Vaughan Williams: Sacred Choral Music

2010

“This fine Canadian choir perform very beautifully in a style which seems natural and right.
The Elora Festival Singers have much in common with King's College, Cambridge under Willcocks; relaxed and habituated, they offer the welcome loveliness of a choral tone where the blend and match of voices produce a sound that's eminently 'at unity with itself'. There's no shortage of good recordings of the Mass in G minor, the one that stands out as being openeyed and adventurous in spirit being the version on Meridian by the Choir of New College, Oxford. They favour a sharper tone, a quicker tempo in the Credo and a brighter acoustic. The choice between women's and boys' voices may prove the deciding factor when it comes to which version; the Elora Singers' female voices seem to give this music precisely what's required.
Yet more decisive may be the coupling. The two recordings by the college choirs couple music by other composers. The Canadians stay with Vaughan Williams, in a mood which assorts well with the Mass. Particularly apt is O vos omnes, also written for Sir Richard Terry and the Choir of Westminster Cathedral. The Skelton setting, Prayer to the Father of Heaven, from 1948 – a comparative rarity and sensitively performed – has a chill which is partly medieval, partly perhaps from the Antarctica of VW's Seventh Symphony. Down Ampney ('Come down, O Love divine') brings the warmth and cheer of a settled major tonality at the close.”