CJCS Presents: An Afternoon of Ralph Vaughan Williams

The Central Jersey Choral Society performs Vaughan Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem, Towards the Unknown Region and other choral works.  Conducted by Director Christopher Loeffler with organ accompaniment by Camilla Jarnot, DMA.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) influenced British choral music more than any other composer of his generation. Having survived not one, but two World Wars it took a composer of Vaughan Williams's insight and unique harmonic style to capture the essence  the spirit and complexity  of the British people. Vaughan Williams was himself a product and example of that complexity - for instance, the paradox that existed in a man who was a self-professed agnostic, but who possessed such a keen understanding of English folk music that he was granted the honor of being an editor of The English Hymnal in 1906.

In our concert, the Central Jersey Choral Society (CJCS) will explore the multi-faceted personal and musical character of this composer, particularly asamanwho had personally experienced the ravages of war and loss.

We open with an impassioned call to God for peace: Dona Nobis Pacem. This work combines biblical texts with those of Whitman and others to create a passionate plea for peace in a land riddled with war. Avoiding a gratuitous depiction of the carnage of war, Vaughn Williams portrays the disruptive nature of war as all of the men are gathered for battle in Beat! Beat! Drums!, only to return from war as casualties in Dirge for Two Veterans.

In Loch Lomond and Rest, Vaughan Williams expresses his masterful understanding of folk song to paint the last moments of life as a profoundly uplifting and peaceful resolution to hardship. We close with Toward the Unknown Region which sets poet Walt Whitman's (1819-1892) Darest Thou Now, O Soul in a moving tale of a soul's journey to a freedom beyond life.

Thank you for joining us in this celebration of a brilliant composer and his perspective of tumultuous times that so closely parallel our own.