HAVPCD350 – Carols from Chichester Cathedral
“Gramophone Critics Christmas Choice 2009” to be announced in the December issue.
“BBC Music Magazine Christmas Choice 2009” announced in the December issue.
Christmas is a special time for Chichester Cathedral Choir. In addition to a run of concerts at the Festival Theatre and services for radio and local organizations, the Choir sings the traditional services on Christmas Eve and Day, and three Cathedral services of lessons and carols.
The selection of music for Carols from Chichester Cathedral is intended to capture the spirit of these services, which are popular with the young and old alike. Some of the usual congregational carols, with the familiar David Willcocks descants, sit alongside other Christmas favourites such as In the bleak mid-winter and Tomorrow shall be my dancing day. Mark Wardell’s Rocking was specially written for the Choristers for this CD, and like David Hill’s Away in a manger demonstrates the power of a good tune in the hands of a skilful arranger.
“The English Cathedral tradition at its very finest”
– Five Stars for Recording & Performance.
- BBC Music Magazine, December 2009
The Lay Vicars sing one to a part in Brian Kay’s version of Gaudete, and at the other end of the spectrum is the atmospheric full choir work Lux aurumque by the contemporary American composer, Eric Whitacre. The Sussex Carol is particularly appropriate for Chichester Cathedral Choir: the melody is reputed to have been collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp in the West Sussex village of Monk’s Gate. The Cathedral Choir is accompanied on the Hill organ by Mark Wardell, who also plays three contrasting settings for solo organ of In dulci jubilo and J.S. Bach’s Chorale Prelude Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her – ‘From heaven above, to earth I come’.
HAVPCD342 – Evensong for St Peter’s Day
Exeter became a cathedral city in 1050 when King Edward the Confessor came in person to install Leofric as the first Bishop of Exeter. We share with Westminster Abbey, both our founder, and our patron saint, St Peter. By tradition the festival of St Peter is held each year on June 29th. In medieval times the festival was marked by the lighting of a bonfire on the cathedral green and the making of shields. It has been suggested this may have been for Decani v. Cantoris horseback battles! Today the festival (without bonfires and battles) is attended by the Friends of Exeter Cathedral. Since 1929 the Friends have assisted the Dean and Chapter in preserving and improving the fabric and furnishings of this wonderful building together with its music and its archives, thereby helping to maintain the long tradition of worship and praise for years to come. This recording follows the traditional order of Evensong according to the Book of Common Prayer but with an added celebratory ‘Te Deum’.
HAVPCD341 – Pray the Rosary with Cardinal Newman
According to tradition, the Rosary devotion in its entirety was revealed to St Dominic by Our Lady herself. Sceptics have other theories, but it is certain that the cycle of 150 prayers, corresponding to the 150 Psalms, was promoted for the use of the laity by the late Middle Ages. The pattern of three sets of five meditations, reflecting the birth, death and resurrection of Christ as seen through the eyes of His Mother, is certainly very old, although it took time for the exact choice of meditations to become fixed, as it has remained for the last five hundred years. The essential facts of our Redemption were summarised in just those three moments, birth, death and resurrection (as they are in the writings of St Paul). The moods of joy,sorrow and glory are also the classic moods through which a life of prayer develops, as described in many spiritual writers. After the joy of first conversion comes the sorrow of the struggle with the various forms of difficulty in prayer, until the break-through into glory. Yet all three moods can co-exist in one person, as seen so dramatically in the life of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. Radiating joy to those around her,she experienced deep sorrow in her solidarity with suffering humanity, at times unconscious of the heart of glory within her.
HAVPCD340 – Commotio – Night
Commotio is one of Oxford’s foremost chamber choirs, formed in August 1999 to provide a refreshing alternative to the more readily available repertoire offered by most other choral groups, primarily performing lesser-known material of the 20th and 21st centuries. Matthew Berry, the founder and conductor of the choir, enthusiastically promotes the work of a younger generation of composers, as well as bringing to the fore little-known works of more established writers. In December 2002 Commotio performed the world première of Pierre Villette’s Inviolata, and in June 2007 Night for Choir and Cello by Richard Allain. They have also performed UK premières of works by Jon Mostad, Peter Klatzow, and Frank Ferko. In June 2005, the choir recorded a CD of works by Peter Klatzow entitled Towards the Light (Herald HAVP316), receiving extremely positive reviews from Musical Opinion, International Record Review and Gramophone among many others. The choir has also contributed to a portfolio CD of works by the young British composer Thomas Hyde, to be released on Toccata Classics in 2008.
HAVPCD335 – A Cappella
Trinity Boys Choir.
The sound of unaccompanied voices has inspired worshippers for centuries, but the decision not to have instruments playing at the same time has not always been a straightforward one for composers.
Pragmatism no doubt had its place in the Renaissance when the a cappella ideal was occasionally compromised through lack of rehearsal time, and the pioneering efforts of Martin Luther and others to have accompanied congregational singing encouraged later generations to write liturgical settings with opulent orchestral contributions. The starting point for much unaccompanied sacred music is chant and this underpins the earliest work on this recording, the magnificent six-part antiphon Reges Tharsis by John Sheppard: plainsong alternates with polyphonic sections which set five imitative voice parts around a baritone cantus firmus.
The wonderfully rich sonority of the six-part sections represents Sheppard?s distinctive style and it is regrettable that his work receives less attention that many of his younger contemporaries. This is due in no small part to the lack of contemporary prints of his works, a fate which did not befall William Byrd, who, with Thomas Tallis, enjoyed the royal printing monopoly.
