Vaughan Williams sets Hodie (This Day) in sixteen movements, and Anglican listeners unfamiliar with it will almost certainly immediately relate it to the familiar Christmas service of nine lessons and carols, here Vaughan Williams giving us seven lessons and songs or carols, with a prologue and epilogue. Nor must we forget that Vaughan Williams conducted Bach's St Matthew Passion in his own idiosyncratic edition for some thirty years, and debts to Bach may be felt in the treatment, though not the actual sound.

From the opening celebratory Prologue with its fanfares and the brilliant shouts of the Vespers for Christmas day, this is clearly a work of celebration. Vaughan Williams sets the Latin text, which translates as:

Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!
Christmas Day, Christ was born on Christmas Day.
Christmas Day, on earth are Angels singing,
archangels rejoicing.
Christmas Day, rejoice ye just men, saying
Glory to God in the highest.
Alleluia.

Throughout Vaughan Williams gives us seven passages of narration, largely sung by the boy choristers to simple organ accompaniment. We first hear them in the second number as St Matthew tells us of the birth of Jesus, the voice of the angel appearing to Joseph in a dream being sung by the solo tenor.

For his first song Vaughan Williams quarried Milton's Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity and he returns to it at the end. Here he sets 'It was the winter wild' for solo soprano coloured by the sound of the women's choir. This is a poised, soaring setting, its feeling of frozen sculptured lines reinforced by the orchestral textures, all flute and strings.

The boys continue the Narration with more of the familiar Christmas words, now from St Luke: 'And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.' This leads to what Vaughan Williams calls a 'Choral', an unaccompanied choral setting of Miles Coverdale's English words, The blessed son of God', translating Martin Luther.

The Narration resumes with 'And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field'. The boys sing of the Angel of the Lord, the solo tenor, whose entry is heightened by the entry of the accompanying orchestra, and it builds to a brief but blazing climax - then tells of the baby lying in a manger, now to evocative harp accompaniment. We hear the opening Glorias again, and the section ends with the words 'Good will towards men', the tempo now Allegro vivace, which is given extended treatment.

We reach the third song, a set piece setting of Thomas Hardy's familiar poem 'The Oxen', given to the baritone soloist, as one of the shepherds, the flute and winds being very prominent in the accompaniment. The choristers continue the Narration 'And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God', and ending with a brief outburst 'Glory to God in the highest'. Vaughan Williams now turns to George Herbert for a second baritone solo which he characterizes as a pastoral, with the words 'The shepherds sing'.

The Narration continues from Luke: 'But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart' leading straight into the Lullaby for chorus and solo soprano 'Sweet was the song the Virgin sang'. So simple and heartfelt an invention was something Vaughan Williams could always achieve supremely well. In 1954 one might well imagine it seemed old fashioned, in fact we can now see it was timeless.

Trumpet and brilliant orchestral sounds announce the radiant tenor solo, setting words by William Drummond in the hymn 'Bright portals of the sky, / Emboss'd with sparkling stars.' No ordinary hymn, this celebratory panegyric to the glory of the heavens is illuminated by the coruscating orchestral textures, belying the view sometimes heard that Vaughan Williams had no feeling for the orchestra.

The contrast with the organ announcing the following Narration is striking. This time the male chorus soon reinforce the boys in Matthew's words: 'Now when Jesus was born, behold, there came wise men from the east'. Vaughan Williams loved a vividly imagined set-piece like The March of the Three Kings which his wife Ursula Vaughan Williams provided for him as a penultimate climax. The composer pulls in all his forces, three soloists, choir and orchestra. They sing of the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and eventually the movement ends quietly and is followed by Ursula Vaughan Williams's gentle interlude 'No sad thought his soul affright' - another Choral - heralded by wide-spanning strings, the chorus entering unaccompanied.

Vaughan Williams called his closing sequence 'Epilogue'. Here he revisits the two themes we may remember from the message to Joseph at the beginning. The baritone, like the very voice of God, solemnly intones 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' For his ecstatic finale Vaughan Williams again turns to Milton's Hymn on the morning of Christ's Nativity, revisiting the tune of the earlier setting in No. 3. He changes the order of Milton's verses starting with 'Ring out, ye crystal spheres' and with a typical march, all bells and running strings, the chorus lead us into the gloriously affirmative finale, saving for the end 'Yea, truth and justice then'. Tumultuous is the only adequate word to describe the close. Its first performance at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester Cathedral on 8 September 1954 conducted by the composer was almost exactly 42 years since he had appeared at neighbouring Hereford with his Fantasia on Christmas Carols

Writer: Lewis Foreman