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HAVPCD362 – Personent Hodie
(Due for Release in November 2010)

Forward by – The Abbot of Ealing
There are few professional Catholic Church Choirs in London; even fewer have boy choristers, but only one serves a monastic community: in this case, the monastery of St Benedict at Ealing in West London. For a century the Abbey Choir has been deepening and enhancing the worship and prayer of those who come to St Benedict’s. I am very proud of our musical tradition here at Ealing, and I warmly support and encourage the valuable work that has been done by the Abbey Choir in this recording to support Aid to the Church in Need. The Christmas message, which is so beautifully sung in this CD, reminds us of the call to peace and reconciliation in our world. This is the mission of the Church and the special work of Aid to the Church in Need in its support for persecuted and oppressed Christians around the world. All involved in this valuable work have my appreciation, encouragement and prayers.
Rt. Revd. Martin Shipperlee, OSB

Christopher Eastwood began his musical studies as a chorister at Westminster Cathedral, under the direction of James O’Donnell. In addition to the Cathedral’s daily services, Christopher also sang for concerts and television and radio broadcasts as well as numerous recordings.

Christopher read music at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he was the Senior Organ Scholar with responsibility for the choir and the music in the college chapel. In 2001 Christopher toured with the college choir to the North of England and then to Venice in 2003. During this period he also directed the choir in a recording of music by the Wesley family, which was released in 2003 to favourable reviews. During his time at Oxford, Christopher maintained an active interest in singing, especially with the early music group, Magdala, directed by David Skinner, and on recordings of the music of Orlando Gibbons, and the soundtrack for the BBC’s Blue Planet series with Magdalen College Choir.

HAVPCD361 – L’Orgue Mystique – Charles Tournemire (1870-1939)

When Tournemire began work on l’Orgue Mystique in 1927 he was 57 years old. As organist of the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde for almost thirty years, and successor of the legendary César Franck, he was universally recognised as a towering presence in the Parisian organ world, and the greatest living master of the art of improvisation. But as an organ composer, at this date he was no more than a minor figure. Tournemire’s contemporary and fellow Franck-pupil, Louis Vierne, had already written nearly all his organ music (the two sets of 24 pieces, and five of the six Symphonies); the early works of Marcel Dupré were attracting widespread attention, and even younger composers like Duruflé were starting to appear.

Tournemire had written almost nothing – a few early harmonium and organ pieces (which he dismissed as “sins of my youth”), and just one big work, the Triple Choral of 1910. He had been far from idle during the past thirty years, but his ambitions as a composer extended far beyond the organ-loft, and he had devoted most of his time to the composition of major works for orchestra, many of them with voices, including eight symphonies and three operas. The ‘musical legend’ Le Sang de la Sirène won the prestigious Prix de la Ville de Paris in 1904, and the ‘lyric drama’ Les Dieux sont morts (1912) was staged at the Paris Opera in 1924. But none of these works achieved more than a handful of performances at best, and most of the music that Tournemire wrote after the First World War was neither published nor performed.

In the liberated, pleasure-seeking Paris of the 1920s, Tournemire had become an increasingly isolated figure. A visionary idealist inspired by a profound catholic faith, he believed that the only true purpose of music was the expression of spiritual truth: music that was not written for the glory of God was inutile – a waste of time.

HAVPCD359 – The Gentle Art of Percy Whitlock

Percy William Whitlock was one of the outstanding English organist-composers of his time. Born in Chatham on 1st June 1903, he spent his first twenty-seven years in the Medway towns, in particular at Rochester, where he was associated with the Cathedral from 1911-1930, initially as a probationer chorister (under Bertram Luard-Selby) and later as assistant organist to Charles Hylton Stewart. He also held church organist and choirmaster posts at St Mary’s, Chatham and St Matthew’s, Borstal. In 1920 he took up a Kent County Scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London where he studied composition with Charles Stanford and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and organ with Henry Ley.

His fame as a performer and composer spread quickly when in 1930 he moved to Bournemouth, first as Director of Music at St Stephen’s Church (1930-35) and then, from 1932, as Municipal Organist for the Borough. He was also an active broadcaster and musical journalist. He died on 1st May 1946 aged forty-two. Whitlock’s oeuvre was large and varied, including orchestral works (notably the Symphony in G minor for organ and orchestra of 1937) composed mostly for the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra – choral and church music, hymn-tunes, solo songs and several chamber works, including a magnificent Piano Quintet (also in G minor!). His reputation, however, remains firmly based on his beautifully-crafted organ music.

Roderick Elms studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He appears in concerts, recordings and broadcasts with most of Britain’s major orchestras, both as a principal keyboard player and as a soloist. He has broadcast regularly for the BBC for more than thirty years on Radio 3 as well as Radio 2’s Friday Night is Music Night and has made many solo recordings with the Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, London Symphony and BBC Concert Orchestras. He also works as a chamber player and for several years he was London pianist to the eminent cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Foreign tours have taken him around most of Europe as well as to the United States, Canada, South Africa, Israel, Russia and the Far East.

He has an extensive discography for EMI and Chandos which includes solo contributions as well as all the major oratorios of Elgar and also the award-winning recording of Britten’s War Requiem with the LSO and Richard Hickox. His solo piano recordings include, with the RPO, Hubert Bath’s Cornish Rhapsody, the Spellbound and Warsaw Concertos, and da Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain. Other recordings include music of Frank Martin with the LPO and of Charles Williams and Mischa Spoliansky with the BBCCO.

HAVPCD360 – The Dedication of the Temple
(Launched Saturday 29th May 2010 at the Temple “Schola Singing Day“)

The Temple Church, built around 1160 and consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalam in 1185, has been in the joint care of the Inner and Middle Temples, two of the four legal Inns of Court, for 400 years. It was originally built by the English Knights Templar, to replicate their round mother church on the site of Christ’s Resurrection in Jerusalem. So important was it as a place of spiritual significance that many knights were buried there ( you can see their effigies to this day ) and Thomas a Becket, when Archbishop, granted an indulgence of twenty days to all those who entered it.

The centrality of Jerusalem as the earthly replica of the heavenly kingdom comes through in the Templar liturgy that forms the basis of this recording. It is no coincidence that Jerusalem is the circular city at the centre of the mappa mundi. So to be in London’s Temple Church was, to the mediaeval mind, to be in the actual place for one’s own spiritual enlightenment helped no doubt by the uplifting qualities of singing the daily office, which Bernard of Clairvaux probably helped to compile. The Church retains its special atmosphere to this day and the Chant sounds wonderful in its ancient, round, acoustic – pure, perfect and complete.

Today the Temple Church serves its legal community in many ways. Members of the two Inns may be baptized, married and have their memorial services there. It is justly famous for its own choir of boys and mens voices who sing a high Anglican liturgy every Sunday during the legal terms. Inner Temple calls its students to the Bar there. The organ, the gift of a generous Scottish family, is a four manual Harrison&Harrison from whose loft many recitals are given. It was a popular tourist attraction even before Dan Brown put it on the Da Vinci trail.

The Church has also become a respected venue for the discussion of controversial issues, most notably the compatibility of sharia law with our own secular society. The Templar’s worthy adversaries in the second crusade would probably have approved.

HAVPCD358 – Benjamin Saunders

Benjamin Saunders was born in Warrington and educated at George Heriot’s School in Edinburgh. He received his first organ lessons at the age of sixteen at St Mary’s Metropolitan Cathedral, Edinburgh and two years later won an Organ Scholarship to Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied with Peter Hurford. Upon graduating, he held organist posts at the Cathedrals of St Giles’ Edinburgh, Blackburn, and Chester. In 2002, Saunders was appointed Director of Music for the Diocese of Leeds, leading the department at Leeds Cathedral, which is now the centre of England’s largest choral outreach programme. During this time, he has been privileged to act as consultant and advisor to a number of the UK’s other musically pre-eminent cathedrals and schools.

As an organist, he aims to present a varied and accessible programme to delight audiences both young and old, be they new to organ music or lifelong devotees of the instrument. His solo repertoire includes classical, popular and jazz works, some familiar and others new or recently rediscovered. He has also transcribed many orchestral works for the organ and these arrangements often form a popular part of his concert programmes. Saunders has performed to HM the Queen, Princess Anne and US President Carter and worked with conductor Carl Davis and jazz virtuoso Dick Hyman. Solo tours have led him to give organ recitals in France, Italy, Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, the United States and Russia. Further details of forthcoming concerts can be found on his website at http://www.directorofmusic.org.

HAVPCD357 – 40 Years at Wakefield

The Wakefield Cathedral Choir consists of up to twenty boys, twenty girls and ten lay clerks, and undertakes a full programme of services, concerts, recordings, radio and TV appearances. There are six choral services each week – Parish Eucharist, Cathedral Eucharist and Evensong on Sunday and Evensong on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The Yorkshire Three Choirs Festival (boys and men) and the Yorkshire Cathedral Choirs Festival (girls and men) take place in October and March respectively.

The Cathedral has had only four Organists: Joseph Naylor (1888-1930), Newell Wallbank (1930-1946), Percy Saunders (1946-1970) and Jonathan Bielby (1970-2010). The formidable past record of Assistant Organists includes John Scott (organist of St Thomas’ Church, Fifth Avenue, New York), Peter Gould (organist of Derby Cathedral), Keith Wright ( assistant organist of Durham Cathedral), and Louise Marsh (director of the Girls’ Choir at Ely Cathedral).

Famous previous members of the Choir include the composer, Kenneth Leighton, and the former Archbishop of York, David Hope. The Cathedral Choir has done a tremendous job in promoting the city and diocese of Wakefield and the cause of English cathedral music. Besides appearing at many UK venues, the boys and men have visited Germany three times, the United States twice, France, Austria, Italy and Holland; the girls and men have sung in Sweden, the Rhineland and New York; and the men have made an enjoyable trip to Dublin.

Jonathan Bielby’s wonderful work at Wakefield has encompassed many facets. On his upcoming retirement he will leave a legacy in hearts and minds for generations to come. As a composer, he is pre-eminently practical, clear, concise and – perhaps most importantly – comprehensible. His works have often been in the form of personal gifts – and those who receive his Christmas Cards each year will be aware of that – or mindful of a particular Cathedral service or event.

He knows a good melody when he sees one, and many of his compositions contain a reassuring and yet refreshing ambience in which the themes seem inevitable, fluent and memorable. To have recordings of music composed by him will give great and continuing pleasure to us all for many years. As one of his oldest friends, I commend the enterprise to you whole-heartedly and with enthusiastic acclaim!
Dr Simon Lindley
Organist & Master of the Choristers, Leeds Parish Church, and Leeds City Organist

Chichester Cathedral. 15, 16, 17 & 18th July 2010.
Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1PX.
http://www.chichestercathedral.org.uk/
Chichester Cathedral SCF 2010 Page

Southern Cathedrals Festival is a celebration of cathedrals and their music, held in turn at Chichester, Salisbury and Winchester. Cathedral music is truly one of this country’s national treasures. It offers sacred choral and organ music performed to the very highest standard by the three cathedrals’ renowned choirs. The choirs will be performing separately and together and will be complemented by visiting performers. The music is presented in concerts and within worship. The Festival offers a unique opportunity to enjoy music and to take part in worship within the setting of three magnificent cathedrals. The Festival Brochure and list of events and performances can be seen here. The Southern Cathedrals Festival marks its 50th anniversary in 2010 and we look forward to welcoming you to Chichester in this celebration year. The services, which lie at the heart of the Festival, will include a recreation of the 1960 Combined Evensong, which will be recorded for broadcast on Radio 3.

The Temple Church, Temple, London. Saturday 29th May 2010

The Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge is presenting a Gregorian Chant singing day in the glorious surroundings of the Temple Church in London. It is open to beginners and more experienced singers alike. The music will include chants for the Templars’ own breviary recalling their Foundation of this Church in 1185 and the day will finish with all participants singing Vespers. There will also be an organ recital, a talk on the Templars and an optional Schola dinner in the historic Inner Temple Hall.

The day will be conducted by Jeremy White and Philip Duffy, both expert teachers of the Chant. £35 for the day with an optional dinner for £50. £25 for students. Free parking.

For booking and more information:
The Temple Church – 020 7797 8206
The Temple Church “Schola Gregoriana Concert” Poster (Acrobat PDF)
http://www.scholagregoriana.org
http://www.templechurch.com

HAVPCD355 – De Profundis. Martin Bruce
(Available in late March 2010)

Martin Bruce’s De Profundis was written for the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, at the invitation of organist Stephen Darlington. It received its first performance in the Lent of 2008. Scored for two four-part choirs, it opens with a motif built on a rising tone, which grows steadily more insistent. Initially passed between the two alto parts – naturally an effective technique for a cathedral choir, where the two choruses are physically separated on either side of the nave – this ascending idea develops and opens out into a full, eight-part rendering: ‘Lord, hear my voice’.

There is a wide variety of textures employed here, and each section of text has its own distinct character; we move from the antiphonal effects of ‘therefore shalt thou be feared’ to the fugal style of ‘I look for the Lord’, coming to a close only when the opening ascending tone motif returns, this time passed between the two soprano parts. This setting of a text which is at once penitential yet full of hope seems to move through a gamut of moods before reaching its conclusion, and in the ambitious choral writing we have an apposite gateway into the works which succeed it here. The Magnificat is Mary’s song of joy at the revelation that she will bear the Son of God, and as a canticle it is one of the church’s fundamental liturgical texts.