Flexibility is evident in the performing forces RVW called upon for hisFour Hymns (1914), conceived as they for tenor voice with viola solo and piano; or viola solo and string orchestra; or piano with string quartet. Their first performance, delayed by war, occurred in Cardiff on 26 May 1920, in the second of their instrumental guises, conducted by Julius Harrison. The London premiere followed on 19 October that year, with RVW himself conducting similar forces.

The Four Hymns set two poets of the earlier seventeenth century, one from the turn of the eighteenth and one free translation from third-century Greek by Robert Bridges which had appeared in his Yattendon Hymnal (1894-99) and had been incorporated into The English Hymnal under the musical editorship of RVW in 1906. Melismatic vocal writing is more freely deployed here for purposes of heightened expression, and the vocal line often rises to operatic heights of pitch. Piano parts are largely self-sufficient, unsurprisingly given the provisional approach taken to available instrumentation. The declamatory first hymn moves freely in both its seamlessly fluctuating time signatures and its easy unifying of folk song and ancient church modality. The second presents an austere contrast, enhanced by the mixed Phrygian and Dorian modality of its initial theme. The hushed third hymn’s voiceless opening prefigures the chains of simple triads that begin the composer’s ‘Pastoral’ third symphony (1922). The last features a ground bass, its recurrent idea at odds with the bar length, thus imparting simultaneous unity and diversity to the texture. This finale approach was to be repeated in the passacaglia movement ending RVW’s beatific fifth symphony (1943, revised in 1951). The fourth hymn swells into a triumphant processional before subsiding to a serenely hushed conclusion.

from notes by Francis Pott © 2022