Ralph Vaughan Williams: Serenade Ralph Vaughan Williams - Various Artists

• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958): Flourish for 3 Trumpets:
• 1 Williams: Flourish for 3 Trumpets 00:35
• Serenade to Music (Arr. D. Briggs for Organ):
• 2 Williams: Serenade to Music (Arr. D. Briggs for Organ) 14:49
• She's Like the Swallow:
• 3 Williams: She's Like the Swallow 02:26
• The Winter’s Gone and Past:
• 4 Williams: The Winter’s Gone and Past 02:46
• I Will Give My Love an Apple:
• 5 Williams: I Will Give My Love an Apple 01:28
• 4 Cambridge Flourishes for 4 Trumpets:
• 6 Williams: 4 Cambridge Flourishes for 4 Trumpets: Flourish Nos. 1 & 2 00:59
• For All the Saints Who from Their Labours Rest:
• 7 Williams: For All the Saints Who from Their Labours Rest 07:08
• 4 Cambridge Flourishes for 4 Trumpets:
• 8 Williams: 4 Cambridge Flourishes for 4 Trumpets: Flourishes Nos. 3 & 4 00:58
• Aristophanic Suite from "The Wasps":
• 9 Williams: Aristophanic Suite from "The Wasps": III. March-Past of the Kitchen Utensils (Arr. D. Briggs for Organ) 04:04
• Suite for Four Hands on One Pianoforte:
• 10 Williams: Suite for Four Hands on One Pianoforte: I. Prelude 04:13
• 11 Williams: Suite for Four Hands on One Pianoforte: II. Minuet (First Version) 02:03
• 12 Williams: Suite for Four Hands on One Pianoforte: III. Sarabande 01:58
• 13 Williams: Suite for Four Hands on One Pianoforte: IV. Gigue 01:05
• Household Music, 3 Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes:
• 14 Williams: Household Music, 3 Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes: Var. 3, Aberystwyth (Arr. H. Byard for Organ) 06:10
• Pezzo Ostinato (Arr. L. Rhodes for Organ):
• 15 Williams: Pezzo Ostinato (Arr. L. Rhodes for Organ) 03:25
• 5 Mystical Songs:
• 16 Williams: 5 Mystical Songs: No. 4, The Call (Arr. H. Byard for Organ) 02:09
• 2 Herefordshire Carols (Arr. P. Hindmarsh for Brass Band):
• 17 Williams: 2 Herefordshire Carols (Arr. P. Hindmarsh for Brass Band) 04:27
• Traditional:
• 18 Traditional: Dives and Lazarus (Arr. R.V. Williams for Choir) 03:58
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Randolph:
• 19 Williams: Randolph 02:05
• Total Runtime 01:06:46

Info for Ralph Vaughan Williams: Serenade

We celebrate the 150th birthday of Ralph Vaughan Williams, on Wednesday 12 October 2022, with this unique compilation album.

The album takes its name from Serenade to Music, transcribed here for organ by David Briggs and recorded on the Willis organ of Truro Cathedral. David also gives us quite an astonishing transformation of the March Past of the Kitchen Utensils from The Wasps.

We hear premiere recordings of a Flourish for Three Trumpets and Four 'Cambridge' Flourishes for Four Trumpets, played by members of Tredegar Town Band, and we hear the whole band later in an arrangement of Two Carols made by Paul Hindmarsh using Vaughan Williams's harmonies. There are three folk songs from Albion's Complete Folk Songs series, but these are new recordings for this album, each of the three soloists singing a folk song previously recorded by one of the others.

Lynn Arnold and Charles Matthews reprise the early Suite for Four Hands on One Pianoforte, with the original version of the Minuet. Charles Matthews goes on to play organ arrangements of three works by Vaughan Williams. We conclude with a hymn tune that Vaughan Williams named after his cousin and best man, Ralph Wedgwood, known to his friends as Randolph, set to words that Vaughan Williams salvaged from a Moody and Sankey hymn: God be with you till we meet again.

Serenade is a mixed bag of an album, and is both a celebration of a great anniversary and a further contribution to Albion's rich harvest of lesser-known works and new (and old) arrangements.

David Briggs, organ
Mary Bevan, soprano
Nicky Spence, tenor
Roderick Williams, baritone
Lynn Arnold, piano
Charles Matthews, harpsichord, organ
Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea
William Vann, conductor
Tredegar Town Band
Ian Porthouse, conductor

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.

Ian Porthouse
is regarded as one of the brass band movement’s leading conductors, educators, performers and teachers. The Head of Brass Band Studies at Birmingham Conservatoire hails from a musical family in the heart of Cumbria, where he became principal cornet and a founder member of the Cumbria Youth Brass Band.

At 16, he became leader of the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain and his outstanding talents soon saw him become principal cornet with Desford Colliery and Black Dyke, who he helped to claim historic major championship winning successes. During this time he also played with a number of the world’s finest instrumentalists at iconic concert venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York, and as a featured soloist with Phillip Smith, Principal Trumpet with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

His first connection with Tredegar Band came in 1995 when he became principal cornet and conductor of their youth band, before moving north two years later to become principal cornet of Yorkshire Building Society Band.

In 2008 he made his long awaited return to Wales when he accepted the position as Musical Director of Tredegar Band – a move that has since seen them become one of the world’s leading contest and concert ensembles; winning a unique Grand Shield/British Open ‘double’ in 2010 and consecutive All England Masters International titles in 2011 and 2012.

Those achievements saw Tredegar voted ‘Band of the Year’ and Ian voted ‘Conductor of the Year’ by the influential online magazine 4Barsrest.com in 2010, whilst under his direction they have also released critically acclaimed CD recordings and in 2015 performed alongside the Rambert Ballet Company at Sadler’s Wells.

Tredegar’s current position as the number 5 ranked band in the world has been substantiated by further major championship success under Ian’s direction.

Booklet for Ralph Vaughan Williams: Serenade