: Pan's Anniversary:
• 5 Jonson: Pan's Anniversary: Room for an Old Trophy of Time 01:53
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Pan's Anniversary:
• 6 Williams: Pan's Anniversary: Entry of the Boeotians 00:30
• John Graham: Pan's Anniversary:
• 7 Graham: Pan's Anniversary: Three Dances 01:33
• Ben Jonson: Pan's Anniversary:
• 8 Jonson: Pan's Anniversary: How Like You This, Shepherd 01:07
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Pan's Anniversary:
• 9 Williams: Pan's Anniversary: Of Pan We Sing 03:24
• Gustav Holst (1874 - 1934): Pan's Anniversary:
• 10 Holst: Pan's Anniversary: Entry of the Masquers 00:47
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Pan's Anniversary:
• 11 Williams: Pan's Anniversary: Pan Is Our All 05:09
• Gustav Holst: Pan's Anniversary:
• 12 Holst: Pan's Anniversary: Pavan 02:13
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Pan's Anniversary:
• 13 Williams: Pan's Anniversary: If Yet, If Yet 02:44
• Gustav Holst: Pan's Anniversary:
• 14 Holst: Pan's Anniversary: The Revels 07:35
• Ben Jonson: Pan's Anniversary:
• 15 Jonson: Pan's Anniversary: Room, Room, There 00:44
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Pan's Anniversary:
• 16 Williams: Pan's Anniversary: Entry of the Thebans 00:22
• John Graham: Pan's Anniversary:
• 17 Graham: Pan's Anniversary: Shepherd’s Hey 00:36
• Ben Jonson: Pan's Anniversary:
• 18 Jonson: Pan's Anniversary: Now Let Them Return 00:24
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Pan's Anniversary:
• 19 Williams: Pan's Anniversary: Great Pan 04:29
• Ben Jonson: Pan's Anniversary:
• 20 Jonson: Pan's Anniversary: Now Each Return Unto His Charge 00:25
• Gustav Holst: Pan's Anniversary:
• 21 Holst: Pan's Anniversary: Final Music 02:28
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Margery Wentworth (Arr. C. Gordon for Baritone, Choir & Orchestra):
• 22 Williams: Margery Wentworth (Arr. C. Gordon for Baritone, Choir & Orchestra) 04:08
• Peace, Come Away (Arr. C. Gordon for Voices & Wind Instruments):
• 23 Williams: Peace, Come Away (Arr. C. Gordon for Voices & Wind Instruments) 03:38
• To Sleep! To Sleep! (Ed. C. Gordon):
• 24 Williams: To Sleep! To Sleep! (Ed. C. Gordon) 06:29
• Thomas Tallis (1505 - 1585): 9 Psalm Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter:
• 25 Tallis: 9 Psalm Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter: No. 3, Why Fum'th in Sight 01:01
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (Arr. T. Burke for Voices & String Octet):
• 26 Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (Arr. T. Burke for Voices & String Octet) 15:11
• Total Runtime 01:11:48

Info for Pan's Anniversary

In 2022, we celebrate Vaughan Williams's 150th birthday, and the pinnacle of Albion Record's contribution to this important milestone is this Pan's Anniversary album, which contains five world premiere recordings.

First, Ben Jonson's masque Pan's Anniversary, as adapted for the Shakespeare Birthday Celebration at Stratford-upon-Avon, with incidental music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. At the heart of the music are four great Hymns to Pan for three female soloists, chorus and orchestra. Time was short, so Vaughan Williams delegated some of the dance arrangements to his friend Gustav Holst. The work was performed just once, on Easter Monday 1905 and was reconstructed for this recording.

There are two spoken parts, played here by Timothy West and Samuel West. The soloists Mary Bevan, Sophie Bevan and Jess Dandy are joined by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, and Britten Sinfonia under the baton of William Vann. Thomas Gould, the leader of Britten Sinfonia, plays some dances arranged for solo violin, and violin with side-drum.

In addition to this major work, we have three shorter (but lovely) premieres. Peace, Come Away and To Sleep! To Sleep! are two settings of poems by Tennyson that Vaughan Williams wrote when he was a student. They have been orchestrated and edited by the composer Christopher Gordon, who also orchestrated Margery Wentworth, a much later setting of poetry by John Skelton.

Finally, Timothy Burke made an arrangement of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for voices and string octet as an innovative lockdown project. This is the first full recording with the choir (of 39) and octet under one roof. The words set in the Fantasia were taken from the English translation of Psalm 65 from Archbishop Parker's Psalter, the source for Tallis's original setting, which is also heard on the disc.

This ambitious project has been generously supported by The Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust and by many members of The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society.

Samuel West, spoken dialogue
Timothy West, spoken dialogue
Thomas Hancox, piccolo
Sophie Bevan, soprano
Mary Bevan, soprano
Jess Dandy, contralto
Johnny Herford, baritone
Thomas Gould, violin
Joy Farrall, clarinet
William Lockhart, percussion
Choir of Clare College Cambridge
Britten Sinfonia
William Vann, conductor, musical director

Britten Sinfonia
n 1992, Britten Sinfonia was established as a bold reimagining of the conventional image of an orchestra. A flexible ensemble comprising the UK’s leading soloists and chamber musicians came together with a unique vision: to collapse the boundaries between old and new music, to collaborate with composers, conductors and guest artists across the arts, focussing on the musicians rather than following the vision of a principal conductor; and to create involving, intelligent music events that both audiences and performers experience with an unusual intensity.

The orchestra is named after Benjamin Britten, in part a homage to its chosen home of the East of England, where Britten’s roots were also strong. But Britten Sinfonia also embodies its namesake’s ethos. Its projects are illuminating and distinctive; characterised by their rich diversity of influences and artistic collaborators; and always underpinned by a commitment to uncompromising quality, whether the orchestra is performing in New York’s Lincoln Center or in Lincolnshire’s Crowland Abbey. Britten Sinfonia musicians are deeply rooted in the communities they work with, with an underlying philosophy of finding ways to reach even the most excluded individuals and groups.

Today Britten Sinfonia is heralded as one of the world’s leading ensembles and its philosophy of adventure and reinvention has inspired a new movement of emerging chamber groups. It is an Associate Ensemble at London’s Barbican, Resident Orchestra at Saffron Hall in Essex and has residencies in Norwich and Cambridge. It performs an annual chamber music series at London’s Wigmore Hall and appears regularly at major UK festivals including the Aldeburgh, Brighton, Norfolk and Norwich Festivals and the BBC Proms. The orchestra has performed a live broadcast to more than a million people worldwide from the Sistine Chapel, and toured to the US, Asia and much of Europe. It is a BBC Radio 3 Broadcast Partner and has award-winning recordings on the Hyperion and Harmonia Mundi labels.

Recent and current collaborators include Keaton Henson, Abel Selaocoe, Anoushka Shankar, Amazon rainforest photographer Sebastião Salgado and the Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge. Britten Sinfonia has been involved in over 200 commissions and world premieres, most recently working with composers such as Thomas Adès, Gerald Barry, Shiva Feshareki, Emily Howard, Brad Mehldau, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Dani Howard, Alissa Firsova, and Tansy Davies. The orchestra was a commissioning partner in a ground-breaking partnership between minimalist composer Steve Reich and visual artist Gerhard Richter in a new work that was premiered in October 2019.

Outside the concert hall, Britten Sinfonia musicians work on creative and therapeutic projects with pre-school children, teenagers, young carers, people living with dementia, life-time prisoners and older people at risk of isolation. The orchestra has two talent development schemes for composers: for composers near the start of their compostion journey and Magnum Opus, for composers who have achieved some success and are looking for more support to take the next step in their career.

William Vann
A multiple-prize winning and critically acclaimed conductor and accompanist, William Vann is equally at home on the podium or at the piano. Gramophone, reviewing Purer than Pearl, Albion Records’ 2016 disc of Vaughan Williams song, reserved “a special word of praise for William Vann’s deft pianism”; his recent revival of Hubert Parry’s oratorio Judith at Royal Festival Hall “was an unalloyed triumph for William Vann…he had complete command of the score and evident belief in the music” (Seen and Head International). His studio recording of Judith was released on Chandos Records in March 2020 and was subsequently shortlisted in the 2020 Gramophone Awards. William is the is the founder and Artistic Director of the London English Song Festival and the Director of Music at the Royal Hospital Chelsea.

Born in Bedford, he was a Chorister at King’s College, Cambridge and a Music Scholar at Bedford School. He subsequently read law and took up a choral scholarship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was taught the piano by Peter Uppard, and studied piano accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music with Malcolm Martineau and Colin Stone.

His many prizes for piano accompaniment include the Wigmore Song Competition Jean Meikle Prize for a Duo (with Johnny Herford), the Gerald Moore award, the Royal Overseas League Accompanists’ Award, a Geoffrey Parsons Memorial Trust award, the Concordia-Serena Nevill Prize, the Association of English Singers and Speakers Accompanist Prize, the Great Elm Awards Accompanist Prize, the Sir Henry Richardson Scholarship and the Hodgson Fellowship in piano accompaniment at the RAM.

William has collaborated across the world with a vast array of singers and instrumentalists, among them Sir Thomas Allen CBE, Mary Bevan, Katie Bray, Allan Clayton, Sarah Fox, James Gilchrist, Thomas Gould, Guy Johnston, Jennifer Johnston, Jack Liebeck, Aoife Miskelly, Ann Murray DBE, Matthew Rose, Kathryn Rudge, Brindley Sherratt, Nicky Spence, Toby Spence, Andrew Staples, Henry Waddington, Kitty Whately, Roderick Williams, the Benyounes and Navarra Quartets, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music and the London Mozart Players. Recent performances have included appearances at Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, the Royal Opera House, Sage, Gateshead and St John’s, Smith Square, at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Oxford Lieder and Machynlleth Festivals, the Northern Ireland Festival of Voice (broadcast on Radio 3) and abroad in France, Germany (on live ZDF television), Ireland, Nigeria, South Africa (National Arts Festival) and Sweden. His discography includes recordings with Albion, Champs Hill, Chandos, Delphian, Etcetera, Navona and SOMM, including a recent ground-breaking four-disc set of Vaughan Williams folk song settings on Albion with Mary Bevan, Nicky Spence, Roderick Williams and Jack Liebeck.

In addition to his performances of standard song repertoire, he has also either commissioned or given the first performances of new English songs and song cycles by several English composers, including Christian Alexander, Joseph Atkins, Martin Eastwood, Ian Venables, David Nield and Graham Ross (the latter two at Wigmore Hall). He recently conducted Roderick Williams and the London Mozart Players performing his own arrangement for chamber orchestra of George Butterworth’s Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad.

He is an Associate of the RAM, Musical Director of Dulwich Choral Society, a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, a Trustee of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, a Samling Artist, a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, the Co-Chairman of Kensington and Chelsea Music Society, the Artistic Director of Bedford Music Club, the Guest Conductor of the English Chamber Choir and a regular conductor and vocal coach at the Dartington and Oxenfoord International Summer Schools.

Booklet for Pan's Anniversary