Hubert Foss, surveying the English public in 1949, conceded that it was gradually discovering Vaughan Williams in his old age. ''But,'' he asked, ''how often do we hear the Fourth Symphony, Flos Campi, the Magnificat, the Shelley songs? Is Hugh the Drover often played, or Sir John in Love?'' Ticking off that list now, with glances at the current Classical Catalogue, we can answer satisfactorily for our own time in respect of the first two items, but none too well for the rest. The stage works remain rarities, and both would be welcome on CD. For 'the Shelley songs' we probably have to look them up to see what they are (Six Choral Songs to be sung in time of War, 1940). Of the Magnificat this new record presents the only version presently available; and that goes for the rest of the works collected here.
The Magnificat (1930) is a wonderfully imaginative piece, using a solo flute (played with a fine range of colouring by Duke Dobing), to represent ''the disembodied, visiting spirit'', with women's voices for the Angels of the Annunciation, and Mary's song of praise set for mezzo-soprano or contralto. ''Ecstasy in austerity'' was Foss's phrase, a strange one in a way, for, as Christopher Palmer says in his excellent notes, there is a strongly sensuous element (he associates it with Debussy, and I seem to detect, momentarily, Puccini's Turandot). In fact, ''ecstasy in austerity'' would apply rather more aptly to The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains, for the texture here is relatively spare, and emotion, though always present, is restrained in its expression in all but a few climactic phrases. The performance here is admirable in its unhurried, unpressured intensity, with some splendid singing by Bryn Terfel.
The Three Choral Hymns (1930) are for Easter, Christmas and Whitsunday, the Christmas hymn beautifully catching the mystery of the Incarnation in its gentle rise and fall. The 100th Psalm ends with the setting of the Old Hundredth hymn-tune used in the 1953 Coronation. And A Song of Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving for Victory as it was known when first performed in 1945) has a heartfelt richness to it, the sonority and breadth given ample space in the recording and performance. Sir John Gielgud's voice has no longer the sonority to match this wealth of choral and orchestral sound; but it is still a voice which I daresay many of us would wish to hear rather than any other.'