In 1908 - a year of import to Sydney Grew - a new Anglican hymn book was published and RVW was the music editor.  So to mark the anniversary of his death to day I thought it would be interesting to see what he said in his preface to English Hymnal:




This will have influenced the musical experience of thousands who would never have attended a concert hall.

A moral not a musical issue... 

And Grewvian joking aside, the date 1908 may be significant.  What contemporary composer is producing church music for amateurs (not choirs) to sing?  (This is not meant to be snide.)

It is interesting that although RVW presupposes a choir, he is as concerned that the congregation should be actively participating by singing, some 60 years before Vatican 2 applied the same principle to RC services.

Whilst I can understand where you're coming from, DB (and why), I'd suggest that it's your choice of preposition which allows you this rather unusual view concerning the composer's influence. The moment one replaces 'on' with 'in', there's much more opportunity to view the many areas in which his influence was stronger still (and has had a far wider and longer-lasting effect). His work in collecting and preserving folk songs, for a start, not to mention the way in which he and Holst used them as important crowbar by which to prise British symphonic music away from the stodgy sub-Germanic academic tradition under which it had stifled for so long.

 His major influence on the amateur music scene should not be discounted, either: the vitality of the English amateur choral tradition, with its festivals and competitions, is in no small way due to his pioneering work. His support for his fellow composers, even when their music or moral standpoint was very different to his own, had a far-reaching effect on the nation's musical status, too.

Music in Britain in general, and England in particular, found its course changed in his wake: to concentrate solely on his work on the English Hymnal is to represent but a tiny (and atypical) portion of his vast legacy to the nation's musical fabric.

Does anyone know which tunes VW was talking about when he mentions unsuitable popular tunes being sung by congregations - presumably popular/music hall tunes of the day?   

What RVW was against were what he elsewhere called "the sentimental effusions of the Barnby school" of which there were a good many in Hymns Ancient and Modern. In paragraph 6 of his preface, indeed, he appears to compare such 'effusions' unfavourably with music-hall ditties.

"...worthy neither of the congregations who sing them, the occasions on which they are sung, nor the composers who wrote them."

Oh what an old fence-sitter he was. Go on, tell us what you really think!

In not a few of the services in which I've participated as warbler over the years the most musically satisfying part of it all has been a jolly good hymn. Invariably in these cases it has been from the RVW English Hymnal. (And many a sermon has only been made endurable by a renewed perusal of its Preface.) There's a wonderful range of music (within its brief of course) from plainsong to some of Bach's most fiendish chorales. As far as I'm concerned it's a brilliant achievement and I heartily join in DB's celebration of it.

(I did try to obtain one some years ago but could only find the new edition available for purchase. If anyone knows where to obtain one, or has one to spare that's in reasonable nick, do let me know.)

There is a ook a available which collects various of Vaughan Williams's writings, including the preface to the EH.  He really doesn't pull his punches, I've had a quick look on Amazon and can't find it, I've got a copy at home, and I'll try to post details.

Don B, the fest of church music overseen by the thames valley uni -about April yearly I  think-might be one to watch-it tends to feature commissions or recent stuff. A retired r3 presenter I met a couple of years ago ( so glad to be out 'that place') had occasion pen his Op.1 as a filler for a Xmas OB from the church he now manages. I didnt see the score but he said he felt encouraged to do more. You'll know more about this but there seems to be a ring-fenced network , in a positive sense, for the ecclesiastical rep that eases the way to publication-bit like the SP and S in the Sally Army.

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