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Despite the enormous initial success of the Five Tudor Portraits, however, the work has not subsequently enjoyed the frequency of performance its musical merits may be said to have earned. The reason for this may well lie in the difficulty of the work, especially in respect of the characterization required, and also because the earthiness of the archaic humour contained in many of the verses is not universally appreciated. As the eminent writer Michael Kennedy has pointed out in his quite excellent The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, to some extent the design of the work may be to blame. Three fine short movements appear to be outweighed by the two long ones of which ‘Jane Scroop’ is so good that it tends to overshadow the whole work.
The uninhibited setting of ‘Elinor Rumming’ with which Vaughan Williams begins the suite shows the composer’s undoubted delight in the racy Skelton verses. Eventually, the varying rhythms are slowed to accommodate ‘drunken Alice’, whose revelations are tellingly accompanied by piccolo, trumpet and horn. ‘Pretty Bess’ follows, an Intermezzo of great charm in which the soloist’s protestations are echoed by the male chorus. It is also the male chorus that sings the ‘Epitaph on John Jayberd of Diss’ the eponymous subject of which Skelton had known—and obviously disliked since he revels John Jayberd’s demise; Vaughan Williams echoes these sentiments in some brilliant choral writing. The section ends with a parody of the Office for the Dead.
The following Romanza is no parody but a real requiem for a pet sparrow killed by a cat. Tender innocence is marvellously portrayed in both verse and music in this lament by a lady for her lost pet. Little Jane and her friends carry the minute coffin to its interment, chanting words from the Requiem. The sensitivity of orchestral writing in this movement is one of Vaughan Williams’s most remarkable achievements. The air is full of the sound of birds and, at the climax, Jane’s voice can be heard intoning the Miserere. The chorus, in a glorious passage, sings of the approaching night and for Philip Sparrow’s soul. Here Vaughan Williams is truly inspired; avoiding sentimentality he unerringly evokes an emotional response of genuine depth.
To be successful the final song could only be a complete contrast to ‘Jane Scroop’, and so it is. ‘Jolly Rutterkin’ is a delightful Scherzo that uses cross-rhythms in an exciting and masterly fashion. It brings a fine work to an eminently satisfying conclusion.
Nearly thirty years after his time in Paris with Ravel was not Vaughan Williams still reaping the benefit of his studies there? There are many pointers to that conclusion in the Five Tudor Portraits.
from notes by Peter Lamb © 1999
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