Added here with pleasure at the suggestion of Edward Johnson, John Steane in this BBC radio programme from 1989 discusses the work, Serenade to Music, VW wrote for Sir Henry Wood featuring sixteen singers, as recorded.
Sir Adrian Boult’s 1969 HMV recording, with sixteen singers (pragmatically, VW made alternative versions: four singers, chorus & orchestra; chorus & orchestra; orchestra without vocals):
Sleeve for ASD 2538 (singers listed on front):
I used to have the 78s of the original recording (with their special Henry Wood labels) and then the 45rpm transfer – but is this original recording still available? To me, it remains artistically unsurpassed, and the recording quality (also Abbey Road) was excellent for its day. It was this work that moved Rachmaninoff to tears (Weingartner passed his handkerchief to Rachmaninoff – they were sitting together in Lady Wood’s box at Queen’s Hall for the second half following Rachmaninoff playing his own Second Concerto in the first half) at that famous concert in 1938 marking Sir Henry’s Jubilee. The Serenade to Music remains a great masterpiece by any standards.
Dear Bob, you always have some interesting piece of knowledge or side-light to offer…What a memory!
Thanks, Monica – the Rachmaninoff story is told in Lady Jessie Wood’s book ‘The Last Years of Henry J. Wood’ – interestingly, Wood and Lady Jessie were never married – his first wife (a Russian countess I think) refused to divorce him, so Jessie changed her name by deed-poll to ‘Lady Jessie Wood’ which enabled her and Henry to live together as man and wife – which of course they did. Rachmaninoff had first met Vaughan Williams in 1910 in Leeds at the first performance of ‘A Sea Symphony (conducted by Vaughan Williams on his 38th birthday) Rachmaninoff played his own Second Concerto in the second half, conducted by Stanford – hearing Sea Symphony, I am convinced, led Rachmaninoff to write his own choral symphony The Bells a couple of years later.
Wow, Bob – I salute you! Living together unmarried was a pretty wild thing to do at that time. An interesting conjecture about The Bells. As Monty Bodkin might say (P.G.Wodehouse), ‘There are wheels within wheels.’