Info & track listings
Music for the Epiphany
The Choir of Worcester College
Directed by Thomas Allery
Release Date: November 2019
Much of the music in this album has been performed as part of the Worcester College Epiphany Festival, an annual weekend of services and concerts in January when friends and neighbours of the College are particularly invited to visit. For details of the Epiphany Festival, please visit
www.worcesterchapel.org.
Notes on the music
This album celebrates the musical heritage of the Christian feast of the Epiphany, the revelation of the infant Christ to the world. Like the feast itself, the music is traditionally centred on the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem and the star that led them to the Holy Family.
This recording opens with the rousing hymn O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, by the prolific hymn-writer the Revd John Samuel Bewley Monsell (d.1875), taking inspiration from Psalm 96 and the gifts of the Magi. It was written in 1863, one year before the re-decoration of Worcester College Chapel. The tune comes from the Choralbuch von Johann Heinrich Reinhardt, an eighteenth century German manuscript, and was set to Monsell’s poem by the compilers of the English Hymnal.
Whilst O worship the Lord now seems very traditional, it is interesting to note how recently it has entered the choral repertoire.
| TRACK | DURATION | TITLE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3.12 | O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness | Choralbuch von Johann Heinrich Reinhardt |
| 2 | 8.03 | Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (BuxWV 223) | Dietrich Buxtehude |
| 3 | 2.28 | New Year Carol | Benjamin Britten |
| 4 | 2.25 | Prélude sur l’Introit de l’Épiphanie | Maurice Duruflé |
| 5 | 2.48 | Introit (Ecce venit dominator Dominus) | Plain Chant |
| 6 | 2.01 | Gradual (Omnes de Saba) | Plain Chant |
| 7 | 1.51 | Alleluia (Vidimus stellam) | Plain Chant |
| 8 | 1.33 | Offertory (Reges Tharsis) | Plain Chant |
| 9 | 0.40 | Communion (Vidimus stellam) | Plain Chant |
| 10 | 2.24 | No small wonder | Paul Edwards |
| 11 | 8.13 | La nativité from Trois poèmes évangéliques | Jean Langlais |
| 12 | 2.27 | Brightest and best of the sons of the morning | Joseph F Thrupp |
| 13 | 2.16 | O Lord, how manifold are thy works | Thomas Tomkins |
| 14 | 3.11 | The Holy Boy | John Ireland |
| 15 | 2.28 | Away in a manger | William J. Fitzpatrick |
| 16 | 2.46 | Noël from Esquisses Byzantines | Henri Mulet |
| 17 | 1.35 | Natus est nobis | Jacob Handl |
| 18 | 3.11 | Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (Played by Alex Wilson) | Johann Pachelbel |
| 19 | 1.41 | Pueri concinite | Jacob Handl |
| 20 | 2.02 | Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht | Gunther Martin Göttsche |
| 21 | 2.52 | Brightest and best of the sons of the morning | Eric Thiman |
| 22 | 4.31 | Marche des Rois Mages | François-Clément Théodore Dubois |
| 23 | 1.42 | Omnes de Saba | Giammateo Asola |
| 24 | 4.25 | Canzone Francese Seconda | Giovanni Salvatore |
| 25 | 3.07 | As with gladness men of old | W. H. Monk |
