REVIEWS
CDs and BOOKS
*Worth hearing
**Recommended
***Essential listening
CHORAL CDs
**
MATER MUNDI
Choir of Exeter College Chapel, Oxford / James Short (organ) / Bartosz R. Thiede · Chorum CHORC519
Two Polish composers are joined by one from each of Norway, Latvia and Lithuania for this survey of (mostly) slow-moving, harmonically consonant, contemplative music that is the fashion at the moment. Some pieces have been widely sung and recorded, such as Gjeilo’s Ubi caritas, Ešenvalds’s The heavens’ flock and Górecki’s Totus tuus. New to me were a setting by Paweł Łukaszewski of Maximilian Kolbe’s final letter from Auschwitz and a Missa brevis by Vytautas Miškinis. It is a CD that invites the listener to contemplate earth and heaven. Exeter College’s chapel choir sings with fervour when appropriate, and good control and intonation throughout.
Judith Markwith
***
BEATAM: MUSIC WRITTEN FOR THE CHOIR OF YORK MINSTER
Choir of York Minster / Benjamin Morris (organ) / Robert Sharpe · Regent REGCD522
This is not a survey from the beginning but starts with Bairstow’s Three Introits. There follows, as one might expect, plenty by Francis Jackson, Philip Moore and Richard Shephard, plus one piece each from Richard Lloyd (O nata lux), James Cave (Ave Maria), Judith Bingham (York Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis) and Francis Grier (Ave maris stella). The seven first recordings will make this CD an essential purchase for some readers. But it is also a document of historic significance, having all these pieces performed in the building for which they were written and by a choir that, however much the personnel changes, passes on a great performing tradition through its generations.
We have here an aural snapshot taken at one particular moment of that evolving tradition, applied to 100 years of composition. The singing is committed and technically secure, and the performances display the highest level of musicianship.
Julian Elloway
*
UNFADING SPLENDOUR: TWENTIETH-CENTURY SACRED MUSIC
Choir of Worcester College Chapel, Oxford / Daniel Matheson, Alexander Palotai, Julia Alsop (organ) / Thomas Allery · Herald HEVPCD403
Do not be led by the second part of the title to expect much music from the second half of the last century: ‘from Stanford to Howells’ might be a better description. That said, the Worcester College choir do their chosen repertoire proud. There is a good mixture of well-known and lesser-known music. We may not need another recording of Balfour Gardiner’s Evening Hymn or Harris’s Holy is the true light (well-sung though that is), but it is worth purchasing or downloading this CD for H.C. Stewart’s colourful Love unto thine own who camest, and for two pieces by Robin Milford, including a God be in my head with flowing lower parts that stands up well in comparison with other simpler settings. The choir sings with sensitivity and obvious enjoyment of the repertoire.
**
EVENING HYMN: MUSIC OF LIGHT
Norwich Cathedral Choir / David Dunnett, George Inscoe (organ) / Ashley Grote · Priory PRCD1208
The theme is light in all its forms, physical and metaphorical. There are well-known pieces by Tallis, Blitheman, Ireland and Wood (Hail, gladdening light, of course), and Lauridsen’s already well-established O nata lux. The sparkly organ writing in Jonathan Dove’s Vast Ocean of Light glistens in this recording. Other more recent pieces are by Neil Cox, Philip Moore and Ashley Grote himself. The CD culminates in Parry’s Blest pair of sirens, so as to conclude with ‘and keep in tune with heaven, and sing in endless morn of light.’ The CD booklet is particularly helpful as it explains how the programme was compiled and especially the role of the artist, Chris Daynes.
*
THE MYSTERY OF THINGS: CHORAL AND ORGAN MUSIC OF PAUL FISHER
Proteus Ensemble / Richard Cook (organ) / Stephen Shellard · Regent REGCD520
The pleasing, soft-grained music of priest and composer Paul Fisher has sincerity and a gentle melodiousness that relaxes and draws one in to listen more attentively. The movements from Black light are particularly strong. The subtitle is ‘A Requiem for times of war and destruction’: perhaps the composer needs a powerful stimulus like that. The same may be said of God, you’re misbehavin’, subtitled ‘A psalm of protest in American Spiritual style’. The five organ pieces on the CD are pleasant enough, but it is the pieces with words that seem to have sparked the composer’s imagination with more intensity.
*
LOVE BADE ME WELCOME
Choir of Wadham College Chapel / Julian Littlewood (organ) / Anne Page (harmonium) / Katharine Pardee · OxRecs Digital OXCD-147
The unique feature of this CD is the combination of organ and harmonium in the Vierne Messe Solennelle and again in Guilmant’s Sonata no. 4. Does it work? Yes, in that the two instruments are in tune with each other and the excellent players have good synchronization. But with the Vierne, written for the two Cavaillé-Coll organs in Saint-Sulpice, is this recording with organ and harmonium (so different!) in line with the expectations of the composer or of today’s listener?’ If you think that it might be, then do listen to this CD for the experience. As for the Sonata, Guilmant certainly wrote pieces for piano and harmonium. But organ and harmonium? What we have on this CD is an arrangement of the Fourth Sonata for the two instruments. Again, listen if curiosity leads you to want to experience it.
A lukewarm recommendation for the two big pieces on this disc is a pity, because there is much to enjoy in the rest of it, with a Parsons Ave Maria sung with commitment and assuredness, and pieces by David Hurd (the title piece of the CD) and Leo Sowerby adding to the listening pleasure. The choir is also impressive in the tricky ornamented chant of Gabriel Jackson’s Magnificat from his Truro Service.
ORGAN CDs
**
TE DEUM LAUDAMUS
David Price plays the Nicholson organ of Portsmouth Cathedral · Herald HAVPCD406
This is a popular organ recital marking the latest overhaul of the organ and the addition of a new Trompete de Maris fanfare reed. The organ has an interesting history, built by John Nicholson in 1860 for Manchester Cathedral but moved to Bolton in 1871, where it was altered before being rebuilt by Nicholson’s in Portsmouth Cathedral in 1994. David Price knows how to exploit every aspect of the instrument and provides an aural tour, historically and tonally, with the longest sequence of pieces being the movements of Couperin’s Messe pour les couvents. There are quieter interludes, including J.S. Bach Liebster Jesu BWV731 and an arrangement of Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe, but for the most part the mood is celebratory, from Susato’s Mohrentanz (‘peasant dance’) at the start to Tournemire’s Improvisation sur le ‘Te Deum’ that forms a powerful conclusion.
*
DEO GRACIAS
Stephen Moore plays the Nicholson organ of Llandaff Cathedral · Priory PRCD1199
This is an enjoyable exploration of off-the-beaten-track 20th-century pieces. To start are four pieces by Paul Spicer, written some time before those reviewed in Sunday by Sunday 85 (June 2018). An Elegy stands out as having particular power and passion. Then comes music by Paul Edwards and John Weaver (Passacaglia on a Theme by Dunstable, a large-scale tour de force). A French interlude comprises Alain’s Le jardin suspendu and Dupré’s Cortège et Litanie. Works by Leo Sowerby and Iain Quinn lead into three Whitlock pieces before another satisfying passacaglia, Andrew Carter’s Passacaglia for Francis Jackson, brings this unusual sequence to a close. The mixture of pieces displays the versatility of the 2013 organ, played by Stephen Moore in his first recording since become the cathedral’s director of music.
Judith Markwith
Books
MICHAEL TIPPETT: THE BIOGRAPHY
Oliver Soden
Weidenfeld & Nicholson: 764pp. H/B 978-1-4746-0604-2 £25.00
The agnosticism of Michael Tippett (1905–98) is well documented, right from when he was nine and wrote a tract arguing against the existence of God. In his final years at school he annoyed his teachers by refusing to play piano in chapel, yet often attended the local Catholic Mass because he liked ritual and ceremony. In later life he was not averse to writing a Mag and Nunc to show off the trumpet stop in St John’s College, Cambridge. The Five Spirituals from A Child of our Time remain ever popular – his version of ‘Steal Away’ is listed as the communion motet next week in the parish church where I worship.
This huge biography, which states at the start that it is a ‘life’ and not a ‘life-n-works’, gives many insights into Tippett’s ethical and moral views, and indeed spiritual ones as he was happy to discuss ‘the inner life’ and hoped that his music would provide refreshment for it. There is an ecstatic spirituality in many of his pieces, which achieves near-religious expression in the mystical The Vision of St Augustine: in fact two visions, ‘the first of a child singing, and the second a glimpse of eternity.’ For those wanting to find out more about the visionary composer whose life spanned the 20th century, here is a book to provide all the information.
ANNUNCIATIONS: SACRED MUSIC FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
ed. George Corbett
Open Book Publishers: 392pp. P/B 978-1-78374-726-9 £28.95
or www.openbookpublishers.com/product/994
The first thing to say is that this book is published by the wonderful Open Book Publishers, and available for free as a PDF to view or download from the website shown above, as well as in hardback (£37.95) and ebook (£5.99) formats. That means this review can be short, with an encouragement to visit the website and examine the 17 varied chapters – actually 23, as six are double chapters with the first written by a theologian and the second giving a composer’s response to different aspects of how God communicates through composers and musicians. The six composers’ responses include new pieces of music, published in the volume and with links to recordings.
For me, the most interesting of the other chapters are those discussing practicalities, such as Tom Wilkinson on composing for a non-professional chapel choir and Matthew Owens on commissioning and performing sacred music. The opening chapters feature James MacMillan and Paul Mealor. The volume concludes with wider consideration of borderline-sacred music (Handel, Elgar, Poulenc), sacred music performed in secular spaces, and most importantly the participation of the listener. There is much here for church musicians, and indeed anyone who performs sacred music in any context.
Julian Elloway
Reviews of printed music
CHORAL MUSIC
KEY
E Easy
M Medium
D Difficult
UPPER VOICES
THE VOCALIZE! CANON COLLECTION [E]
arr. Andy Beck
Voices and optional piano
Alfred Publishing 00-46274 Book and CD £29.95
This collection of 55 rounds ‘for choral and classroom singing’ seems expensive at first glance, but the CD that is part of the package includes reproducible ‘singer pages’ as well as sound files of the piano accompaniments (lightly orchestrated). A choir director therefore only needs the one copy to be fully resourced. Several of the rounds will be known to church musicians, such as the Boyce Alleluia, Praetorius Jubilate Deo, Bradbury Sing and Rejoice and the anonymous Dona nobis pacem. There are pieces from around the world and a mixture of sacred and secular. Among the latter, I particularly enjoyed an 18th-century Ubi sunt gaudia by Philip Hayes and Kyrie Canon by the book’s compiler, Andy Beck. Each piece is preceded by relevant singing advice and teaching suggestions – the whole forms a useful collection for choir training, church and concert use.
MISSA BREVIS [D]
Richard Allain
SS (with soli) and organ
Novello NOV297297 £3.50
An exciting, rhythmic setting of the Gloria is surrounded by atmospheric movements with yearning phrases and a busy organ part. The Kyrie and Agnus both have arch-like shapes with impassioned central sections. Sanctus and Benedictus share a dramatic sempre forte Hosanna with cascades of sound that hang in the air like bells. Two solo voices are used in the Dona nobis pacem to create a richly textured four-part canon. It is an imaginative setting of the Latin text that will be enjoyed by singers who can confidently hold notes a semitone apart from each other.
Stephen Patterson
LENT AND HOLY WEEK
ASH WEDNESDAY [M]
Cecilia McDowall
SATB and organ
Oxford NH226 £3.05
Despite its specific title (from Christina Rossetti’s poem), this appeal to God for mercy ‘for thy love’s sake’ is suitable for Lent, some of Holy Week and indeed any penitential occasion. The organ part is tricky, especially in the ‘Moving on’ impassioned central section, but the choral writing remains manageable by an enterprising church choir, especially with long organ pedals in the outer sections to help root the tonality. McDowall’s appealing mixture of lyrical melody, astringent harmony and rhythmic energy are sensitively applied to Rossetti’s great poem in which human suffering engages with the suffering of Christ.
VINEA MEA ELECTA [D]
Owain Park
SATB with divisions
Novello NOV297396 £2.75
The Latin words, known from their setting as a motet by Poulenc, tell of the sweetness of God’s vineyard turned into the bitterness of the crucifixion. The music is appropriately anguished with chains of descending thirds and ascending fourths lifting the music and the tension, but also with a plaintive resignation, especially at the words ‘ut me crucifigeres’ (‘to crucify me’). This is an atmospheric setting by a composer who is expert at exploring choral textures.
THE CRUCIFIXION [E]
John Høybye
SATB
Wilhelm Hansen WH2938405 £2.95
Veteran choir director John Høybye is a legendary figure among choir trainers, youth choirs and choral festivals, working especially in Denmark and Germany and straddling the worlds of classical and popular music and jazz. Here he provides a simple but subtle arrangement of the spiritual He never said a mumbling word (starting ‘Oh, wasn’t that a pity and a shame’) – anonymous, like most spirituals, but known as a companion piece to ‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord’. Each verse ends with repetitions of ‘not a word’ above a descending bass line. Basses have effective word painting on ‘They nailed him to the tree’, and there is an impassioned outburst on ‘The blood came twinkling down’ where upper voices briefly divide. Otherwise it is a piece that succeeds by economy of means, allowing words and melody to make their point.
James L. Montgomery
SATB ANTHEMS
BLESSED LORD [M]
John Joubert
SATB and organ
Novello NOV297418 £2.99
KEEP [E/M]
Tarik O’Regan
SATB
Novello NOV297429 £1.75
John Joubert (1927–2019) remains best known for Torches of 1951; now, nearly 70 years later, we have his final composition, Blessed Lord Op.185. The words are a setting of Cranmer’s collect starting ‘Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning’. Joubert was a master of text-setting and musical construction. The first section features a 30-bar contrapuntal build-up on ‘for our learning’, the second a more relaxed ‘Grant that we may in such wise hear them’, while the third, announced by the organ with the six-note rhythmic motif that opened the piece, combines music from throughout the earlier sections, starting with dramatic exclamations of ‘read’, ‘mark’, ‘learn’ and ‘inwardly digest them’. At the end, the six-note motif reappears much slower, fortissimo and to thrilling effect.
The collect is set in the Book of Common Prayer for the Second Sunday of Advent. Users of the Revised Common Lectionary will find it suitable for Bible Sunday two weeks earlier, while Catholics now have Sunday of the Word of God at the end of January, near the time of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – for any of which, and indeed throughout the year, this is a highly recommended anthem.
Blessed Lord was a commission by Matthew Owens for his Cranmer Anthem Book project, as was O’Regan’s Keep, setting the collect for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. This is a more straightforward setting, in the spirit of Gibbons’s Almighty and everlasting God that, in its straightforward versatility, is supposed to be the inspiration for the project. An arch from triple piano to forte and back to triple piano is formed by six phrases, each ending on a chord out of which a single note is sustained through a pause, before becoming part of a new, different chord (with a new dynamic) to start the next phrase – it is as if giving time for the words to sink in before moving to the next thought. It is musically arresting, simple and effective.
THE LORD’S BLESSING [E/M]
Joanna Gill
SATB with divisions
Universal Edition UE21785 £2.50
UNFAILING LOVE [E/M]
Joanna Gill
SATB
Universal Edition UE21784 £2.50
The young Scottish composer Joanna Gill has had two anthems newly published. The Lord’s Blessing is a setting of ‘The Lord bless you and keep you’, popular in many settings for weddings and funerals. Unfailing Love is a setting in Hebrew of Psalm 117, the two verses of which are the shortest psalm in the Bible, known in English as ‘O praise the Lord, all you nations’ and in Latin ‘Laudate Dominum’. These short anthems have an attractive, richly-voiced sound world, with plenty of parallel fifths and octaves in the part writing. They are apparently easy, although basses need a resonant bottom E at the end of The Lord’s Blessing and sopranos need to float in softly on a top A flat in Unfailing Love.
James L. Montgomery
ORGAN MUSIC
E Easy
M Medium
D Difficult
ORGAN ANTHOLGIES
INTRADA: 18 FESTIVE ORGAN PIECES [E/M]
ed. Hans-Peter Bähr
Butz-Verlag BU2910 €15.00
All 18 pieces, each by a different composer, were specially written for this collection designed to cover ‘a medium-length procession … of moderate difficulty, tonal, sonorous and festive’. They are all two to three minutes long, or, if longer, with optional cuts to fit the time. Many of the composers are senior figures whose names will be known to readers of CMQ reviews, such as Robert Jones, Lothar Graap, Andreas Willscher and Peter Planyavsky. As well as the expected Präludiums and Intradas there are other approaches: a Trumpet Tune by Michael Porr, Fanfarioso by Carsten Klomp, Rondo maestoso by Lukas Stollhof, an unexpected Prélude à la Polonaise by Klaus Wallruth and from Franz Josef Stoiber (organist of Regensburg Cathedral) a neoclassical Preludio concertante that has a delightful hint of the opening of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite. This anthology of short, moderately easy, celebratory pieces will be useful on all sorts of occasions, not just at the start of services.
Julian Elloway
MUSIC FOR LENT
THE LENTEN GOSPELS [D]
Nico Muhly
Chester Music SRO100178 £15.99
In this recent work, Nico Muhly (b.1981) uses confidently a gestural and overtly pictorial musical language. The Lenten Gospels is a sequence of seven spoken meditations written by Andrew Hammond, chaplain of King’s College, Cambridge, each with a musical response by Muhly. The set would make an excellent seasonal recital work or centrepiece for a penitential liturgy. The exciting, affecting and colourful music will best reward performers with a solid technique and firm rhythmic control, plus an imaginative approach to registration.
Huw Morgan
ORGAN VOLUNTRIES
FIVE PIECES [M/D]
Clarence Lucas
ed. David Patrick
Fitzjohn Music Publications £9.00
Clarence Lucas (1866–1947), Canadian organist and composer – he wrote seven operas – spent his early life in Canada and subsequently lived in London, New York and Paris where he studied and to where he returned in his retirement. His Parisian student days obviously inspired some of these five pieces that David Patrick has selected. Prière is dedicated ‘a mon cher Maître Théodore Dubois’ and a Toccata to Alexandre Guilmant. Méditation is for the London organist Henry Richards but retains a French flavour, as does Pastorale for the distinguished Chicago organist Clarence Eddy, who was also dedicatee of Guilmant’s fifth Sonata. Finally, and of special note, is a piece written for the New York organist Clarence Dickinson and called Dithyramb. Its Dionysiac nature includes a theme that surges forward impetuously until interrupted by a semi-improvisatory cascade – it is a piece that deserves to be in the organ repertoire for concerts or as a joyful voluntary.
PRÉLUDE (PROCESSION) (M)
Georg Schmitt
ed. Guido Joerg
Verlag Dohr (Universal Edition) ED17695 £7.50
Georg Schmitt (1821–1900), born in Trier in Germany, made Paris the centre of his life after he moved there in 1845 to study at the Conservatoire. After two years in the USA as organist of New Orleans cathedral (dedicated to ‘Saint Louis, King of France’), he returned to Paris to be organist of Saint-Sulpice 1850–63, where he was succeeded by Louis Lefébure-Wely. This Prélude was written there for the building’s original Clicquot instrument and published in 1857. The music is based on a descending three-note pattern, in C minor with a digression to the relative major. The four pages, marked Maestoso and ‘Grand Choeur’, form a short, attention-grabbing prelude or postlude on a solemn occasion.
THREE PRELUDES AND FUGUES [D]
Emil Sjögren
ed. David Patrick
Fitzjohn Music Publications £10.00
Composer of 200 songs, five violin sonatas and much piano music, the Stockholm organist Emil Sjögren (1853–1918) was also renowned as a recitalist around Europe. Of his three Preludes and Fugues, the first two were played in Paris by Guilmant, and could be described as Schumannesque in language although far more idiomatic for the organ than any of that composer’s works. The final one, published posthumously, is very different. By now Sjögren had come under the influence of Wagner, and knew the organ music of César Franck and Franz Liszt. The Prelude has passages that match the harmonic ambiguity of late Liszt, while the Fugue takes us into the world of Wagner’s Meistersinger overture. Its forward drive, if with some unpredictable deviations, carries it to a triumphant C major conclusion that seems to be asking for applause to follow.
CHORAL-STUDIEN Op.15 [M]
Robert Papperitz
ed. Iain Quinn
UT Orpheus (Universal Edition) HS256 £19.95
Papperitz (1826–1903) published his 22 chorale preludes in three volumes as teaching material for his students at the Leipzig Conservatorium where he was professor for three decades. Comparison with Bach’s Orgelbüchlein is apt in the variety of treatments of the melodies, but stylistically these pieces will be appreciated by those who enjoy Brahms’s Op.122 and wish for more such preludes, and with a similar moderate level of difficulty. Most of the chorales are well-known melodies, although only three are also found in the Brahms set. The final six, described as ‘canonic trios’, are manuals-only and marked for organ or piano. The editor observes ‘that Papperitz yields towards the unpredictable and that this relative waywardness is an intrinsic element of these pieces. As a result, several well-known chorales are heard anew while also laying a path that leads quite clearly to Brahms.’
Duncan Watkins
HYMN ARRANGEMENTS
HYMNS AMAZING 2 [E/M]
June Nixon
Kevin Mayhew 1450453 £24.99
I reviewed the first book in Sunday by Sunday 78 (September 2016) and the formula described remains the same: 50 hymn tunes have an introduction, standard harmonization, often an alternative harmonization (and in book 2 it is frequently a manuals-only one), interlude, last verse harmonization and then a short piece based on the hymn. Where two keys are in frequent use, all the material is given in both keys. I have used the first book from time to time, and it has been the short pieces that have been most useful – intended as ‘preludes, postludes, interludes and processions, or to play the choir out before the final voluntary.’ The varied approaches can be seen in movement titles such as Trumpet tune, Scherzo, Contemplation, Campanella, Toccatina, Blues (on Amazing Grace) and so on. Several have German titles including Wiegenlied for Cradle Song (which makes sense), Nachtstück for Ar hyd y nos (a nice allusion to ‘All through the night’) and Tänzchen – why a German title for a ‘little dance’ based on All things bright and beautiful I’m not sure, but it is delightful.
Duncan Watkins