 Since its formation in 1994, The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society – a registered charity, with more than 1,000 members – has sought to raise the profile of the composer through publications, seminars and sponsorship of performances and recordings. The Society’s successes include the publication of Ursula Vaughan Williams’s autobiography with its main focus on her relationship with Ralph, and the sponsorship of significant performances, beginning with the Albion Opera Festival in London in 1997, followed by many more performances including all five operas in and around the anniversary year of 2008. More recently, the Society has been closely involved with important premičres including the Cambridge (doctoral) Mass, Willow Wood, and The Garden of Proserpine. In 2007, the Society launched its record label, Albion Records, devoted to recordings of rare RVW. Our vision is that each Albion CD will contain at least one world premičre recording, and you can see from our list that this vision has been realised again and again. Our world premičre release of The Garden of Proserpine, an early setting of a poem by Swinburne, spent five weeks on Gramophone Magazine’s Specialist Classical Chart, and joined earlier Albion releases in attracting excellent reviews from Gramophone and others. Amazon gives this and some earlier releases a five star rating. We confidently expect our new recording “On Christmas Day” to be received every bit as warmly. | New Albion Archive Release of rare Vaughan Williams
A two-CD set of archive recordings is now available. This issue (ALBCD 014) features Alexander Young (tenor) in both On Wenlock Edge and Merciless Beauty. The main work is a 1952 recording of the Five Tudor Portraits taken live from the first International Music Festival in Pittsburgh. The bonus CD is a talk by Vaughan Williams on Bach – The Great Bourgeois. Of real additional interest is the release of the premiere broadcast performance of the rare Prelude on Three Welsh Hymn Tunes, from 1955.
This is the first Albion Archive set and all the recordings are taken from the 1950s or from 1960. Both Merciless Beauty and the Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes have never been issued before in any format. The talk by Vaughan Williams complements the issue on Albion ALBCD 009 of the composer discussing The teachings of Parry and Stanford. Such talks give great insight into the humour and wisdom of Vaughan Williams.
Full texts and notes are included and the price of the two CDs is just £10.00 plus postage and packing at £1.80 Click HERE to buy or download the CD online 27 Landsdowne Way Bexhill on Sea East Sussex TN40 2UJ Cheques for CDs to be made payable to Albion Records
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