Ralph Vaughan Williams / Patrick Hadley

Fen For Yourself

Jeff Dunn on September 27, 2011
Ralph Vaughan Williams / Patrick Hadley
Ralph Vaughan Williams / Patrick Hadley

In the history of rock ’n’ roll, the Champs’ 1958 Train to Nowhere went nowhere, compared to the B side of that single, Tequila. A similar result may occur with the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society’s sponsorship of a premiere recording, on the Albion label, of its hero’s choral work The Garden of Proserpine, because Patrick Hadley’s cantata Fen and Flood, also on the CD, puts The Garden into the shade.

Oh, the Vaughan Williams is a nice piece, all right. Written from 1897 to 1899, it reflects the fine schooling he had just received from Charles Stanford, Herbert Parry, and Max Bruch. It’s his first major composition. But the stylistic VW you know and love is scarcely to be found. Vaughan Williams had not yet begun collecting folk songs, so his melodies, pleasant enough as they are, have more of a generic European character. You’ll even find one in the excerpt that bears a resemblance to Puccini’s “Un bel di,” written five years later for Madama Butterfly. Occasionally, his use of modal harmonies offers a glimpse of things to come.

Listen To The Music

Hadley: Fen And Flood - Part1. - Walsingham (excerpt)

Vaughan Williams: The Garden Of Proserpine (excerpt)

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A.C. Swinburne’s 1866 Poems and Ballads contains two poems about Proserpine, the Latinized version of the name for the Greek goddess of the Underworld. Both elaborate a theme of life-abandoning resignation, exemplified in “Hymn to Proserpine”: “For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.” Vaughan Williams takes similar words from “The Garden of Proserpine” (such as “I am weary of days and hours ... and everything but sleep” in the excerpt) but couches them in a much warmer, even positivistic, musical setting than its words might suggest.

The Hadley cantata, in contrast, is as specific in time, place, and style as the Vaughan Williams cantata is general; Hadley’s music is as mature in his career as Vaughan Williams’ is preliminary; and the content is as ordinary as Swinburne’s is profound. The 1955 Fen and Flood, though inspired by a 1953 disaster, is more accurately an incidental history of England’s low-lying agricultural region called the Fens. Only about 15 percent of the music deals with the 1953 flood, while the rest presents often charming vignettes of past times, from medieval days forward.

Of particular note are the stirring chorales that end each of the two parts of the 21-minute cantata, the beautiful “Weep oh weep for Walsingham,” the cheery “Monks of Ely,” and Hadley’s sensitive setting of “The Lynn Apprentice,” a tune made famous in Vaughan Williams’ Norfolk Rhapsody No. 2. As a bonus, Vaughan Williams’ arrangement of the folk tune is included, as well. Attractive as the Hadley highlights are, however, be warned that most run only about one minute. These segments and others are tied together with a sung narration. Unfortunately, the climactic four-minute section called “The Floods” is the least interesting number in the entire cantata.

Performances by soprano Mary Bevan and baritone Leigh Melrose in Fen and Flood are excellent, while mezzo Jane Irwin is more than adequate for The Garden of Proserpina. I would have liked a bit more articulation of the words from all principals and chorus, but the rarity of these works and the overall high quality of interpretation make this CD an attractive choice for any lover of music in the British choral tradition.

The one cut that’s not unusual is Vaughan Williams’ 1904 tone poem In the Fen Country. Paul Daniel and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, while perfectly acceptable (as they are for the rest of the CD), simply have too much competition out there. I would have preferred that they had taken on another rarity instead.

By the way, any lover of great English choral music who hasn’t heard Hadley’s masterpiece The Trees So High should go forth and obtain it immediately.