Hanover Terrace

Kate Molleson explores the Christmases Vaughan Williams spent back in London, living on Hanover Terrace.

“I’ve always loved carols” Vaughan Williams wrote to Cecil Sharp in 1911. Despite being called a “most determined atheist” by Bertrand Russell at University, and in later life “a cheerful agnostic”, the composer never lost his love for Christmas. It dated back to childhood memories of singing carols from Stainer and Bramley’s Christmas Carols New and Old at his home at Leith Hill Place, Surrey. As an adult, his lifelong passion for the Christmas period was demonstrated in his music - the Fantasia on Christmas Carols, On Christmas Night based on Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the cantata Hodie and the nativity play The First Nowell. His passion for collecting folk tunes in various counties of England – armed with a trusty pencil and paper, or at times a phonograph - also led to a plethora of carol settings using these folk tunes, as Vaughan Williams himself said “Every day some old village singer dies, and with him there probably die half-a-dozen beautiful melodies, which are lost to the world forever: if we would preserve what still remains we must set about it at once.” In this special week of programmes, Kate Molleson explores Vaughan Williams’s experiences of Christmas across his life alongside some of his best loved pieces, and the music he wrote to celebrate the festive period.

In the last programme of this week, Kate explores the Christmases Vaughan Williams spent back in London, living on Hanover Terrace, where he and his second wife Ursula held an annual carol party. Kate also explores the composer’s last trip to the USA and his final folk song collecting trip in 1955 and we will hear music from his Christmas pieces Hodie and The First Nowell.

Vaughan Williams
The First Nowell: IX: In Bethlehem City
Joyful Company of Singers
City of London Sinfonia
Richard Hickox, conductor

Vaughan Williams
On Wenlock Edge – V. Bredon Hill
James Gilchrist, tenor
Anna Tilbrook, piano
Fitzwilliam String Quartet

Vaughan Williams
Epithalamion (the bridal day) – Procession of the bride
Joyful Company of Singers
Britten Sinfonia
Alan Tongue, conductor

Vaughan Williams
Hodie (extract)
John Shirley-Quirk, bass-baritone
Dame Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano
Richard Lewis, tenor
Bach Choir
Westminster Abbey Choir
London Symphony Orchestra
Sir David Willcocks, conductor

Vaughan Williams
Symphony no 7 – V. Epilogue
Sir John Gielgud, narrator
Margaret Ritchie, soprano
London Philharmonic Choir
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Sir Adrian Boult, conductor

Trad
Seven Virgins (Leaves of Life)
Norma Waterson

Vaughan Williams (arr.)
The Seven Virgins
Derek Welton, baritone
Iain Burnside, piano
 
Vaughan Williams
The First Nowell – XX. The First Nowell
Sarah Fox, soprano
Roderick Williams, baritone
The Joyful Company of Singers
City of London Sinfonia
Richard Hickox, conductor

Produced by Sam Phillips for BBC Audio Wales and West