AS NEW CONDITION

Issued to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Vaughan Williams’s death, this collection is tantalizing: it starts with one of the best-selling discs in the Hyperion catalogue, the Serenade to Music, and includes such favourites as the Five Mystical Songs and The Hundredth Psalm. There are also two intriguing pairings: in Dona nobis pacem, RVW warns of the impending doom of WWII, in A song of thanksgiving we hear his moving response to its successful conclusion; in The shepherds of the delectable mountains we hear an early working of Bunyan’s literary masterpiece, later extensively reworked in the landmark 1942 BBC radio production of The Pilgrim’s Progress featuring Sir John Gielgud and reprised here, this time in condensed form.

Artists

Elizabeth Connell (soprano), Amanda Roocroft (soprano), John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Martyn Hill (tenor), Maldwyn Davies (tenor), Anne Dawson (soprano), Linda Kitchen (soprano), Alan Opie (baritone), Gwynne Howell (bass), Thomas Allen (baritone), Nobuko Imai (viola), Judith Howarth (soprano), Matthew Souter (viola), Sir John Gielgud (narrator), Richard Pasco (narrator), Aidan Oliver (treble), Ursula Howells (narrator), Lynne Dawson (soprano), John Scott (organ), Roger Judd (organ), John Bowen (tenor), Catherine Wyn-Rogers (mezzo-soprano), Duke Dobing (flute), Bryn Terfel (baritone), Adrian Thompson (tenor), Jonathan Best (bass)

English Chamber Orchestra, Corydon Singers, Corydon Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, The London Oratory Junior Choir, Matthew Best