Favourite unacc. carol from past 70 years

[Keraulophone]

Pierre Villette - Hymne à la Vierge (c.1955)

https://youtu.be/nMuyi5FjC7A

[ardcarp]

Pierre Villette - Hymne à la Vierge (c.1955)

Scrummy chords at the end!

I seem to remember Villette's wife saying that only English choirs gave her late husband's work decent performances.

[Keraulophone]

I seem to remember Villette's wife saying that only English choirs gave her late husband's work decent performances.

This was probably started by the late Donald Hunt recording Villette in Worcester during the 1970s, as Fiona Clampin's notes explain, in Stephen Layton's Holst Singers' disc devoted to the composer. David Briggs (lover of those gorgeous garlic and Gauloises harmonies) brought the Hymne to Truro's 9L&C via hearing it at King's, but, sadly, it's the only PV we or they have sung at that service.

Over the course of his life Pierre Villette produced around eighty pieces of music—mostly small-scale works for orchestra, chamber ensembles and choir. Although he was a contemporary of Pierre Boulez at the Conservatoire National Supérieure de Musique in Paris, Villette ploughed his own furrow when it came to composition. He eschewed the uncompromising modernity of much French twentieth-century music, drawing instead on early music, especially Gregorian chant, and the exotic textures and harmonies inherited from Poulenc and Messiaen. He loved the music of Fauré and Debussy and greatly admired Stravinsky, yet his musical language is unique—something Stephen Layton describes as both ‘spiritual and sensual’.

The phrase ‘no prophet is accepted in his own country’ is particularly apt in Villette’s case. His music’s sensual quality and approachable idiom have found favour with choirs and audiences alike in such diverse countries as the United States, Japan and Germany, and especially in the United Kingdom. The Hymne à la Vierge was once included in the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge, much to the composer’s delight. But as yet, few choirs in France perform his music, something that his widow Josette believes left Villette feeling a little disappointed. ‘I think religious music has more hold abroad than here in France. Cathedral choirs are thin on the ground these days, and as he was not based in Paris he did not have the kind of exposure a composer needed at the time to be well known in France’, she says. Fiona Clampin

Imagine how sniffy Boulez and his ilk would have been about the provincial Villette's out-of-vogue style. It's heart-warming to know that at least some of his music found a warm welcome across the Channel.

[ardcarp]

Just got the folder of music for a 9 lessons & carols service on Saturday. (Singing)

Be Merry (Stephen Cleobury)
Noel Nouvelet (Stephen Jackson)
Hymn to the Virgin (Britten)
There is no Rose (Stopforth)
O Magnum Mysterium (Archer)
Bulalow (James Burton)
Torches (Joubert)
Nativity (James Lavino b.1973)
Hodie (Alexander L'Estrange)

It's a co-incidence that nearly all come within the 70-year-rule. (Not the Britten, I guess. He wrote it whilst still at school.) The first two and last two might take a bit of rehearsal time. I hope the congregation...and it'll be a big one....aren't going to feel deprived of more traditional fare.

[Alain Maréchal]

Does anybody know: were the carol settings specificially for the children's section of the choir in "Hodie" composed for the work at the time of composing the rest of the work (1954)? Or did Vaughan Williams incorporate them from earlier standalone settings? If the former, I'm having those as my favourites, having sung at least one of them in my school choir..

I do not recall "carol settings" for the boy's choir, only settings of the gospel narrative. That is the way I have heard them in any of my recordings or performances I have attended but I concede the score may permit variants.

[Serial_Apologist]

I do not recall "carol settings" for the boy's choir, only settings of the gospel narrative. That is the way I have heard them in any of my recordings or performances I have attended but I concede the score may permit variants.

Thanks Alain. As I remember it now, we sang Section 5, the Chorale, as a separate anthem. Checking the words now, quite clearly it is not a carol as such. Other parts of the work refer to the Christmas story, though whether or not they constitute carols is a matter for debate, I would guess!

[Alain Maréchal]

I think section 15, the second Chorale, sounds good as a carol. Hodie must be one of the earliest works of Vaughan Williams I heard, performed in something that probably resembled English, and have always loved it. It was quite popular in Benelux in the sixties - possibly considered modern but approachable, and a change from the predictable (but quite charming) Rheinberger.

I learned "The Oxen" (the poem, not the music) as one of my first recitation pieces when learning English, and it still brings a lump to my throat. It's the last line that moves me every time.

[ardcarp]

Alain, there is a lovely setting of The Oxen (which probably sneaks into the thread heading!) by Philip Radcliffe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvlgHlsVcSY

...though this isn't my favourite rendition of it.