The Touches of Sweet Harmony

I want to go out on my limb right at the outset.  Argue with me at your peril.

Considering music as music, I venture to suggest that the most musically perfect setting ever made of Shakespeare's poetry is the Serenade to Music composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams (yes, him again!) in 1938.

For starters, I have long felt that the Garden Scene from Act V of The Merchant of Venice is one of the most beautiful poetic set-pieces of Shakespeare's entire career.  When Vaughan Williams took up this poetry at the very height of his lyrical and orchestral powers, the result was and is an absolutely glorious marriage of words and music.

That, by the way, isn't my metaphor.  Michael Kennedy, the great English scholar and musicologist, described the long orchestral introduction of the Serenade (which introduces several of the main themes) and then simply added: "Thereafter, words and music, indissolubly wedded, speak for themselves."  And that really is all anyone needs to say.

The Serenade to Music was composed in 1938 for a special occasion: a Jubilee Concert to honour the 50th anniversary of the conducting career of Sir Henry Wood, the Music Director of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.  Vaughan Williams composed a piece of music like no other, setting Shakespeare's poetry for orchestra and sixteen solo voices of sixteen singers closely associated with Wood.  After that memorable premiere (and the mono recording made soon afterwards) he revised the piece for the more conventional choir and four soloists, and that's the form in which it's usually heard.

This post was triggered by the unusual treat of hearing the Serenade performed live in the original version for multiple soloists.  The Elmer Iseler Singers sang it thus at the Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound last night, and did the music full justice.  They are one of the very few chamber choirs I know that would dare such a feat, and 'tis pity only a few hundred people got to hear the performance.

You see, recordings of the Serenade to Music as originally composed are very rare birds.  The first mono recording has been available on a specialist label devoted to historic reissues (I haven't heard it but have read that it is certainly worth seeking out).  Sir Adrian Boult recorded it in stereo in the late 1960s as fill-up to the equally lyrical Fifth Symphony, and this record has long been a favourite of mine.  Hyperion Records did a more recent version which I felt was let down by one or two instances of wobbly intonation, and a couple of overly-broad vibratos.  These are the only versions of the original Serenade that I know of, and would be glad to hear of others.  But for me, the Boult recording approaches to perfection -- singers in every part as nearly perfectly matched to their roles as in 1938.  If you can find that, don't hesitate.

I will confidently predict that anyone who hears this music for the first time will fall under its spell immediately, and anyone who has only heard it with choir-and-solo-quartet will feel a sense of revelation when hearing it performed as originally written.

"Soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony."