In Windsor Forest, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ 1929 set of five choral pieces, was not familiar to Rob Upton, artistic director of the Wheatland Chorale, when two members of the chorale introduced him to the work. His reaction? “Where has this been all my life?” That’s what Upton told the audience at the April 27 Wheatland Chorale concert at First Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, and that might be anyone’s reaction to this delightful work, which Vaughan Williams adapted from his opera Sir John in Love, which in turn was based on Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, with additional material from other writers.
The mood of both words and music was hearty and happy, yet not without shadows. “The Conspiracy,” the first song, featured the women of the chorus. “Ladies, sigh no more/Men were deceivers ever,” the women sang cheerfully. This bittersweet mood continued with the “Drinking Song” for the men, a rambunctious ditty defying weather and want with “Jolly good ale and old.” “Falstaff and the Fairies” was a dramatic high point, recalling themes from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and other tales: Falstaff stumbles into the fairies dancing in the wee hours of the morning “round about the oak of Herne the Hunter,” and is pinched black and blue for his impertinence. Off-balance harmonies and slightly ceremonial music began the piece, which gained intensity as it built toward the wild conclusion. “Pinch him and burn him and turn him about/till candles and starlight and moonshine be out,” the chorus rushed pell-mell to the ending, drawing chuckles from the audience. The love song of “Wedding Chorus” tenderly sets one of Ben Jonson’s loveliest poems, and the “Epilogue” sums everything up in a chillingly world-wearied manner: “Vain opinion all doth sway, and the world is but a play.” The vigorous setting of this piece, somewhat reminiscent of the old German song “Gaudeamus Igitur” makes the words go down a little easier.
The chorale also performed the program it will be presenting on its upcoming trip to Switzerland, Austria and Bavaria: sacred and secular works by German and American composers, from the Renaissance to the present. In fact, one composer, Steven Sametz of Easton, “crosses over” by arranging a German folksong, Kein Feuer, keine Kohle kann brennen so heiss. It was startling to hear this work, which seemed itself to blossom like the flowers that figure in the song, next to a much earlier folksong arrangement by Brahms; startling because no time might have passed at all between the two. Other highlights of the concert (which included much more than I am mentioning here) were the antiphonal Rorando Coeli by Jan Campanus-Vodnansky, the quietly intense Sure on This Shining Night by Morten Lauridsen and the rapt Schaffe in mire, Gott, ein rein Herz, also by Brahms. Since I Laid My Burdens Down, an arrangement of a spiritual by Rollo Dilworth, brought the concert to a close and brought the audience to its feet. For an encore, the chorale lined up along the sides of the sanctuary to sing John Rutter’s Gaelic Blessing. The chorale carried off this very varied program with few hitches, excellent diction and unerring musicality.
