Fifteen years separate this Chandos recording of Vaughan Williams's 1936 cantata Dona nobis pacem from EMI's with Boult and the same choir and orchestra (nla). The present-day London Philharmonic Choir sound a more flexible body than their predecessors, and their diction is much better. Otherwise the differences between the two recordings are marginal. The new one was made in St Jude's Church in North London, which is obviously more reverberant than EMI's Kingsway Hall acoustic, but the balance is equally good on both—perhaps the Chandos soloists are placed further forward.
It is encouraging that Bryden Thomson has turned his attention to VW's choral masterpieces for, apart from Hodie, little remains in the catalogue from the splendid series issued in the 1960s and 1970s, under Boult, Willcocks and Meredith Davies. A new Sancta civitas is badly needed, for instance, and a really good new Five Tudor Portraits (just the work for Felicity Palmer, surely). Dona nobis pacem is an anthology of war allusions, on the lines of Bliss's Morning Heroes and some of Britten's works. This, and not the Fourth Symphony, was VW's warning of the wrath to come, though since the work was written to celebrate the Huddersfield choir's centenary, he ends it more or less optimistically.
Thomson conducts a strong, convincing and well-paced interpretation. In a modern recording, the full extent of Vaughan Williams's skilful writing for the percussion in ''Beat! Beat! Drums'' is revealed, and he brings the ''Dirge for Two Veterans'' to a thrilling climax (would anyone who didn't know realize that this movement was written 25 years before the rest?). The third Whitman setting, ''Reconciliation'', with its remarkable anticipation of Owen's Strange Meeting, contains some of the most elevated and moving music in the work. In spite of the 'scrapbook' technique, the cantata has a convincing unity, stemming from the urgency of the composer's message.
The Canadian soprano Edith Wiens sings her ethereal refrain of ''Dona nobis pacem'' with just the right blend of detachment and intensity, while Brian Rayner Cook could scarcely be bettered in the much larger baritone part—immaculate diction, steady tone, poetic understanding of the music and absolute integrity. He is the soloist, too, in the Five Mystical Songs where he avoids any tendency to become sanctimonious. These religio-erotic texts need a virile voice and that is what they get here.'