Christmas at St George's, Windsor

Christmas at St George's Chapel, Windsor, with the Choir of St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, James Vivian, organist and conductor. New from Hyperion, this continues their series of previous recordings with this Choir.  The College of St George, founded in 1348, is unusual in that it is a Royal Peculiar, a parish under the direct jurisdiction of the monarch. The Choir of St George's Chapel comprises twelve lay clerks, who live within Windsor Castle, and  twenty choristers drawn from St. George's School nearby. St George's is a close-knit, residential community, providing services at daily office throughout the year : effectively the Queen's own chapel and choir.

This recording takes us through three important seasons in the liturgical calendar - Advent, Christmas and Epiphany.  Each section is planned in a sequence connecting the past to the present. William Byrd is represented three times - Vigilate for Advent, Puer natus est nobis for Christmas and Ecce Avenit for Epiphany,  serving as a pivot between the modern Church of England, the Reformation and the church before that.  The melody Creator of the Stars and Night used in the Vespers on the four Sundays in Advent, dates from the seventh century, heard here with a text from Victorian times. The cantor is Simon Whiteley. The polyphony of Byrd's Vigilate rings out beautifully in this Chapel, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture.  Orlando Gibbons’ This is the record of St John, from the same period, connects to the new Anglican tradition. Both are complemented by Joseph Rheinberger's "Rorate caeli" from Neun Advent-Motteten op 176 (1893)  for four-part chorus.  Michael Finnissy's Telling (2008) sets an anonymous 16th century text."Man stands in doubt, but seeks about, where they mayest him see". Finnissy comments on the final chord of the refrain, on its "mystery, ambiguity and even irrationality". After all, a miracle has happened beyond normal understanding. "Must carols be fluffy and sentimental?", he asks. No qualms in the jolliness of  Arvo Pärt's Bogoróditse Djévo, from 1990 but already a Christmas  classic.  In an acknowledgement of other threads of the British choral tradition, A Tender Shoot by Otto Goldschmidt who founded the Bach Choir in 1875. If it sounds familiar, it's because it's a variation of the hymn to the Virgin Mary,  Es ist ein Ros' entrsprungen in English translation. John Gardner's Tomorrow shall be my dancing day (1966) is another modern classic, where the organ, usually solemn, does a jerky "dance".

Christmas here begins with Puer natus est nobis, twice, first as plainsong (Ben Alden, cantor), then in William Byrd's version, from his Gradualia Book 2, (before 1607), Alden being joined by two altos and the choir, the parts forming a tracery as elaborate and beautifully structured as the ceiling above the choir stalls in St George's Chapel.  "On Christmas night, all Christians Sing", is heard here based on the song collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in May, 1904, near Horsham, hence the title The Sussex Carol. The text was first published in the 17th century but its origins may go back even further.  Here it is heard in an arrangement by Philip Ledger from 1986, where the sound of pealing bells is evoked in the voice parts and organ.  "Minuit, chrétiens, c'est l'heure solennelle", Adolphe Adam's Cantique de Noël is here heard in the original, Nicholas Madden singing in fairly idiomatic French.  This isn't carol so much as art song, given that Adam wrote grand opera (Le postillon de Lonjumeau), audiences of the time expecting performance standards equal to what they might hear in the opera house.  Madden's voice rings clearly and carries well, supported by the organ.

More bells in Mykola Leontovich's The Carol of the Bells, an arrangement of the Ukrainian folksong Schedryck, heard here in English translation. Another Philip Ledger arrangement of a traditional carol, I saw Three Ships is followed by an arrangement by David Briggs of Away in the Manger. "I wrapped the original melody up in a post impressionist harmonic language, saturated in garlic and one or two other exotic, succulent herbs!".  It is a delight, Briggs’ background as an organist spicing up the organ part so it glows with rich warmth.  In contrast, the sparkling voices of the young choristers of St George's enliven The Seven Joys of Mary arranged by William Whitehead.
Just as the introit to Christmas in this collection began with plainsong and Byrd,  Epiphany is marked by Ecce Avenit, first with cantor Ben Alden, then with the full blown polyphony of William Byrd. West Gallery music, usually simple metrical psalm, originated in smaller parishes in Georgian times. The term "West Gallery" refers to the practice of placing choirs in a gallery on the west side of the chapel, facing the altar but behind the congregation. Their relative informality fell out of favour after the rise in popularity of organs and more organzied religious practice in the 19th century.  In Under the Greewood Tree, Thomas Hardy describes this social change in rural Dorset. West Gallery hymnal would have been even more remote from the perspective of high Victorian Windsor, so it's good to hear how the Choir of St George's Chapel enjoy singing A Gallery Carol, from Dorset, in an arrangement by Reginald Jacques. The background to Bethlehem Down is even more irreverent. Neither Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) nor Bruce Blunt, who wrote the text, were religious. They wrote the hymn for a newspaper competition to raise money so they could indulge in alcohol.  Nontheless, the hymn was an instant hit, and remains a favourite to this day. God moves in mysterious ways.  This most rewarding collection concludes with an exuberant flourish. Nowell Sing We was commissioned for the 2014 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in York Minster. The composer is Matthew Martin (b. 1976) Director of Music at Keble College, Oxford.  It's a heady mix blending Latin and English texts, in a spicy cocktail of sound, the organ wild and free, before a sudden, conventional coda.

Gerald Finzi - Stephen Layton, Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge

From Hyperion, Gerald Finzi choral works with the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, conducted by Stephen Layton.  An impressive Magnificat (1952) sets the tone.  Finzi's values were highly individual : his religious views were more spiritual than dogmatic. This is not a liturgical setting, but a stand-alone, written for an American college choir. A dramatic organ introduction (Alexander Hamilton), leads to a series of choral and solo variations on the phrase "My soul doth magnify", garlanding the text with different colours. The processs repeats with other phrases, adding  texture, ending with the phrase "Forever, forever, forever..." held until it fades into  reverent hush. "The apparently rhapsodic freedom of the Magnificat is regulated by a technique whereby melodic contours either emerge as musical ‘anagrams’ of one another or give common prominence to certain intervals", writes Francis Pott, resembling a corymbus in botanical terms. "In musical terms, this meant that a seminal idea would be added to upon its reappearance, thus heading in a new direction after the initial element of repetition." David Bednall's Nunc dimittis (2016), included in this recording, is a homage to Finzi, created (with a Gloria, not included) so the Magnificat can be used in Evensong. 

Three miniatures that comprise Finzi's opus no 27 are heard here,  My Lovely One, God is gone up, and Welcome Sweet Sacrifice. The last, from 1951, is heard first, the tracery of the vocal parts echoing the patterns in the Magnificat. Here, the perennially popular God is gone up is augmented by brass fanfare, enhancing impact.  Continuing the imagery of  the Magnificat, Finzi's White-flowering Days, was part of "A Garland for the Queen", a collection of choral songs by different composers, premiered the night before the Coronation in 1953.  Thus the "garlanding", interweaving the parts into a cohesive whole. In Finzi's Seven Poems of Robert Bridges Op 17 (1935-7) Finzi adapted the first person singular character of Bridge's poems, which lends itself  to unison setting, to polyphonic expression.  The third song "My spirit sang all day" with its refrain "O my joy" is lively.  For Finzi, the word "joy" signified personal happiness. Joy Finzi meant more to the composer than anything else.  Any system of beliefs he held stemmed from the bedrock of their union. The last song "Haste on, my joys" tenderly balances major and minor keys, evoking from Finzi what Pott aptly describes as "an apt canonic rhythm whereby the upper voices seem to be perpetually nudging the lower ones along".  Gerald and Joy, in essence.

Stephen Banfield, Finzi's biographer, described Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice as ‘intense, almost necromantic atmosphere, laden with incense’, very High Church, Anglo-Catholic in nature. After the unaccompanied Seven Songs of Robert Bridges, the organ introduction feels even more profound.   Finzi combines two poems by Richard Crashaw (1612-1649), after St Thomas Aquinas' Adoro te and Lauda Sion Salvatorum.  The mystery of the Eucharist is captured in the contemplative setting, where the choral parts are finely subdivided.  As in the text, lines overlap, evoking the concept of communion.  "Oh let that love which thus makes Thee, mix with our low mortality". The very high tessitura at this point might suggest the bell that signals consecration.  In the second section "Rise, royal Sion!" the spirit is fortified by "the living and life-giving bread".  Thus revived, the tenor part (Edward Cunningham) can come to the fore, soaring above the choir. "O soft self-wounding pelican whose breast weeps balm for wounded man".  Joined by the bass (Frankie Postles), and the choir, the piece reaches its resolution, with glorious decoration on the last "Amen".

SOMM Remembrance - Choral music by Ireland Holst Parry Elgar

From SOMM, In remembrance, marking the end of the 1914-1918 war, choral music with organ accompaniment by Ireland, Holst, Parry, Elgar, Fauré and Venables  with the Chapel Choir of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, conducted by William Vann. In pride of place, Sir C Hubert Parry's Jerusalem, so deeply embedded in the British national consciousness that it has taken on new life as an icon of popular culture, adopted and adapted to many different situations. The text, by William Blake, is visionary, but its meaning is subtle "And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills?". For Blake, writing in the Industrial Revolution, the answer was "not yet". "I shall not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem in Englsnd's green & pleasant land".  The piece was commissioned by an organization set up in 1915 to raise morale.   The version on this reciording is Parry's original, premiered at Queen's Hall in March 1916, with 300 volunteer singers accompanied by organ, (here played by Hugh Rowlands), not the more famous orchestration made by Sir Edward Elgar in 1922.  The emphasis in this version is on the unison choir, and the balance of male and female voices, an important consideration given that Parry was soon disillusioned by the growing jingoism of the Fight for Right movement and pointedly withdrew his support.  By then the song had been taken up by the Women's Suffrage movement, of which Maude Parry was a member. Parry was delighted, "I wish indeed that it might become Women Voter's Hymn", he wrote, "......and having the vote ought to diffuse a good deal of joy, too."


This Jerusalem is thus positioned between the words from the Bible, and a text associated with the outbreak of the 1914-1918 war.   In Greater Love Hath No Man, Johnn Ireland sets the crucial phrase for solo baritone (Gareth Brynmor John), "that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness". Ireland was writing in 1912, before the onset of war, when the sacrifice meant Christian sacrifice. Jesus died for all men (and women) regardless of place and time.  For the Fallen, reflects the way the message adapted after the impact of war.  The piece was written in 1971 by Dougas Guest (born 1916).  Though much of Laurence Binyon's original is belligerent, Guest, who served in the Second World War, sets only one verse, placing emphasis on the sombre, humbling line the words "We shall we remember them".

Sir Edward Elgar's setting of They are at Rest, to a text by John Henry Newman, is an elegy marking the ninth anniversary of the death of Queen Victoria, while O Valiant Hearts by Charles Harris, a friend of Elgar, is a postwar reflection on loss. I Vow to thee, My country is Gustav Holst's adaptation of Jupiter in The Planets as the anthem. Its serenity links earthly death with concepts of eternal life, on another plane.  Holst's Ode to Death is heard here transcribed for choir and organ (James Orford), as is Gabriel Fauré's Requiem in D minor arranged by Iain Farrington.   Ian Venables's Requiem Aeternum  (2017) completes the set, a timely reminder that death is a part of the cycle of life.
Please also see my review of Earth & Sky - choral works by Ralph Vaughan Willaims, also conducted by William Vann, for Albion Records.

English Visionaries : A Vision of Aeroplanes

New from SOMM Records, English Visionaries, choral music by Vaughan Williams, Holst and Howells with Paul Spicer and the Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir.  Why "English Visionaries"?  Composers who weren't religious, writing music which connects to a long-standing British fascination with the more eclectic aspects of belief. One thinks of Blake, the Transcendalists, Milton and John Bunyan, not rigidly orthodox, but spiritual.

"I looked, and behold a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud and a fire unfolding itself". Vaughan Williams A Vision of Aeroplanes (1956) sets the scene on the Book of Ezekiel where the Prophet sees a chariot materialize in the sky, propelled by four angelic creatures each with four wings, joined together, operating as a single entity.  Vaughan Williams added the word "aeroplane" himself but it captures the idea of levitation, of perpetual movement, noise, wheels within wheels, wings fanning wind and even lightning and metallic brightness.  Ezekiel thought this was a manifestation of the Divine. To Vaughan Williams and many in the post-war era, the image might be far more ambiguous.  The piece begins with an astonishing blast from the organ (Nicholas Morris), the voices intoning lines that waver up and down the scale, suggesting unearthly motion.  Other lines arch outward in ellipse.  A solo voice emerges from the turbulence (Victoria Adams) and gradually the music subsides, like the idling of an engine.  This new recording is particularly welcome since Spencer made his recording of this piece with the Finzi Singers twenty five years ago.

Vaughan Williams's Mass in G Minor (1922) harks back to an earlier period, not only in terms of the composer's development but also to the influence of Tudor form on modern British music.  The text, in English, is sung with bright focus lighting up the lovely chromatics, also a feature of Holst's The Evening Watch (1924) which adapts the Song of Simeon as an exchange between soloists, representing bodily life, and the choir, representing the soul and eternal life.  Holsts's Sing me the Men (1925) continues a sense of dialogue, but in a much more robust mode, reflecting  the solid Muscular Christianity of the text by Digby Mackworth-Dolben (1848-1867).  Men's voices alternate with women's. Particularly lovely abstract vocalise in the women's parts.

This new recording also includes a new performance of Howell's The House of the Mind (1954).  The low rumble of the organ suggests, not so much an organ in a church, but a more elusive hum: perhaps the inner hum of meditation ?  The text, by Joseph Beaumont (1616-1699),  refers not to grand cathedrals but to a house that is small "girt up a narrow wall, in a clean and sober mind", in which man might make a humble abode with God. Though the house may be cramped, Howells's soaring lines suggest limitless boundaries, soaring upwards, faith that "can mock all hostile power".  An inspired choice which flows beautifully into Vaughan Williams's Lord, Thous has been our refuge (1922) to a text by Isaac Watts (1674-1748) paraphrasing Psalm 90.  Echoes of plainchant and melodies from hymns anchor this piece in conventional Anglican tradition, as does the dialogue between trumpet and organ. On a recording, context makes a difference. As Lord, Thou hast been our Refuge drew to a close, I pondered the Vaughan Williams of the Mass in G minor and of the Vision of Aeroplanes, in his maturity.

Choral Shakespeare - unusual settings from Cologne

Choral songs from Shakespeare in a concert by the West Deutsche Rundfunk Radio Chorus, Cologne; conducted by Stefan Parkman, pictured above in front of the Cathedral on BBC Radio 3's "Shakespeare in Sound" series. Programmes like this are fascinating because they offer new perspectives on settings of Shakespeare. Much more fun than run-of-the-mill things we can hear anytime, anywhere, and lots better than some of the other stuff on offer so far.  Lively vocal ensembles do interesting things, because they're more individualist and independent than bigger,  less-flexible ensembles.

Like Jaako Mäntyjärvi (b 1963) Four Shakespeare Songs, from 1984. We hear only one here, Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble.but we can hear why Mäntyjärvi has been a favorite in choral circles for a long time. The music "bubbles". The Three Witches are depicted in three blocks of voices. The low male voices keep the rhythmic line, while higher voices take off, rising like steam, then dissipating  in smokey sighs. Cackling good fun to sing.  Not included here is Mäntyjärvi's Full Fathom Five where the music flows across the different voices, blending them subtly, suggesting mysterious, submerged depths.  It's very different to Ralph Vaughan Williams's version in his Three Shakespeare songs for choir, where the "bells" toll  right from the start, as omnipresent as the "bells that ring on Bredon".  True artists find their own original voices.

Frank Martin's Five Ariel Songs  (1950) connect to Martin's opera Der Sturm, based on The Tempest, completed soon after. The tonal colour in Come unto these yellow sands blends and reshapes – synaesthetes, who process music visually, will be in raptures. Out of this the watchdog's bark "bow wow" rises almost like descant.  Martin's Full fathom five is graphic. The undulations of the female voices evoke an image of seaweed swaying in the depths, while the men's voices follow a more direct rhythm, lovely backed by the women singing in half tones. On the words "sea change" the music itself undergoes a change "into something rich and strange". The "ding dong" refrain is understated, for the beauty of this song lies in its polychromatic undulations. In contrast, "You are three men of sin" brings all the voices together. The part singing here is very tight, even the silences precise. The choir intones "Remember, remember" before the alto takes up the melody.  Inherently dramatic. More contrast, too, in Where the bee sucks, where the quick changes of tempo suggest fleet-footed lightness.

The WDR Chorus and Parkman continue with five sets of unusual settings of Shakespeare; Four Fancies from Sven-Eric Johanssen (1919-1997) : Wake me up from my bed of Dreams, Under the Greenwood Tree,  Blow, blow Thou Winter Wind and O Mistress Mine.  The acompaniment reveals their origins in piano song. Nils Lindberg (b 1933) Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day, Coloured Snakes, Lullaby, and The Whole World is a Stage,   Conductor Stefan Parkman's younger brother Håkan, who died aged only 33, was a composer. His Clown Song from Twelth Night shows great promise.  Why is my soul so barren of new Pride? , Alfred Janson (b 1937) Sonnet 46.  is interesting. The male soloist asks the question over and over, while the chorus at first hums (in German) and then sings in English. The answer seems to come when the female voice appears, "Telling what is told". The setting is call and response, as if the sonnet were part of a religious ceremony.  The concert ends with Carl Michael Bergerheim's settings of Sonnets 8 and 60, with beautiful piano accompaniment.  

The songs are introduced with readings from Shakespeare translated into German, delivered intelligently: a treat for English speakers who don't hear the translations too often, though some of these translations inspired some very great works.  There's another programme in this series, from Barcelona last year, where the readings are in Catalan.  This also features choral settings, some unknown in this country.  Jonathan Swain's late night programmes often provide hidden treasures.

Cantique de Pâques - Arthur Honegger

For Easter, the glorious Arthur Honegger: Cantique de Pâques  for  soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, female choir and chamber orchestra. It was written in 1918, when the composer was in his mid twenties but it's a surprisngly "modern" work. It isn't heard nearly as often as it should be, because the ensemble isn't the easiest to programme, and the piece runs 6 minutes.  Perhaps that's why Honegger transcribed it for soprano and piano in 1924. But the original version is so beautiful that it really needs to be better known

Dresdner Kreuzchor Weihnachtszyklus 1945

Rudolf Mauersberger's Weihnachtszyklus first performed 15th December 1944.with the Dresdner Kreuzchor. Two months later, Dresden would be destroyed by British and American firebombs, flattening the historic old quarter of the city, one of the treasures of German culture.  Coventry doesn't compare. The boys of the Kreuzchor hid for shelter in a dark cellar nearby, not knowing what was going on outside, or if their families were safe. Mauersberger, their choirmaster, calmed them down by making them sing songs of faith. Can hymns have been quite so fervent, out of the mouths of children?

Mauersberger's Weihnachtszyklus is beautiful bercause it celebrates Christmas from the perspective of children. It's not yet another telling of the Bible story, which the choristers sang about all year round. Instead, it describes the Dresden Striezelmarkt, or Christmas fair, and the simple folk toys that children marvelled at before Christmas was commercialized. We can hear bells, cuckoo calls,  and rhythms suggesting the movement of mechanical toys. The choristers sing with real enthusiasm, all the more touching because many of these boys, one of whom is Peter Schreier,  had been huddled together as the bombs fell around them four years earlier.

Perhaps Mauersberger's Weihnachtszyklus fell out of favour in the DDR because it was a raw reminder of the war, and of lost innocence, but I think that is exactly why it should become part of the Christmas repertoire not only in Germany but elsewhere. Do watch the video, published by a Dresdner Kreuzchor source, because it includes photos from their archives, not seen otherwise. Every British youth choir "needs" to hear this.