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Vaughan Williams' Vocal Music

(Part-songs etc, either unaccompanied or with light accompaniment)

For the lyrics of these songs, see the excellent recmusic.org archive.

  • Come away death
  • Dirge for Fidele
  • Drinking song (from Sir John in love)
  • Five wartime hymns
  • Heart's music
  • It was a lover and his lass
  • Let us now praise famous men
  • Linden Lea (numerous arrangements of...)
  • The new Commonwealth
  • Rest
  • Sigh no more, Ladies (from Sir John in love)
  • Silence and music
  • Sound sleep
  • Sun, moon, stars and man
  • Take, O take those lips away
  • Three children's songs for a spring festival
  • Three Elizabethan songs
  • Three Shakespeare songs (see entry in Songs section)
  • The Vagabond (from Songs of travel)
  • Valiant for Truth
  • Wedding chorus (from Sir John in love)
  • When icicles hang
Unpublished Vocal Works
  • Rise early sun
  • Two vocal duets

See also the list of Song Cycles and Stage Works for cross references.


Background Information

Valiant-for-Truth

"This intense a cappella choral piece Vaughan Williams wrote on the death of his friend Dorothy Longman. The text comes from John Bunyan. Though short, it moves the heart to pure joy as Mr. Valiant-for-Truth enters the Celestial City and "all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side. Please play this at my funeral."

"Christopher Robinson leads the Choir of Worcester Cathedral and gives no hint of the glories of this piece, structured like a great sermon. It starts low, but with intensity. There are several builds throughout which fall back until a triumphant, blazing end. This piece gives us quite a bit of the composer in little: a modal line, by turns serene and edgy; harmonies, strange but right, that pierce you; contrapuntal mastery and a subtle, highly sophisticated sense of syncopation; long, almost symphonic musical paragraphs. Perhaps no performance can live up to my expectations, but Robinson just walks through the piece. About all you can say of it is that the choir is mostly in tune. The words and the tunes fail to grab you. It's as if you were listening to Shakespeare read as a quarterly report. If you're willing to use your imagination, however, to supply the emotional depth missing in this account, get this disc." -- Steve Schwartz

Recommended Recordings :
  • Choir of Worcester Cathedral; Christopher Robinson, cond. Chandos CHAN 6550.
  • Oxford Christ Church Cathedral Choir. Nimbus Records. NI 5083.

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