Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Fantasia on Christmas Carols is a 1912 work for baritone, chorus, and orchestra by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.[1]
It was first performed on September 12, 1912 at the Three Choirs Festival at Hereford Cathedral; it was conducted by the composer with the baritone Campbell McInnes.
The single-movement work of roughly twelve minutes consists of the English folk carols "The truth sent from above", "Come all you worthy gentlemen" and the Sussex Carol ("On Christmas night all Christians sing"), all folk songs collected in southern England by Vaughan Williams and his friend Cecil Sharp a few years earlier.[2] These are interposed with brief orchestral quotations from other carols, such as The First Nowell.[2] The early work remains popular with choral societies, and is sometimes paired with his longer Christmas work Hodie of 1954.
Other versions
There is also a version of the Fantasia which replaces the orchestra with strings and organ.[3] A purely orchestral version, in which the solo vocal and choral parts were 'cued in' on the orchestral instruments, was performed in Studio 8H, New York, on 19 December 1943 by the NBC Symphony conducted by Leopold Stokowski. The broadcast of this unpublished version, which was presumably arranged by the conductor, has been released on a 'Guild Historical' CD and is also uploaded on YouTube.
An arrangement for baritone, chorus, and wind ensemble by Tim Laughlin has also been created.
See also
References
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- Hugh the Drover
- Sir John in Love
- The Poisoned Kiss
- Riders to the Sea
- The Pilgrim's Progress
- Job: A Masque for Dancing
- A Sea Symphony (Symphony No. 1)
- A London Symphony (Symphony No. 2)
- Pastoral Symphony (Symphony No. 3)
- Symphony No. 4 in F minor
- Symphony No. 5 in D major
- Symphony No. 6 in E minor
- Sinfonia antartica (Symphony No. 7)
- Symphony No. 8 in D minor
- Symphony No. 9 in E minor
- In the Fen Country
- Norfolk Rhapsodies
- Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
- Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus
- The Story of a Flemish Farm
- Concerto Grosso
- The Lark Ascending
- Flos Campi
- Piano Concerto
- Suite for Viola and Orchestra
- Oboe Concerto
- Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra
- Tuba Concerto
- Romance for viola and piano
- Six Studies in English Folk Song
- A Cambridge Mass
- Five Mystical Songs
- Fantasia on Christmas Carols
- O clap your hands
- Mass in G minor
- Sancta Civitas
- Magnificat
- Five Tudor Portraits
- Dona nobis pacem
- Serenade to Music
- An Oxford Elegy
- Folk Songs of the Four Seasons
- Three Shakespeare Songs
- O taste and see
- Hodie
- Songs of Travel
- On Wenlock Edge
- Four Hymns
- Ten Blake Songs
- Four Last Songs
- The Wasps
- The First Nowell
- 49th Parallel (1940 drama film)
- Coastal Command (1942 film)
- The Flemish Farm (1943 war film)
- Stricken Peninsula (1945 propaganda film)
- The Loves of Joanna Godden (1946 historical drama film)
- Scott of the Antarctic (1948 film)
- Bitter Springs (1950 film)
- The England of Elizabeth (1955 documentary)
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