Vaughan Williams: Riders to the Sea, Op. 1, Household Music & Flos campi

Featuring

Richard Hickox
Linda Finnie
Karl Morgan Daymond
Lynne Dawson
Ingrid Attrot
Pamela Helen Stephen

Peter Francomb
Philip Dukes
Royal Northern Sinfonia
Chorus of Royal Northern Sinfonia
Ralph Vaughan Williams

Did you know?

1/7

Performer Biography

Richard Hickox conducted the first complete cycle of Vaughan Williams's symphonies in London with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Vaughan Williams composed Household Music as a practical demonstration of his belief that wartime composers should write music playable on whatever instruments were available.

Performer Biography

Richard Hickox, the conductor on this album, was Music Director of Opera Australia and founded the City of London Sinfonia in 1971.

Compositional Technique

Flos Campi, a suite for solo viola, mixed chorus, and small orchestra, uses a wordless chorus throughout, with the solo viola performing the most eloquent 'singing'.

Composition History

Vaughan Williams did not commission a librettist for his opera Riders to the Sea, instead setting the play's dialogue almost without alteration.

Critical Reception

Riders to the Sea had an unsatisfactory stage history, possibly due to its bleak subject, brevity, and the political complication of an Englishman setting a beloved Irish play.