Catalogue
HAVPCD176 – Mater, Ora Filium
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| Disk Title | Mater, Ora Filium |
| Choral Music by Bax and Villaette | |
| Soloists | Christopher Hughes – Organ |
| Choir | The Rodolfus Choir |
| Conductor | Ralph Allwood |
| Location | The Chapel, Eton College |
| Date Recorded | December 1993 |
| Audio Tracks | 11 |
The English musical renaissance of the early 20th century brought forward an individual figure in Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953). His works, not least those for choir, have enjoyed such recent popularity that it is suprising how difficult it remains to assess his exact position among his contemporaries. Less impressionistic than Holst, eschewing the modality and parallelism of Vaughan Williams, he is in some ways closer to the Germanic chromaticism of Delius, yet separated from him by an inclination to Celtic mysticism not far removed from that of Warlock…
| Trk. | Duration | Track Title | Composer |
| 1 | 05:31 | Epithalamium | Arnold Bax |
| 2 | 03:14 | Lord, thou has told us | Arnold Bax |
| 3 | 04:31 | I sing of a maiden | Arnold Bax |
| 4 | 03:02 | Salve, Regina | Pierre Villette |
| 5 | 05:58 | Magnificat | Arnold Bax |
| 6 | 04:35 | O magnum mysterium | Pierre Villette |
| 7 | 11:19 | Mater, ora Filium | Arnold Bax |
| 8 | 05:49 | Attende, Domine | Pierre Villette |
| 9 | 06:30 | This worldës joie | Arnold Bax |
| 10 | 03:39 | O sacrum convivium | Pierre Villette |
| 11 | 04:27 | Hymne à la Vierge | Pierre Villette |
Bax’s later style may partly have been moulded by his public rôle as Master of the King’s Musick. By contrast, Pierre Villette (b.1926) spent most of his working life in academic administration. Although this has inevitably limited his compositional output, he has nevertheless produced a significant œuvre of choral and orchestral music. In the UK he has chiefly become known for his a capella motets on familiar Latin texts. The style of these is not unlike Bax’s, in their alternation of modal austerity and chromatic sophistication; however, Villette draws upon a French tradition of altogether more static and sensuous textures than Bax’s involved dynamism.
