CDs
*Worth hearing
**Recommended
***Essential listening
CHRISTMAS CDs
***
NOËL
Armonico Consort / Emily Wenman (soprano) / Alexander Hume (tenor) / Edward Picton-Turberville (organ) / Christopher Monks Signum Classics SIGCD754
This attractive disc of Christmas music is beautifully and expertly sung by the Armonico Consort. There are familiar carols: The Shepherd’s Carol by Bob Chilcott, Darke’s In the bleak mid-winter, and Rutter’s Angels’ Carol and What sweeter music in addition to Victoria’s O magnum mysterium. These are interspersed with more unfamiliar works, including Toby Young’s The Astronomer’s Carol, Jonathan Dove’s The Star-Song and Jonathan Roberts’s Hope finds a way. The Armonico Consort were formed by a group of people with a passion for music from the Renaissance and Baroque, for which they are renowned. As well as the Victoria, we are treated to Jean Mouton’s Nesciens Mater. This is a wonderful collection of Christmas music, beautifully sung. Edward Picton-Turbervill’s sparkling organ accompaniments add another layer of delight to the recording – particularly in Dove’s The Star-Song and Rutter’s Angels’ Carol.
***
SWEET WAS THE SONG: CHRISTMAS MUSIC FROM TEWKESBURY ABBEY
Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum / Carleton Etherington (organ) / Simon Bell Regent REGCD577
This is a charming CD in which familiar carol arrangements – Ledger’s Sussex Carol, Vaughan Williams’s The truth sent from above and Rütti’s I wonder as I wander – sit alongside familiar texts with new tunes or arrangements, such as June Nixon’s The holly and the ivy and Stuart Nicholson’s Ding dong! merrily on high. Every year since 2006, the Dean Close Schools have commissioned a new Christmas carol for the Abbey choir. Nine are included here, including Alexander L’Estrange’s Isaiah’s Prophecy, Owain Park’s Lullay, my liking and Kerensa Briggs’s Sweet was the song the Virgin sang. The composers attracted to write for the choir, as well as the performances themselves, show the strength of the Tewkesbury choral set-up. Carleton Etherington provides sparkling accompaniments for Grayston Ives’s Susanni and Neil Cox’s Three are the precious gifts and organ solos in David Bednall’s beautifully meditative Wie schön leuchtet and George Baker’s rousing Toccata-Gigue on the Sussex Carol. A welcome addition to the Christmas collection.
**
SALISBURY CHRISTMAS
Choir of Salisbury Cathedral / John Challenger (organ) / David Halls Salisbury Cathedral
This recording of Christmas music both familiar and unfamiliar shows the choir of Salisbury Cathedral and its recently restored organ at the peak of their powers. Some of the tempi seem a little on the slow side, particularly God rest you merry, gentlemen, Gardner’s Tomorrow shall be my dancing day and Willcocks’s Sussex Carol, which lose a bit of momentum at a slower speed, yet there is much to admire in this recording. The a cappella singing of Sally Beamish’s beautiful In the stillness and Howells’s Sing lullaby is sublime. There’s also no doubting the beauty of the singing of Hadley’s I sing of a maiden and Rutter’s Candlelight Carol or the buoyancy of Errollyn Wallen’s Salisbury Carol. John Challenger’s organ wizardry in a Toccata on Wachet auf by David Halls himself, Bach’s In dulci jubilo (BWV 729) and Ireland’s The Holy Boy adds an additional dimension to the disc. Coming in at just under an hour’s music, one is left hoping for even more!
***
WINTER LIGHT: JOANNA FORBES L'ESTRANGE
London Voices / Grace Davidson, Imogen Parry (sopranos) / Guy Cutting (tenor) / Richard Gowers (organ) / Olivia Jageurs (harp) / Harry Baker (piano) / Ben Parry Signum Classics SIGCD873
This recording is a real family affair with music mostly for Advent, Christmas and winter by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, with additional music by or arranged by her husband Alexander and son Harry. The first two thirds of the album tell the Christmas story from the anticipation of Christ’s birth and foretelling (Alexander L’Estrange’s jazzy and syncopated Isaiah’s Prophecy) to the birth of Christ and its significance for humankind (including Carol of the Crib, Song of the Shepherds – which incorporates quotes from several popular carols – and Love Came Down). The remaining third of the album takes in more secular pieces covering a wintery theme; however, A Present for the Future and The Three Wise Women do have religious themes at heart. The disc ends with an arrangement of Auld Lang Syne. The repertoire on this disc, brilliantly sung by London Voices, showcases the Forbes L’Estrange family’s skill as composers and arrangers. A must-have for an enjoyable listen, and inspiration for choral directors looking for new repertoire suggestions.
**
BATH BAROQUE CHRISTMAS: MUSIC FOR ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS
Choir of Bath Abbey / Réjouissance / Huw Williams Regent REGCD581
This is a delightful recording of some fine Baroque music for the season! The CD concludes with a fabulous performance of Charpentier’s Messe de minuit, before which come Praetorius’s Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, Quem pastores and Magnificat quinti toni, sitting alongside Purcell’s Rejoice in the Lord alway and O sing unto the Lord. All the works are sung with great spirit by the choir. Solos are also taken by choir members and sung, by and large, with precision, although one soloist has more vibrato than the others. Réjouissance provide sensitive accompaniments with Peter Wright (formerly of Southwark Cathedral) on the chamber organ. Overall, while some competing discs may have greater finesse, Huw Williams and his Bath forces provide a spirited and uplifting album of Baroque Christmas delights.
Ian Munro
CHORAL CDs
**
SAINT LOUIS REFLECTIONS
Saint Louis Chamber Chorus / Spencer Smith (organ) / Diana Umali (piano) / Philip Barnes Regent REGCD578
The Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, directed by Philip Barnes, has an admirable policy of commissioning new choral works and including a new piece in its repertoire every year. Here are 11 works, all commissioned by the choir and all receiving first recordings. Three of the choir’s successive composers-in-residence are represented, starting with Dobrinka Tabakova’s concise four-movement Missa brevis. Steven Stucky completed The music of light shortly before his death in 2016, setting a selection of lines from the Sufi mystic, Kabir, in Rabindranath Tagore’s translation. Listeners who know Magnus Williamson from his work on Tudor church music may be surprised by a different aspect of his output in Exaltabo. Kerensa Briggs’s name appeared in last June’s CMQ reviews as the choir’s current composer-in-residence; she contributes a Height in Depth suite, in which two psalm settings frame the poem by Christina Rossetti that provides the title. A Finnish poem inspired Charles Collins to write a sweetly charming Joulupuu on rakennettu (‘The Christmas tree is up’).
Better-known composers include Sasha Johnson Manning, who was the choir’s first composer-in-residence, Ivan Moody with an arrangement of Hildegard of Bingen’s O viridissima virga, and Judith Bingham, whose I lift up mine eyes unto the hills is accompanied by piano and organ: the only piece mentioned so far that is not a cappella. Carl Rütti’s large-scale Aus tiefer Not, based on the Lutheran chorale, and secular works by David Matthews and Melissa Dunphy complete this wide-ranging and accomplished anthology.
Judith Markwith
***
I SAW ETERNITY: CHORAL WORKS BY ALEXANDER CAMPKIN
Phoenix Consort / Adam Whitmore Convivium CR100
On this debut disc from the recently formed Phoenix Consort, which consists of current and former students of Durham University and is directed by its founder Adam Whitmore, the 19 voices give performances of superb professional quality. The14 pieces that form the collection give an effective overview of the music of Alexander Campkin. Calm me, O Lord is hauntingly beautiful, while the soprano top notes of True Love have an ethereal quality to them, secure in intonation as well as with quality of sound. The harmonic dissonances of I saw Eternity are radiant, while the effective use of dynamics makes this a particularly poignant performance. The quirky effects of Dazzling Darkness, which include whistling and pulsating rhythmic ostinatos, along with atonality, add an extra dimension to it. All works are excellently paced and sung with deep sincerity; it is a recording of exquisite beauty. Highly recommended.
**
REGARDS FROM ROCHESTER: THOMAS HEWITT JONES
BBC Singers / Royal Ballet Sinfonia / Rochester Choral Society / Harriet Mountford (soprano) / Simon Thorpe (baritone) / John Mountford Vivum Music
Thomas Hewitt Jones’s Regards from Rochester is a substantial 50-minute work for choir and orchestra composed for the 150th anniversary of the Rochester Choral Society. The work is made up of 10 movements that celebrate Rochester’s history, the river Medway, and industrial and literary connections, in addition to its cathedral. The choirs give impassioned performances with clear diction and are ably supported by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia. There’s little for the soloists to do but Harriet Mountford and Simon Thorpe make excellent contributions. The accompanying sleeve notes contain a full libretto, but programme notes and artist biographies are in such small print they are difficult to read. Hewitt Jones is a skilful composer and the work is a fitting tribute to the city of Rochester as well as a memento for Rochester Choral Society on achieving such a significant milestone.
Ian Munro
DVDs
BACH: THE GREAT TOCCATA
DVD and CD 2-disc pack / filmed by Will Fraser / Daniel Moult (organ) Fugue State Films FSFDVD017
After an earlier boxed set entitled Bach and Expression, Daniel Moult follows up with the same format consisting of performances (in sound and vision), video lectures and a documentary featuring nine works by J.S. Bach. Except that the authorship of the centrepiece has been questioned, namely the Great Toccata in D minor, or ‘the 565’ as it’s described in the film. Among the contributors we meet Dr Christine Blanken at the Bach Archiv in Leipzig, where Daniel is shown contemporaneous manuscripts of the 565. He argues that, although it might be a youthful work and there’s much that’s atypical of Bach’s style, this doesn’t necessarily mean the composer was someone else. Bach was exploring a wide range of techniques and devices, and was happy to break harmonic rules.
Along with the excellent, engaging performances, there are many fascinating insights here; we are reminded that Bach was alive during a period when improvisation and (as Christine Blanken puts it) ‘having fun’ was the order of the day.
Stuart Robinson
BOOKS
CHARLES VILLIERS STANFORD: MAN AND MUSICIAN
Jeremy Dibble
Revised and expanded edition
Boydell & Brewer 730pp.
HB 978-1-78327-795-7 £70.00
It is hard to believe that over 20 years have elapsed since the publication of Jeremy Dibble’s biography of Charles Villiers Stanford, and it is no surprise in this Stanford anniversary year that a revised and expanded edition is now available. From a different publisher and now in the series ‘Irish Musical Studies’, it has been interesting, as an ardent ‘Stanfordophile’, to compare the two.
Superficially the new edition appears much larger and weighs in at 1.4 kg, but this is deceptive as the two publishers use a different weight of paper. Could it be that the increase of pages from 542 to 715 reflects a different layout and type size rather than extra information? Actually no, the amount of general text per page is identical in the two editions, though the footnotes in this new edition do take up more space. An exception is the list of works, which has almost doubled in size and, sadly, this is not due to any new discoveries of music but instead to a different layout and size of type.
Physical properties aside, what content is new in 2024? The first thing to notice is that the photographs are mainly different and appear less well reproduced on paper that is not glossy. The photograph of the lay clerks at Trinity College in 1875 has been trimmed to exclude individual names but is also marked c.1885 whereas the original photograph quite clearly states 1875. In addition to more numerous musical examples, a new feature is the inclusion of eight music analysis tables relating to both choral and orchestral works. The most expanded sections are ‘The New Generation 1901–1914’ and ‘War and Decline 1914–1924’, with this latter section now including a consideration of Stanford’s late organ sonatas. While it is not feasible to compare every single paragraph, it is clear that Professor Dibble has tweaked many of them with extra information and no doubt 20 years of new sources available has permitted both additions and corrections.
Is it worth upgrading to this edition if you already have the first edition? Probably not, unless special research requirements make it essential. This said, however, no lover of British music should be without this truly outstanding book for, not only does it tell the story of one man and his unique journey, but musical life, musical education and musical controversies within the British Isles, supposedly the ‘land without music,’ are clearly highlighted along the way.
John Henderson
‘WITH ANGELS AND ARCHANGELS’ – SHARING THE WORSHIP OF HEAVEN: BIBLE, POETRY, LITURGY AND DEVOTION IN THE MIDDLE AGES
John Blakesley
Gracewing 188pp.
PB 978-0-85244-719-2 £15.99
Church musicians often come across modern translations of ancient texts without realizing how old are their sources. So, for example, Urbs beata Jerusalem, found as ‘Christ is made the sure foundation’ and as ‘Blessed city, heavenly Salem’, is an office hymn dating back to before the 9th century, while ‘Ye choirs of new Jerusalem’ is translated from St Fulbert who died in 1028. Vexilla regis (‘The royal banners forward go’) and Pange lingua (‘Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle’) were written by Fortunatus in the 6th century.
This fascinating book is primarily a study of the texts of early hymns, tracts (texts inserted mostly into the Kyrie) and sequences (texts added to the singing of the Alleluia before the Gospel). John Blakesley describes their development in the church during the Middle Ages. Non-biblical, unlike, for example, psalms and canticles, Blakesley is keen to emphasize the extent to which the Bible, poetry and worship is interwoven in their verses, not least in an extended discussion of Hildegard of Bingen, paralleling perhaps the way in which allegory is found throughout the Bible. The 10 chapters take us on a wide-ranging tour, geographically as well as over the centuries, and include extended quotations (in English). We end by praising God ‘with angels and archangels and all the company of heavenly’, as earth and heaven come close to each other within high medieval worship.
Julian Elloway