I sang this at a small community college in central Florida back in 1981. I was a music major and had a love for all his works. This was only the beginning of my mucis journey. Its more powerful now that i found Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. The best part of this work is all the bible references found in this piece. Some have not come to pass yet. I would like to sing this again if i ever get the chance. I hope his works live on forever. 73
I was lucky enough to perform this piece at the Kennedy Center in DC over Memorial Day weekend about five or so years ago and I’ve gotta say that standing for half an hour and singing this challenging piece was the longest half hour of my life, but looking back on it, I’m so honored to have been able to perform this masterpiece under Dr. Jessop and it was the highlight of my sophomore year if not my entire high school experience.
And I got to do this under Jessop's baton in Ely Catherdal in England for the 100th anniversary of the armistice of WWI. I'm so glad someone else out there got to know the amazingness of the combo of Craig Jessop and RVW. Amazingly powerful! Did you go straight into Mack Wilberg's "Let Peace Then Still The Strife" as soon as this one ended?
And I got to sing this at Carnegie Hall in New York City with my high school Symphonic Choir my junior year. Not only us but we sang with about 3 other high school choirs, as well as a professional adult choir, AND the top elite mixed choir of a VERY prestigious university in my state known as Capital University. All of us together in one giant choir perform this piece under Dr. Linda Hassler choral director of Capital University (an absolute legend in the choral world and one of the greatest musical directors I've ever had the pleasure of meeting). 2 of her former students performed the soprano and baritone solos. In fact a short video snippet of that performance is somewhere here on UA-cam. It was the greatest experience of my time in high school and the greatest performance of my career. I will be forever grateful and I am determined to make it back to the Carnegie Hall stage someday to sing ALONE. Perform a beautiful aria for an adoring crowd on one of the greatest stages worldwide.
I was there for this! I was in a community choir in Idaho Falls and we were invited to come. In our own performance I was chosen to sing the solo in mvmts 3 and 6-- definitely a highlight of my musical career
Like in other comments: I sang this at Cologne University Germany and it was great - about 120 Students singing and nearly the same number of instrumentalists in the Orchestra... I forgot the name of the conductor; he was the so called "general music director of cologne university" and he made quite a good job. Singing this in a big churches was a fantastic experience. This was about 1985 - through all these years til now the music and lyrics of this great composition were present in my mind. since I use youtube I listened sometimes to a record of this music, but this one is very similar to my memory, so I like this one best of all. Thank you for uploading this Version.
I sang this on the Carnegie Hall stage in New York City my junior year of high school in a MASSIVE choir made up of 2 professional choirs, a university chapel choir my school's Symphonic Choir (me) and 2 other high school choirs. The university was a very prestigious university in the capital of my state. They have one of the greatest college music programs in the entire country and their director is known around my country as well. She was the one who directed all of us. The whole choir as well as the orchestra. What I would give to perform on the Carnegie Hall stage again but this time ALONE. Performing my own aria for a massive adoring crowd. I'd also give anything to perform this beautiful song again.
My wife and I had performed this wonderful work twice! At one performance, our two mothers were present, and in the Dirge for Two Veterans they were both in tears. What an incredible work!
The second movement brings me to tears, and I don’t stop crying till it’s over. I feel so much more human after listening to this. ... Bryn Terfel’s singing is out of this world.
Sang Bass 2 with the City Choir of Washington's 'Farewell to Arms' concert yesterday at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC at the commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day. Absolutely stunning concert; even more meaningful as a veteran who served over 25 year in the U.S. Army. Movement IV was the most poignant and beautiful for me. And still we have not learned from our past.
Performed this (was a tenor/baritone) in high school along with our school's top orchestra! One of my fondest memories from that time. Part IV in particular, especially the opening drum roll, gives me chills to this day.
Always when I listen to RVW I am amazed at his ability to set the text with the most fitting rhythmic structure. He try's to keeping words true to there natural spoken rhythm. It makes the pieces he writes feel so genuine and true to the texts meaning.
One of the most powerful works ever written. I first heard this on the radio when I was in my teens and was absolutely captivated. It has never lost its impact on me.
Oh my word....I can't believe I am just discovering this work!!!! It is so beautiful and moving!!! Vaughan Williams is one of my favorite composers so how on earth did I miss this gem!!!??? :-) Thank you so much for posting this. :-)
This has been my all-time favorite choir piece for years. It's just so heartbreaking, hopeful, beautiful, and timely and also perfectly displays all the powers of choir music. Somehow this is the piece I love, despite my disdain for much of Vaughn Williams' other vocal music. I finally get to sing this piece again in a few days, and I can't wait to bring new ears, soul, and musicianship to the work! Edit: Coming back to this comment 2 years later, and I haven’t had the opportunity to be apart of a choir, let alone one with an orchestra, in so long now. I’m honestly super grateful and incredibly lucky to have been able to perform this masterwork TWICE in my life!! Neither time was with the original orchestration, but both were incredibly influential and important in my life as a musician and a person. Perhaps someday I’ll get the opportunity to perform this a third time, with the full orchestra and everything! Then I would really be stupendously blessed.
Some of us have difficulty with any sort of dissonance or deviation from patterns (I'm on the autism spectrum, for example). I didn't give it a thumbs down, but I didn't care as much for the very first piece.
Sometimes people also just have preferred recordings. I have very strong opinions about Rachamaninov’s all-night vigil because of some of the recordings I’ve heard - they were the right notes, but there’s a lot more than the right notes in making a good recording.
The string chords at 11:27, and again later: I think Howard Leslie Shore was thinking of this when he scored The Lord of the Rings, I believe the theme for the One Ring.
Exactly what I thought! That ti-do in octaves over the minor chord is definitely the start of the Ring theme! Ti-do, ti-do-ti-la-do ti-me..... I fell in love with Howard Shore before hearing the composers of VW's era; perhaps that's why I fell in love with them as well!
Got to perform this quite a while ago. It's amazing to have the booming choir behind you! I love this piece -- it's probably one of my favourites from Vaughan Williams!
Great piece. Performed this in April this year in Huddersfield town hall, with an augmented Royal Northen Symphonia and Roddy Williams. Belshazzar's Feast in the second half nearly lifted the new roof off !! My only complaint is that this recording is very slow in parts. Movement IV is meant to be marcato (80) not larghetto. (60)
Just performed this in the midst of the Ukraine situation. We even have a student from Ukraine in out choir, and it just added even more power and meaning to the piece.
Working on this with our choir to perform in March. Being an casual amateur singer I’d never heard this, but I LOVE it now! Can’t wait to join with the symphony orchestra. UW-Marshfield/Wood County
Checkout RVW conducting the piece. I much prefer the soprano in that recording. It's tough, because I love Bryn terfel oh, but I am not as moved by this performance as I am by the premier conducted by the composer. Plus I'm continually struck by how much reference there is to movie scores written long afterwards. Like Ben-Hur for example. LOL
Please watch this at the lowest quality only (144p) since it's just for the music, which is much more ecologically responsible than at a higher rate. Watching this at 240p (which is unnecessary for listening purposes), will increase the bandwith by double to almost tenfold! At 1080 the bandwith is augmented by a factor of 100! The use of digital technology accounts for 4% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, as much as the emissions from the world's truck fleet. Of that, a BIG part comes from livestreaming videos, mainly 3 sources : UA-cam, Netflix and porn. Let's enjoy this beautiful music by being aware and responsible, doing our little part in decreasing our carbon footprint and protecting this wonderful planet for the generations to come.
@@liserbiser I'm not saying that RVW made a mistake, but rather the copier. The quarter note at the beginning of the middle measure should be a half note otherwise, there aren't enough beats in the measure. Either that, or there needs to be a triplet.
@@RowanAckerman Yes, I was just trying to be funny. ;) That one's probably a printing error, considering all the other parts have a half note. But his rhythms do get pretty creative, using ties and quarter triplets or half note triplets or hemiola etc. to achieve whatever he wants, which is why I jest that he bends the rules of music to his will. Performing RVW is always an adventure!
I honestly don't see it as random, I see it as a really appropriately somber funeral dirge that responds to the context of life ended too soon and the urge to nonetheless celebrate that life for what was lived.
Read the actual text. It’s about the burial of a father and son who’ve died in war. Certainly not a happy event but the music is meant to capture a sense of resting in peace for their souls.
@@Shadowfax-1980 The text is by Walt Whitman, who served in the American Civil War. RVW was a medic in WWI. I always feel like the two veterans Whitman talks about in this poem were two Civil war veterans, and were fighting on opposite sides. "Dropped together" haunts me to my core.
I sang this at a small community college in central Florida back in 1981. I was a music major and had a love for all his works. This was only the beginning of my mucis journey. Its more powerful now that i found Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. The best part of this work is all the bible references found in this piece. Some have not come to pass yet. I would like to sing this again if i ever get the chance. I hope his works live on forever. 73
I was lucky enough to perform this piece at the Kennedy Center in DC over Memorial Day weekend about five or so years ago and I’ve gotta say that standing for half an hour and singing this challenging piece was the longest half hour of my life, but looking back on it, I’m so honored to have been able to perform this masterpiece under Dr. Jessop and it was the highlight of my sophomore year if not my entire high school experience.
And I got to do this under Jessop's baton in Ely Catherdal in England for the 100th anniversary of the armistice of WWI. I'm so glad someone else out there got to know the amazingness of the combo of Craig Jessop and RVW. Amazingly powerful! Did you go straight into Mack Wilberg's "Let Peace Then Still The Strife" as soon as this one ended?
And I got to sing this at Carnegie Hall in New York City with my high school Symphonic Choir my junior year. Not only us but we sang with about 3 other high school choirs, as well as a professional adult choir, AND the top elite mixed choir of a VERY prestigious university in my state known as Capital University. All of us together in one giant choir perform this piece under Dr. Linda Hassler choral director of Capital University (an absolute legend in the choral world and one of the greatest musical directors I've ever had the pleasure of meeting). 2 of her former students performed the soprano and baritone solos. In fact a short video snippet of that performance is somewhere here on UA-cam. It was the greatest experience of my time in high school and the greatest performance of my career. I will be forever grateful and I am determined to make it back to the Carnegie Hall stage someday to sing ALONE. Perform a beautiful aria for an adoring crowd on one of the greatest stages worldwide.
I was there for this! I was in a community choir in Idaho Falls and we were invited to come. In our own performance I was chosen to sing the solo in mvmts 3 and 6-- definitely a highlight of my musical career
Like in other comments: I sang this at Cologne University Germany and it was great - about 120 Students singing and nearly the same number of instrumentalists in the Orchestra... I forgot the name of the conductor; he was the so called "general music director of cologne university" and he made quite a good job. Singing this in a big churches was a fantastic experience. This was about 1985 - through all these years til now the music and lyrics of this great composition were present in my mind. since I use youtube I listened sometimes to a record of this music, but this one is very similar to my memory, so I like this one best of all. Thank you for uploading this Version.
I sang this on the Carnegie Hall stage in New York City my junior year of high school in a MASSIVE choir made up of 2 professional choirs, a university chapel choir my school's Symphonic Choir (me) and 2 other high school choirs. The university was a very prestigious university in the capital of my state. They have one of the greatest college music programs in the entire country and their director is known around my country as well. She was the one who directed all of us. The whole choir as well as the orchestra. What I would give to perform on the Carnegie Hall stage again but this time ALONE. Performing my own aria for a massive adoring crowd. I'd also give anything to perform this beautiful song again.
Stunningly shocking, this is one of the VW's greatest pinnacles, I can't get enough of it!!! It's on my top 5 works by my favorite British composer.
Plus the Walt Whitman doesn't hurt either!
My wife and I had performed this wonderful work twice! At one performance, our two mothers were present, and in the Dirge for Two Veterans they were both in tears. What an incredible work!
The second movement brings me to tears, and I don’t stop crying till it’s over. I feel so much more human after listening to this. ... Bryn Terfel’s singing is out of this world.
Do you mean the third movement, reconciliation?
@@theoperacompany5849 No, actually "Beat! beat! drums!"...Tears brought forth by the terrible and awesome.
Sang Bass 2 with the City Choir of Washington's 'Farewell to Arms' concert yesterday at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC at the commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day. Absolutely stunning concert; even more meaningful as a veteran who served over 25 year in the U.S. Army. Movement IV was the most poignant and beautiful for me. And still we have not learned from our past.
And, sadly, we are condemned to repeat it. Thank you for your service.
Performed this (was a tenor/baritone) in high school along with our school's top orchestra! One of my fondest memories from that time.
Part IV in particular, especially the opening drum roll, gives me chills to this day.
19:11 always gives me chills. It felt so amazing to sing with a full orchestra and a giant choir :)
Always when I listen to RVW I am amazed at his ability to set the text with the most fitting rhythmic structure. He try's to keeping words true to there natural spoken rhythm. It makes the pieces he writes feel so genuine and true to the texts meaning.
One of the most powerful works ever written. I first heard this on the radio when I was in my teens and was absolutely captivated. It has never lost its impact on me.
This is very typical Vaughan Williams. By that, I mean that it is breathtaking.
Oh my word....I can't believe I am just discovering this work!!!! It is so beautiful and moving!!! Vaughan Williams is one of my favorite composers so how on earth did I miss this gem!!!??? :-) Thank you so much for posting this. :-)
This has been my all-time favorite choir piece for years. It's just so heartbreaking, hopeful, beautiful, and timely and also perfectly displays all the powers of choir music. Somehow this is the piece I love, despite my disdain for much of Vaughn Williams' other vocal music. I finally get to sing this piece again in a few days, and I can't wait to bring new ears, soul, and musicianship to the work!
Edit: Coming back to this comment 2 years later, and I haven’t had the opportunity to be apart of a choir, let alone one with an orchestra, in so long now. I’m honestly super grateful and incredibly lucky to have been able to perform this masterwork TWICE in my life!! Neither time was with the original orchestration, but both were incredibly influential and important in my life as a musician and a person. Perhaps someday I’ll get the opportunity to perform this a third time, with the full orchestra and everything! Then I would really be stupendously blessed.
24:47 - this moment leading to the choral climax is just exquisite and spine chilling 😍
Why would someone dislike this. There should be a super like button just for this piece
Some of us have difficulty with any sort of dissonance or deviation from patterns (I'm on the autism spectrum, for example). I didn't give it a thumbs down, but I didn't care as much for the very first piece.
Sometimes people also just have preferred recordings.
I have very strong opinions about Rachamaninov’s all-night vigil because of some of the recordings I’ve heard - they were the right notes, but there’s a lot more than the right notes in making a good recording.
This piece is absolutely beautiful!! I remember performing this in concert choir in high school.
Looking forward to performing this piece at the end of April! It's quite a wonderful piece =D (Horn player btw)
The string chords at 11:27, and again later: I think Howard Leslie Shore was thinking of this when he scored The Lord of the Rings, I believe the theme for the One Ring.
I can hear that, too.
Exactly what I thought! That ti-do in octaves over the minor chord is definitely the start of the Ring theme! Ti-do, ti-do-ti-la-do ti-me..... I fell in love with Howard Shore before hearing the composers of VW's era; perhaps that's why I fell in love with them as well!
@@miriambucholtz9315 nhfcbjjjh
@@jesusfernandodiazmedina6949 ????????
@@jesusfernandodiazmedina6949 hhjbfffgghvvgfu
VW’s vocal and choral music send me to wonderful and amazing places.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for including the sheet music
Got to perform this quite a while ago. It's amazing to have the booming choir behind you! I love this piece -- it's probably one of my favourites from Vaughan Williams!
Great piece. Performed this in April this year in Huddersfield town hall, with an augmented Royal Northen Symphonia and Roddy Williams. Belshazzar's Feast in the second half nearly lifted the new roof off !!
My only complaint is that this recording is very slow in parts. Movement IV is meant to be marcato (80) not larghetto. (60)
It's amazing to be IN that booming choir, as I will be this season. Clayton State is performing this soon.
cool man
Nice
Bryn Terfel's performance here is the best I've heard for this work.
He really was at his height at the time.
Just performed this in the midst of the Ukraine situation. We even have a student from Ukraine in out choir, and it just added even more power and meaning to the piece.
The music is overwhelming. Your notes are illuminating. Many, many thanks.
Our High school is singing this at Carnegie Hall!!! I’m so excited!!
Practice, my son, practice!
This piece changed my life!!!
What a masterpiece!
yes it is!!
good comment
An absolute RVW masterpiece, no ifs, no buts!
Working on this with our choir to perform in March. Being an casual amateur singer I’d never heard this, but I LOVE it now! Can’t wait to join with the symphony orchestra. UW-Marshfield/Wood County
I love the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, and this piece is no exception. Really looking forward to singing it in my choir this semester!
We are to perform this in July. I hope, Coronavirus will not spoil he party. We already had to drop Mendelssohn's Elijah in March. 2020 is a sad year.
Really hope that you'll be able to perform it. We did too in our choir and it was such an intense experience. 🤯
We looked for peace, and no good came... and for a time of health, and behold - trouble.
2020 in a nutshell.
35:40 gets me every time.
Thank you. RVG really was a master.
Very beautiful and sensitive music.
We have to sing a few of these pieces for our Voices of Pride concert this June
I have to sing this song for my masterworks choir concert. I’m excited because it’s coming up
Très belle oeuvre de RVW ! Une véritable découverte. Grand merci à Olla-Vogala
Great Symphonic Works...only by Masters !...
17:10 down a new made double grave might be my favorite moment of this entire work
the whole 21:50 section until my heart gives you love is mine
If you like this, give Holst's Cloud Messenger a try.
Just sang Cloud Messenger -agreed!
The description for this recording gives the baritone as Bryan Terfel - I’m not entirely convinced - anyone know?
The most beautiful part begins at 7:50.
Gorgeous work. It does seem a bit optimistic to think 3/4 of the basses can sing a low C at the end.
Bachtehude I was able to lol In high school we sang it in Carnegie hall. I was one of 3 that could lol
I can!
Check out Rachmaninov's All-Night Vespers, there's some really low bass action in that!
“As rare as asparagus at Christmas”
wow!
The bit that I love most is from 19:11.
great
So reminiscent of "Hodie" to be composed years later.
Bass entrance at 32:10 for all my fellow Capital choir members!
Which ones? We did this in 2006.
Checkout RVW conducting the piece. I much prefer the soprano in that recording. It's tough, because I love Bryn terfel oh, but I am not as moved by this performance as I am by the premier conducted by the composer. Plus I'm continually struck by how much reference there is to movie scores written long afterwards. Like Ben-Hur for example. LOL
An ad only four minutes into the piece? Come on, Google.
4:36 5:37
Please watch this at the lowest quality only (144p) since it's just for the music, which is much more ecologically responsible than at a higher rate. Watching this at 240p (which is unnecessary for listening purposes), will increase the bandwith by double to almost tenfold! At 1080 the bandwith is augmented by a factor of 100!
The use of digital technology accounts for 4% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, as much as the emissions from the world's truck fleet. Of that, a BIG part comes from livestreaming videos, mainly 3 sources : UA-cam, Netflix and porn.
Let's enjoy this beautiful music by being aware and responsible, doing our little part in decreasing our carbon footprint and protecting this wonderful planet for the generations to come.
I'm not sure why Philip Langridge is listed as a soloist in this work. There is no tenor solo in the work.
It's because he's the soloist in Sancta Civitas, which is on the same disc.
27:33!!!
Great job Ralph! God did not want to listen though...
Who is singing, playing, conducting and soloing. Weird to post without credits.
Look at the middle measure visible at 4:51 and tell me what is wrong with the Basses
Nothing. Nothing is wrong. RVW makes no mistakes. He bends the rules of music to his will, not the other way around. ;)
@@liserbiser I'm not saying that RVW made a mistake, but rather the copier. The quarter note at the beginning of the middle measure should be a half note otherwise, there aren't enough beats in the measure. Either that, or there needs to be a triplet.
@@RowanAckerman Yes, I was just trying to be funny. ;) That one's probably a printing error, considering all the other parts have a half note. But his rhythms do get pretty creative, using ties and quarter triplets or half note triplets or hemiola etc. to achieve whatever he wants, which is why I jest that he bends the rules of music to his will. Performing RVW is always an adventure!
Can you please send me this score?
19:06 21:33 34:08
6:27 always reminds me of chemical warfare. SO sinister... *shudder*
Movement IV feels extremely out of place. Random happy ending 😂
Random?
I honestly don't see it as random, I see it as a really appropriately somber funeral dirge that responds to the context of life ended too soon and the urge to nonetheless celebrate that life for what was lived.
Read the actual text. It’s about the burial of a father and son who’ve died in war. Certainly not a happy event but the music is meant to capture a sense of resting in peace for their souls.
@@Shadowfax-1980 The text is by Walt Whitman, who served in the American Civil War. RVW was a medic in WWI. I always feel like the two veterans Whitman talks about in this poem were two Civil war veterans, and were fighting on opposite sides. "Dropped together" haunts me to my core.
Beautiful music: "Bugle blow" ...Ad...in middle of music. Unwatchable!
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