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 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. |
On Christmas Day
Albion has launched a new CD of folk-carols and folk-songs arranged by Vaughan Williams called On Christmas Day. This contains twenty-six tracks including such well-loved carols as God rest you merry, Gentlemen and The Wassail Song. The CD includes three song-cycles: the Eight Traditional English Carols, Six English Folk Songs and the world premiere recording of the Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire.
The Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire were arranged by Ella Mary Leather and Vaughan Williams from folk-song collecting in 1908 and again in 1912 in the Weobley area of Herefordshire. Accompanied by his first wife, Adeline, all three would sit on upturned buckets with RVW noting the music and the two women taking turns to note the texts. The result is a lovely song-cycle with many folk-carols saved from oblivion.
Vaughan Williams always loved the special atmosphere of Christmas carols. We hope you will also enyoy this Albion collection this Christmas.
Click HERE to buy or download the CD online
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Merstham
Redhill
RH1 3LX
Cheques for CDs to be made payable to Albion Records
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