Search - Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Lindsay Wagstaff :: Holst, Vaughan Williams: Choral Music

This beautifully performed collection of part songs includes so many gems that space permits only brief discussion of a few. The Five English Folk Songs, settings of melodies collected by Vaughan Williams before World War I, are justly a favorite of choruses throughout the English-speaking world, as is Holst's setting of the Cornish carol "This Have I Done for My True Love." Both composers loved poetry and, in setting it, did some of their most evocative work, such as Holst's austere "Evening Watch" and the mesmerizing "Full Fathom Five" from Vaughan Williams's Three Shakespeare Songs. Among the few sacred works included here are the picks of this litter: Vaughan Williams's simple, graceful Communion motet "O Taste and See," and Holst's luscious "Ave Maria" for eight women's voices. --Matthew Westphal