4 Hymns / Toward the Unknown Region
Vaughan Williams's contribution to 20th-century choral music is substantial, but several of his works inexplicably remain in relative obscurity, one of them being the unabashedly Brahmsian (and a little Wagnerian) "Toward the Unknown Region." This "song" for chorus and orchestra, Vaughan Williams's first major choral piece, is a richly romantic setting of a poem by Walt Whitman, whose ideas greatly impressed many young artists and musicians in the late 19th century. Another rarely heard work is hisFour Hymns,for solo tenor, viola, and strings. This wonderfully sonorous and inventive piece deserves much greater notoriety--an event that certainly will be helped by John Mark Ainsley's fine performance here. The monumentalDona Nobis Pacem-the best known of the works on this program--also receives a strong, dynamic, and compelling reading that places it among the best on disc.--David Vernier