Vaughan Williams – ‘Five Tudor Portraits’

The London Chorus presents a thrilling programme of the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, one of the greatest of all British composers and a Chelsea resident for 24 years. His Five Tudor Portraits, masterful settings of the poems of John Skelton, priest and tutor to Henry VIII, are at times bawdy, poignant and witty, and deserve to be heard far more often.

We also hear his popular Five Mystical Songs, settings of the 17th-century poet and priest George Herbert, and his Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1, which conjures up an eloquent aural portrait of the Norfolk landscape and its people through five locally-sourced folk songs.

Emily Gray and Gareth Brynmor John star as soloists; The London Chorus and New London Orchestra are directed by William Vann, critically acclaimed in his conducting of the music of Vaughan Williams.

Sponsored by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society.