Ralph Vaughan Williams – Fantasia on Christmas Carols
for Baritone Solo, Chorus and Organ (1912)
Vaughan Williams composed the Fantasia on Christmas Carols in 1912. It was first performed at Hereford Cathedral during the Three Choirs Festival conducted by the composer. 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. These are interposed with brief instrumental quotations from other carols, such as The First Nowell Vaughan Williams dedicated the work to Cecil Sharp.
The music is typical of Vaughan Williams' earlier style relying heavily on a juxtaposition of modal harmony alongside direct quotations from folk songs (or Carols in this instance) he collected himself. It was around this time, however, that his musical style started to change. Many consider this a direct result of the time Vaughan Williams spent studying with Ravel in Paris (1907-1908), although the extent to which Ravel truly influenced him is disputed. Ravel famously declared Vaughan Williams to be "my only pupil who does not write my music"; however, critics have commented that Vaughan Williams’s instrumental textures were lighter and sharper in the music written after his return from Paris, such as the String Quartet in G minor, On Wenlock Edge, the Overture to The Wasps and A Sea Symphony. Vaughan Williams himself is reputed to have said that Ravel helped him escape "the heavy contrapuntal Teutonic manner" in which he had composed previously.
The Fantasia opens with an evocative solo bass line, played by cello in the orchestral version, which introduces the text of the first section, This is the truth sent from above, sung by the baritone soloist. The wordless choral accompaniment underscores the simplicity of this opening section, which concludes again with the solo bass line.
The second section, Come all you worthy gentlemen builds to use the full choral forces to proclaim "tidings of comfort and joy" before subsiding once more at the introduction of the third section. This is a setting of the Sussex Carol ("On Christmas night all Christians sing"), which Vaughan Williams himself had collected.
The final section interweaves the choruses of the second and third with instrumental references to a number of other carols and folk melodies. Finally the tranquility of the opening returns and the voices vanish into the distance.
