Search - Alan Opie, Bryn Terfel, Ralph Vaughan Williams :: Vaughan Williams: The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains

Glorious

Chris Johnson | 03/23/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Vaughn Williams' "A Song of Thanksgiving" is the greatest piece of music ever written that almost no one has heard. The version here, with John Gielgud doing the spoken parts, is so powerfully beautiful it is almost frightening. That's the best description I can come up with. Everything else on this CD is also wonderful and the sound quality is extraordinary.Buy this now."

Beautiful music

Paul E. Stroble | Akron, OH USA | 11/06/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These pieces are surely among RVW's most beautiful music. As Chris Johnson writes, "Song of Thanksgiving" is powerful and beautiful, and so is "The 100th Psalm." "Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains" is as lovely as the corresponding sequence in RVW's opera "Pilgrim's Progress" but the finale in the Eternal City is more beautifully realized. I turn to this CD again and again!"

Bravo, especially for the "Song of Thanksgving"

R. Evans | Montgomery AL | 04/04/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have to agree with Chris Johnson's description of the "Song of Thanksgiving" as "the greatest piece of music ever written that almost no one has heard." This is a piece that should be performed much more often, although it is hard to imagine a speaker better suited to the piece than the late Sir John Gielgud, whose own voice in this recording is itself a musical instrument. (The speaker in the only other recording I have heard is not nearly as good, although that recording has the virtue of bringing out the sound of the organ to grand and glorious effect.) If there is one tiny flaw in the present recording of the "Song," it is in the soprano's pronunciation of the very last syllable she sings (which is also the very last syllable of the whole piece), which seems to lag a bit. Otherwise, this is an absolutely first-rate performance of a very moving piece.

By the way, another unjustly neglected piece by Vaughan Williams is his "Pilgrim Pavement," which is available on a recording of the venerable fifth symphony. It is another piece that should be much more widely performed and recorded."