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THE MAGAZ INE OF CATHEDRAL MUSIC T RUST
OUR MAN IN WESTMINSTER Andrew Nethsingha on hitting the ground running at Westminster Abbey
PLUS WOMEN AT WINDSOR An 18th-century female composer at St George’s
REMEMBRANCE
Join us on a musical journey towards Advent
MOVING ON
A lay clerk reminisces as he retires after 47 years
GIVE THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP THIS CHRISTMAS
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GIVE MORE WITH A FRIENDS MEMBERSHIP From £30 p/a Invitations to special events and gatherings This magazine through their door twice a year Joining a community of like-minded individuals Support for the next generation of cathedral musicians To give a year's worth of insight and Friendship, visit cathedralmusictrust.org.uk or call 020 3151 6096
WELCOME
CAT H E D R A L MU S IC TR U ST Royal Patron HRH The Duchess of Gloucester President Harry Christophers CBE
FROM THE
Ambassadors Alexander Armstrong, Anna Lapwood
EDITOR
Honorary Patrons The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd and Rt Hon. Dr Justin Welby Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, His Eminence Vincent Nichols Board of Trustees Jonathan Macdonald (Chair), Jason Groves, Sue Hind-Woodward, Stuart Laing, James Lancelot, Giverny McAndry, Heather Morgan, James Mustard, Isobel Pinder, Gavin Ralston Director of Programmes Cathryn Dew Programmes Manager Olivia Sparkhall Director of Development Natasha Morris Development Officer Katy Ashman Digital and Communications Manager Anna Kent Director of Finance and Resources Jessica Lock Finance Officer Amanda Welsh Cathedral Music Trust is extremely grateful to our team of volunteers across the UK who give many hours of their time each year to support the work we do. Cathedral Music Trust 27 Old Gloucester Street London WC1N 3AX info@cathedralmusictrust.org.uk 020 3151 6096 (office hours) www.cathedralmusictrust.org.uk Registered Charity Number 1187769 Facebook CathedralMusicTrust Twitter/X @_cathedralmusic Instagram @cathedralmusictrust YouTube CathedralMusicTrust
CAT H E D R A L M U S IC MAG A Z IN E Editor Adrian Horsewood editor@cathedralmusictrust.org.uk Editor-in-chief Maggie Hamilton Designer Jo Craig Production Manager Kyri Apostolou Cathedral Music is published for Cathedral Music Trust by Mark Allen Group twice a year, in May and November. Autumn 2023
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doubt there can have been many among the readership of Cathedral Music magazine who didn’t watch the coronation of King Charles III in May of this year. Much as did that of his mother, seventy years prior, the occasion served to unite the country – although if the impromptu gathering at the house of some friends that my family and I attended was anything to go by, slow and juddering broadband connections seem to have been 2023’s equivalent to the jostling in 1953 around a tiny television screen. The service was a stunning reminder of the power of high-quality choral music and of its ability to lend even further majesty to one of the most opulent and significance-laden occasions in living memory. Andrew Nethsingha, who can hardly have expected to take charge of such a high-profile event so early on in his tenure at Westminster Abbey, has revealed the many hours of preparation that took place before the day; turn to page 26 to learn more. But as you, dear readers, will well know, those outstanding performances will all have begun many years beforehand, when a young person’s interest in singing or playing the organ was piqued and sparked into life – and then carefully nurtured and sustained over subsequent months and years. Choristers can sometimes seem like the proverbial swan – gliding serenely along, without any visible sign of the hard work going along below the surface or behind the scenes. Ben Liberatore has been carrying out doctoral research into their experiences; you can read about his findings on page 36. One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is to interview church and cathedral musicians for our profiles of choirs that have received financial support from Cathedral Music Trust. Not only has it been a chance to talk with enthusiastic directors, organists and animateurs, but it brings home just how much dedication and hard work countless practitioners all over the country put in week after week – not to mention the invaluable (and all too often, invisible) support they receive from administrators, volunteers and chaperones. Adrian Horsewood, Editor
The views expressed in articles are those of the contributor and do not necessarily represent any official policy of Cathedral Music Trust. Advertisements are printed in good faith, and their inclusion does not imply endorsement by the Trust; all communications regarding advertising should be addressed to info@cathedralmusictrust.org.uk. Every effort has been made to determine copyright on illustrations used; we apologise for any mistakes we have made. The Editor will be glad to correct any omissions. Front cover: Andrew Nethsingha, Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey (Photo: Andrew Dunsmore) Back cover: The Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, Westminster Abbey (Photo: Press Association) Editor’s photo: Andrew Wilkinson
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CONTENTS
CONTENTS
Andrew Dunsmore
Ben Liberatore
IN THIS ISSUE …
36 The lives of a chorister
As part of his PhD research, Ben Liberatore has been talking to choristers about their experiences
26 Andrew Nethsingha
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Stephen Pritchard talks to the musical man of the moment, after his starring role at the Coronation
31 Lady Bagot’s anthem
Geoffrey Webber clears up the mystery of a Georgian anthem at Windsor
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40 Music for remembering and reflection
Victoria Johnson, Canon Precentor at York Minster, takes us on a musical journey towards Advent Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
REGULARS 3 From the Editor
Adrian Horsewood welcomes you to this new issue
6 News & Previews
Catch up with the latest developments in the world of cathedral and church music
17 People & Places
We offer congratulations to musicians and other figures who are on the move
19 Cathedral Music Trust Events 42 Byrd in the liturgy
Four hundred years after the death of William Byrd, Rebecca Taverner guides us through his sacred music
Cathedral Music Trust organises and hosts events for supporters at locations across the country
20 Grant Recipients
Learn how cathedral and church choirs have benefited from Cathedral Music Trust’s investment
50 A New Song
Each issue, we chat to the composer of a new choral or organ work
53 Reviews
Our writers sample some of the newest choral and organ recordings, as well as recent books and sheet music
Mike Dobson
66 Q&A: Michael J. Cooke 46 A lay clerk retires
Countertenor Mike Dobson looks back on nearly half a century in the choir of Exeter Cathedral
One of the founding members of the Friends of Cathedral Music (later to become Cathedral Music Trust) recalls his musical experiences
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NEWS
PREVIEWS • NEWS • PEOPLE • EVENTS
Nick Rutter
NEWS & PREVIEWS
SARAH MACDONALD ANNOUNCED AS RCO PRESIDENT ELECT
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he Royal College of Organists (RCO) has announced Sarah MacDonald as President Elect, to take office as President from July 2024. Sarah is a conductor, organist, pianist, and composer. She is Fellow and Director of Music at Selwyn College, Cambridge, Director of Ely Cathedral’s Girl Choristers, and Organist to the University of Cambridge. Sarah is also no stranger to Cathedral Music Trust, most recently working with Trust Ambassador Anna Lapwood on the annual Cambridge Organ Experience Day; these separate events for boys and girls cater for young organists of all abilities.
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Canadian-born, Sarah came to the UK in 1992 as Organ Scholar of Robinson College, Cambridge after studying piano, organ, and conducting at The Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto. At Cambridge she read for a degree in music, and studied the organ with David Sanger. Sarah holds the Fellowship diploma of the RCO, is a past winner of the College’s coveted Limpus Prize, and is a teacher and examiner for both the RCO and the University of Cambridge. She has played numerous recitals and conducted choirs throughout the world; has made more than 40 recordings as pianist, organist, conductor, and
producer; and has had over 50 choral and organ compositions published. Recent commissions include pieces for RSCM and Oxford University Press anthologies, the Anglican Association of Musicians, the Diocese of Ohio, as well as a major work for The Sixteen. In 2022 Sarah’s first book, Cathedrals Chapels Organs Choirs, was published. Sarah has previously served with the RCO as both a trustee and a member of the Academic Board. She is a Patron of the Society of Women Organists, an Honorary Patron of the Herbert Howells Society, and President of the School Organists’ Association. In 2018 Sarah received the honorary ARSCM in recognition of her contribution to choral music in the UK and Canada. RCO Chief Executive Sir Andrew Parmley said: ‘I am absolutely delighted to announce Sarah MacDonald as President Elect, and therefore next President, of the Royal College of Organists. As an organist, conductor and composer, Sarah has made immense contributions to the musical life of the UK, her native North America, and the wider world. She has also worked tirelessly to build links between the musical communities of the UK and North America, and been a genuine groundbreaker – when appointed to Selwyn in 1999 she became the first woman to hold such a post at an Oxbridge chapel, and she recently became the first woman appointed as University Organist at Cambridge, a prestigious ceremonial role dating back to 1670.’ Sarah MacDonald said: ‘I am honoured and humbled to have been invited to take on this iconic role, and I look forward to representing the College and supporting its outstanding work over the coming years.’ Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
CATHEDRAL MUSIC TRUST CHURCH CHOIR AWARDS
Paisley Daily Express
Cathedral Music Trust, in partnership with the Royal School of Church Music, has made seven Church Choir Awards in recognition of outstanding music-making in places of worship across the UK, and giving choirs the opportunity to enhance their impact. This year’s recipients are: St Thomas-on-The Bourne, Farnham; St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen; St George’s Cathedral, Southwark; St Patrick’s Church, Huddersfield; St Alphege Church, Solihull; Holy Trinity Church, Coventry; and All Saints’, Leamington. All seven choirs will also benefit from a year’s group membership of the RSCM and access to its Voice for Life digital resources. Church Choir Awards are designed to support choirs which sing less frequently than the choral foundations normally supported by Cathedral Music Trust’s grant programmes.
Dr George McPhee was appointed as Director of Music at Paisley Abbey in October 1963, meaning that he has now served the Abbey in this capacity for 60 years. Under his leadership the choir has flourished and the Abbey has become renowned for its music, with a wide range of concerts taking place as well as a strong choral tradition in the Sunday services. Dr McPhee has been in frequent demand as an organ recitalist and has broadcast and recorded frequently from the Abbey, both as solo organist and as conductor of the Abbey Choir. He has also given recitals in many parts of Europe, the United States and Canada. Apart from the Abbey Choir, he has been conductor of the Scottish Chamber Choir and the Kilmarnock and District Choral Union. As a composer and arranger, he has many published works, both sacred and secular, and
many of these were written specifically for use within the context of the Abbey services. In 1991 Dr McPhee was made a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music in recognition of his services to church music in Scotland and in 1995 he was awarded MBE. In July 1997 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate by the University of Paisley. He is also a Vice President of the Royal College of Organists, and has recently been made an Honorary Fellow of the Guild of Church Musicians. From 1963 to 2001 he was on the staff of the RSAMD (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), where he became a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Academic Studies and Director of Choral Activities as well as having responsibilities for teaching organ. He is currently Visiting Professor of Organ at St Andrews University.
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GEORGE MCPHEE: 60 YEARS AT PAISLEY ABBEY
St Mary’s Cathedral in Aberdeen is one of seven recipients of a Cathedral Music Trust 2023 Church Choir Award
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NIIOC 2023 winner, George Herbert
NORTHERN IRELAND INTERNATIONAL ORGAN COMPETITION 2023 The winner of the 2023 Northern Ireland International Organ Competition (NIIOC), which took place in Armagh between 21 and 23 August, is George Herbert, aged 22, from the UK, currently a freelance performer based in London, and Assistant Director of Music of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace. He wins £4,000 and six international recitals, at venues including St Thomas, Fifth Avenue, New York; Kaiser Wilhem Memorial Kirche, Berlin; and Westminster Abbey. The first prize is awarded by The John Pilling Trust and the winners’ trophy by Nelland and Creane Organbuilders. For the past four years George Herbert has been Organ Scholar and Assistant Organist at St John’s College Cambridge, where he memorably stepped in at short notice to direct the college’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols for Advent, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 in November 2021, when director of music Andrew Nethsingha was suffering from Covid-19. He graduated in German in 2022 and now lives in London, where he is building a busy and varied freelance 8
portfolio as an organist, director and piano accompanist, and will shortly take up the role of Assistant Director of Music at His Majesty’s Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace. Reacting to his first prize at NIIOC, he said: ‘It was my unexpected and overwhelming pleasure to be awarded first prize in the senior category of this year’s competition. It was a privilege (albeit a nerve-wracking one!) to share a stage with so many talented players. ‘I’m sure that NIIOC must be one of the friendliest music competitions that exists – from the extremely warm, welcoming organising team and the encouraging jury to the delightful company of the other competitors. I am hugely grateful to the endlessly generous McEnoy family for putting me up for the weekend, am very excited to perform the recitals generously offered by the competition.’ The second prize in the senior category of the competition – the inaugural David McElderry Memorial Award of £1,000 and three UK recitals, sponsored by the McElderry Family – went to Theresa Heidler (20) from Germany, who also won
the Bach Prize. She is a student at the University of Music and Theatre Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in Leipzig. Third prize of £500, awarded by Wells-Kennedy Organbuilders and Restorers, and three recitals in the UK and Ireland, was awarded to Jonathan Lee (22, Australia). The Dame Gillian Weir Medal for an outstanding performance of one particular piece was won by Philipp Henning (20, Germany), another student at the MendelssohnBartholdy University in Leipzig, who was also highly commended overall for his programme, as was Tingshuo Yang (18, Luxembourg), a pupil at Eton College. NIIOC is for players aged 22 and under and is aimed at giving them a first experience of the competition environment. The jury was chaired by the Canadian organist Isabelle Demers; the other two jurors were Daniel Hyde, Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge, and David Hill, a patron of NIIOC since its inception in 2011 and artistic director of the Charles Wood Festival and Summer School, which runs concurrently with the organ competition in Armagh. Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
LAUDEMUS! COMPOSITION COMPETITION A new competition for UK composers aged under thirty has been announced by Laudemus!, an adult SATB choir and charity which meets annually to sing Choral Evensong in churches throughout Dorset. The Trustees are seeking submissions of an anthem between 2½ and 4 minutes in length, with a text of a religious nature, scored for competent SATB choir with organ accompaniment. A single prize of £1,000 will be awarded, plus performance by Laudemus! during August 2024. Publication is offered by the Royal School of Church Music, subject to approval of the winning work. The four-person adjudicating panel will comprise Barry Rose (former director of music at Guildford, St Paul’s and St Albans cathedrals), Jeremy Jackman (composer, conductor and musical director of Laudemus!), Sam Hanson (Director of Music, St Peter, Hammersmith and organist for Laudemus!) and Tim Ruffer (Head of Publications, Royal School of Church Music).
Conductor Ralph Allwood, founder of the Eton Choral Courses and now Artistic Director of the Rodolfus Foundation, has long been a champion of Choral Evensong: ‘This new competition will help enormously in the efforts to get people to take sacred music seriously, and particularly music for the wonderful service known as Choral Evensong. Evensong is an astonishingly valuable asset with thousands of people involved in its production, day after day, and I wholeheartedly support this endeavour by Laudemus! to raise its profile.’ A B O V E Jeremy Jackman, musical director of Laudemus!
This initiative has been warmly welcomed by significant figures in the world of choral music. John Rutter said: ‘Young composers will relish this great opportunity to make a mark in the world of church music – all power to this Laudemus! venture.’
The closing date for receipt of scores is 31 January 2024; composers should be aged under 30 on that date. Entries should be submitted in PDF form by email to laudemus@aol.com. Scores should be anonymous, with the applicant’s details being included in the accompanying email. Full terms & conditions can be found on the choir’s website, www.laudemus.org.uk.
FORMER CHORISTER PAINTS BISHOP OF BLACKBURN’S OFFICIAL PORTRAIT Jack Aspinall, a former chorister and current verger at Blackburn Cathedral, has painted the official retirement portrait of the Rt Revd Julian Henderson, the former Bishop of Blackburn, who retired in 2022 after nine years in post. It is traditional for retiring bishops and deans of cathedrals to sit for a portrait to mark their role in the life of the church. The Dean of Blackburn, the Very Revd Peter Howell Jones said: 'I wasn’t convinced to be honest, especially as Jack told me he’d had no formal art lessons or training. But he persuaded us to let him paint the portrait with no strings attached and no promise it would hang as the official portrait of Bishop Julian. And
I’m very pleased we did, not just for the cathedral but for Jack, whose dream has now become a reality.’ Having been on display at the Temple Gallery in London, Jack’s
portrait now hangs in the undercroft of Blackburn Cathedral, alongside portraits of Bishop Henderson’s predecessors.
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Championing British composers since 2009 Listen now on www.conviviumrecords.co.uk
NEWS
James O'Driscoll
The Three Choirs Festival Chorus will bookend the 2024 Festival with Grace-Evangeline Mason’s The Imagined Forest and large-scale 20th-century works
THREE CHOIRS FESTIVAL This year’s Three Choirs Festival took place in Gloucester between 22 and 29 July, with a programme of more than sixty events that included twenty-one premieres and works by nearly fifty living composers. Of particular note was the introduction of the new, inclusive Three Choirs Festival Voices, as was the preponderance of works by Vaughan Williams, with Charlotte Corderoy conducting British Youth Opera and
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a rapturously received performance of The Pilgrim’s Progress. Next year’s festival will be in Worcester, under the direction of Samuel Hudson, Organist and Director of Music at Worcester Cathedral, and takes as its theme the natural world and its threatened resources; composers being celebrated will include Stanford (100 years since his death), Holst (150
years since his birth) and Judith Weir (in the year of her seventieth birthday). The opening concert on 27 July features the Three Choirs Festival Chorus in Grace-Evangeline Mason’s The Imagined Forest, Holst’s Hymn of Jesus and Stanford’s Stabat Mater; the Chorus closes out the festival on 3 August with Elgar’s mighty oratorio The Kingdom. 3choirs.org
International Online Organ Festival The International Online Organ Festival (IOOF) was set up during the Covid-19 pandemic in the hope of bringing the organ community together. In 2022 it presented more than forty high-quality organ films, expert panels and live Q&A sessions, and has established partnerships with organisations including the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich, Brown
University, the Royal College of Organists and the Incorporated Association of Organists. Subscribers can access concerts, documentaries and masterclasses given by leading organists including Martin Baker, Olivier Latry, Richard McVeigh, and Wayne Marshall. io-of.org
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CLUCAS RESPONSES: AN AUCTION IN AID OF CATHEDRAL MUSIC TRUST The composer Humphrey Clucas writes: ‘In the summer of 1962 I was in my second year as a Choral Scholar of King’s College, Cambridge. By then, David Willcocks had already started a series of annual competitions to write a piece for the choir; in my first year, it was a Jubilate. I did not think of myself as a composer in those days; I just tinkered around with it a bit. Besides, Cambridge was full of very clever people, and I was not reading music anyway (I am an English graduate). But I had a go and came fifth. The winner was Simon Preston (Preston in C); Simon was the current Organ Scholar. Jonathan Harvey (in F) was runner-up. ‘In my second year the task was a set of Responses. There came a day when I would either finish these or go on a punt on the River Cam; the punt nearly won. I was surprised and delighted to come first, emotions which seemed to be shared by David himself. In my third year, we broadcast them. Interest was shown. David was running the Oxford University Press church music section, and OUP published them. It was a time when everyone did the various Tudor Responses, but the only other modern set seemed to be the Bernard Rose. My Responses still sell quite well. The manuscript is written
in blue ink, with one or two crossings-out and emendations. I am mildly embarrassed that I sent it to OUP in this state. ‘Twenty years on, I was a lay clerk at Guildford Cathedral. Every time my Responses came up, Michael Barry, a fellow Lay Clerk, would ask why there was no Lord’s Prayer; in the end, I wrote one to keep him quiet. Twenty-odd years later still, I agreed that the Responses manuscript should be auctioned to raise money for the music foundation of Guildford Cathedral; Michael, the Lord’s Prayer dedicatee, added his manuscript to the package. The successful bidder has now died, and his widow, who has become the owner, has agreed to a second auction, the money raised to go to the Cathedral Music Trust. ‘The successful bidder at the original auction was Ian Richard Hanby (1940–2020) who had sung the Clucas Responses with the Cramner Company of Singers on several occasions at Cathedrals in England.’ If you would like to take part in the auction for a chance of becoming the new owner of the original Clucas Responses manuscript, please visit bit.ly/clucas. Bidding ends 12:00am (London), Wednesday 20 December 2023.
Jamie W. Hall, a baritone in the BBC Singers, has written O nata lux for choirs of various voice combinations to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. The initiative – Choirs Against Cancer – was sparked by the death, due to pancreatic cancer, of a member of Hall’s choir in 2016. On that occasion he wrote a lullaby as a memorial work, which he then offered to choirs free of charge with a suggested donation to Macmillan; more than 100 performances later, it had raised over £17,000. ‘Since 2016 the world has become a much darker place – political uncertainty, civil unrest, a global pandemic, the decimation of the arts industry, war in Europe – and still people live with the devastating effects of cancer. My O nata lux is all about light shining in the darkness and hope that we, together, can recreate the magic
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from 2016 to bring light to people who are experiencing one of life's darkest moments.’ O nata lux is available in musically accessible versions for SATB, SAB SSAA and ATBarB. Since the text is not solely centred on Christmas, it can be included in any concert or church service between now and February 2024, when the project ends. It has already been performed by Genesis Sixteen and Home Choir, with both performances to be made available on YouTube. Hall asks for donations to Macmillan through his crowdfunding page whenever a group wishes to perform the work. More information on O nata lux and how to obtain the sheet music, as well as Hall’s previous compositions in aid of Macmillan, is available at jamiewhall.co.uk/ choirsagainstcancer.
Jamie W. Hall
Choirs Against Cancer
A B O V E Jamie W. Hall is letting choirs sing his music in return for donations towards Macmillan Cancer Support
Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
Stephen Boffey
MUSICIANS’ COMPANY AWARD FOR ORGANISTS
ST ALBANS ORGAN COMPETITION WINNERS Sunkyung Noh has won first prize and the gold medal in the Interpretation competition at St Albans International Organ Competition. Noh, from the Republic of Korea, studied at Yonsei University with Dong-ill Shin, and took two Master’s in organ and claviorganum at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg with Wolfgang Zerer and Menno Van Delft; since 2022 she has studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater ‘Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’ in Leipzig in the Meisterclass with Martin Schmeding. The Interpretation second prize and the Audience Prize were awarded to Julian Becker, from Germany, who was also a finalist in the Improvisation competition. This year, the Improvisation first prize was shared between Samuel Gaskin (USA), a Fulbright scholar currently studying for an Artist’s Diploma in Paris with Jean-Baptiste
Robin; and Niklas Jahn (Germany), currently studying for a double Master’s in Church Music and Organ Improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik, Freiburg with Matthias Maierhofer, Vincent Dubois and David Franke. The Douglas May Award was won by Ben Bloor (UK) for his performance of Elgar’s Sonata in the quarter-final round; Magdalena Moser (Austria) was awarded the Judith Weir prize for her performance of the commissioned work, St Alban; and the Peter Hurford Bach prize went to Johannes Krahl (Germany) for his performance in the quarter-final all-Bach round. organfestival.com A B O V E Sunkyung Noh is presented with the Interpretation Gold Medal and certificate by the Countess of Verulam and Derek Bird, of the Williams Church Music Trust
The Musicians’ Company has announced that its Award for Organists has been awarded to Charles Maxtone-Smith. The former Westminster Abbey organ scholar will receive a cash prize of £6,000 to follow a further course of study as well as the opportunity to give a recital at the St Albans International Organ Festival. Maxtone-Smith intends to use the award to continue developing his interest in JS and CPE Bach, Buxtehude, and earlier North German composers as well as French composers, especially Franck, Vierne, Alain, Messiaen, and Duruflé. He said: ‘The chance to work on this repertoire with the world’s finest interpreters is a once in a lifetime opportunity to deepen my knowledge and understanding of this music.’ Formerly the WT Best Scholarship, the Award for Organists was inaugurated in 1957 in memory of the Victorian concert organist WT Best (1825– 97). The award is designed to provide recognition and financial assistance to a young organist showing ‘exceptional promise as executant, composer, transcriber or writer’ for a maximum of three years. Past winners include Steuart Bedford, Stephen Cleobury, John Scott, Jane Watts, Andrew Lucas and Stephen Farr. Having studied at New College, Oxford, where he was Organ Scholar, Maxtone-Smith studied for his Master’s and Advanced Diploma at the Royal Academy of Music. As well as a period as organ scholar at Westminster Abbey, his experience also includes time as organ scholar at King’s College, London and the Royal Hospital Chelsea.
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Gerco Schaap
L E F T ‘This job has been wonderful’: Birmingham City Organist Thomas Trotter
40 YEARS IN BIRMINGHAM Thomas Trotter celebrated his fortieth anniversary as Birmingham City Organist with a recital on 6 October in Symphony Hall. Trotter was appointed in 1983 as the successor to George ThalbenBall. ‘This job has been wonderful because I’m basically a freelance musician, which can be quite precarious and rootless. Having a recital position means I always have something to come back to and an audience that I know and can build a relationship with, which you hardly ever have when you’re travelling around playing recitals. It’s given me the freedom to experiment with
repertoire – I play everything I know there, including some quite challenging works but also interspersed with something more popular. Peter Hurford said, “You ignore the audience at your peril,” and Dame Gillian Weir has always said, “You should never play down to the audience.” I try to steer a middle course between popular items and less known repertoire. ‘You have to work hard with your audiences. Organ playing has been my obsession forever, and I want people to share in why I’m obsessed by it. When I’m introducing the pieces, I think, “Why do I like this
piece and why did I bother to learn it?” If you explain that to an audience, it usually draws them in. ‘The brief of a city organist has always been to entertain and educate, to provide affordable entertainment and culture for everybody. For many years when I played there, it was free, but even now with an entrance fee, it’s a reasonable price. As organists, we all have to evangelise a bit. We live in a secular society, not so many people go to church, they don’t hear the organ very much – in fact, they don’t hear much classical music. I think we have to work a bit harder to entice our audiences in to hear us.’ Trotter’s programme comprised J.S. Bach’s Fantasia & Fugue in G minor BWV 542, Schumann’s Study in A flat, a new commission by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Wagner’s Overture to Rienzi (arranged by Lemare) and Liszt’s Fantasia & Fugue on the Choral: Ad nos, ad salutarem undam. The pieces were not chosen randomly, he explained: ‘When I started in Birmingham, any organist worth his salt would not play orchestral transcriptions; but I love them and I played them right from the start. I played the Meistersinger overture at the opening concert of the Town Hall organ in 1984 after its restoration, and the Rienzi overture for the inauguration of the Symphony Hall organ. I also played Ad Nos at the opening concert of the Town Hall organ. So I’ve chosen pieces because they mean something to me and Birmingham.’
STANLEY VANN SCHOLARSHIP AWARDED The Incorporated Association of Organists has announced Tristan Weymes as the recipient of the 2023 Stanley Vann Scholarship, which is intended for young musicians who wish to improve their skills in the field of Anglican
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choral training and direction. Weymes is Director of Music at St Mary’s, Merton, having previously held the same post at St Luke’s, Woodside. He is currently studying choral conducting with Patrick Russill at the Royal
Academy of Music, and is a graduate of the University of Oxford, where he was conductor of the Trinity College Chapel Choir, the Oxford University Chorus, and the Turl Street Arts Festival Orchestra.
Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
Cathedral Music Trust’s Development Director, Natasha Morris, along with her husband, Ben (Assistant Director of Music at York Minster), and their golden labrador Marlowe have completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge in aid of the Trust. The Challenge is a 25-mile round trip, with 5200 feet of ascent; it requires climbers to take on the peaks of Pen-y-Ghent (2275 feet), Whernside (2415 feet) and Ingleborough (2370 feet) in under twelve hours. These hills form part of the Pennine range, and encircle the head of the valley of the River Ribble, in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Natasha and Ben were raising funds in support of Cathedral Music Trust so that more young people can access world-class music training in the UK’s finest cathedrals, minsters, chapels and churches. ‘Being a choral scholar was the most life-affirming and enhancing experience,’ Natasha said, ‘one that opened many doors and developed a life-long love for all types of music. If you care deeply about enabling others to access such enriching opportunities, please consider donating today.’ bit.ly/cmt-y3p
Patrick Allen
THREE PEAKS CONQUERED IN AID OF CMT
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BBC Radio 3 Choral Evensong
1 November: Portsmouth Cathedral Thursday 9 November: St Giles’ Cripplegate* 15 November: Hereford Cathedral 22 November: Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge 29 November: Chichester Cathedral Sunday 3 December: Advent Carols from St John’s College, Cambridge* 6 December: Our Lady of Victories, Kensington* 13 December: St Paul’s, Heaton Moor, Stockport* 20 December: Norwich Cathedral 27 December: Lancing College* 3 January: Royal Holloway, University of London* 10 January: St Matthew’s Church, Westminster 17 January: Croydon Minster 24 January: St Paul’s Cathedral 31 January: Leeds Cathedral 7 February: St Wulfram’s Church, Grantham with The Gesualdo Six* 14 February: Guildford Cathedral 21 February: The Queen’s College, Oxford 28 February: Winchester Cathedral 6 March: King’s College, London 13 March: Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin 20 March: Winchester College* 27 March: Westminster Cathedral 3 April: Our Lady of Victories, Kensington* 10 April: St Michael and All Angels, Barnes* 17 April: Selwyn College, Cambridge 24 April: Magdalen College, Oxford 1 May: Tewkesbury Abbey 8 May: St Martin-in-the-Fields, London 15 May: Exeter Cathedral 22 May: St George’s Chapel, Windsor 29 May: St Davids Cathedral All details are correct at time of printing but are subject to change.
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Clergy Support Trust
Choral Evensong is broadcast from churches, chapels and cathedrals around the country on Wednesdays at 4pm, and is usually repeated on the following Sunday at 3pm. Should you wish to attend a live broadcast, please enquire of the venue as to details of timings and location; an asterisk (*) indicates that the service was recorded in advance.
CLERGY SUPPORT TRUST FESTIVAL SERVICE The 369th Clergy Support Trust Festival Service – the oldest choral music festival in the world – will take place in St Paul’s Cathedral in London on Tuesday 7 May 2024, with the St Paul’s choir being joined by those of two other UK cathedrals. The Trust (formed from the amalgamation of Sons of the Clergy and Friends of the Clergy) has been
supporting serving and retired Anglican clergy and their families since its foundation in 1655; the next issue of Cathedral Music will include a look at the work of the Clergy Support Trust throughout its history. A B O V E The combined choirs of St Paul’s, Leicester and Llandaff cathedrals at the 2023 Clergy Support Trust Festival Service
BRADFORD CATHEDRAL ORGAN RECITAL SERIES After many months’ work, Bradford Cathedral’s organ has completed its revoicing work, and was reintroduced to the congregation at the Harvest service on 1 October. To mark this, the Wednesday@One recital series returns this autumn: 4 October – Gordon Stewart (Organist Emeritus, Huddersfield Town Hall) 11 October – Andrew Prior (London) 18 October – Graham Thorpe and Anthony Gray (Bradford) 1 November – Stefan Donner (Vienna) 8 November – Ed Jones (Wakefield) 15 November – Pierre Zevort (France) 22 November – Graham Thorpe (Bradford) 29 November – Rebekah Okpoti (Blackburn) 6 December – Hannah Parry (London) 13 December – George Inscoe (Croydon)
Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
NEWS
PEOPLE & PLACES
Ian Wallman
We offer our congratulations to the following musicians, who are on the move
Thomas Allery, one of Cathedral Music Trust’s Future Leaders, has been appointed Director of Music at Temple Church, London; he had formerly been Assistant Director of Music
Alexander Berry has moved from being Director of Music at Bradford Cathedral to the same post at Great St Mary’s, the University Church in Cambridge
Steven Grahl has been appointed Director Music at Trinity College, Cambridge, having held the same post at Christ Church, Oxford since 2018
Caius Lee, formerly Choral Director for the Diocese of Leeds, has been appointed Director of College Music at Worcester College, Oxford
Dan Mathieson has left St Mary Magdalene, Oxford, where he was Organist and Assistant Director of Music, to take up the post of Assistant Director of Music and Head of Music Outreach at Chester Cathedral
James Mitchell has joined Sheffield Cathedral as Cathedral Organist and Head of Keyboard Studies, having been Sub-Organist of Gloucester Cathedral for the past two years
Miriam Reveley has started as Organ Scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge, and is the first woman to hold the role; she spent last year as Organ Scholar at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
Michael Stephens-Jones has been appointed Assistant Director of Music at Exeter Cathedral; he moves from being Organ Scholar at St Paul’s Cathedral, London
Robin Walker has been appointed Assistant Organist at Canterbury Cathedral; he was formerly Director of Music at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
www.cathedralmusictrust.org.uk 17
The 369th Festival Service Tuesday 7 May 2024, 5pm | Free www.clergysupport.org.uk/festival
Three exceptional cathedral choirs sing together 1 Dean Trench Street, London, SW1P 3HB Charity Registered in England and Wales Charity No. 207736
in thanksgiving for the ministry of clergy and their families
Honorary Presidents:
under the majestic dome of St Paul's Cathedral
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York The Bishops of London and Worcester The Lord Mayor of the City of London
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EVENTS Don’t miss these opportunities to join a Cathedral Music Trust gathering near you
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Brecon Cathedral hosts a three-day National Gathering in May 2024
WE D N E S D AY 2 9 N OVE M B E R 2 0 2 3
conundrums, riveting riddles and fascinating facts, with a large helping of Christmas cheer and festive music. Suitable for all ages. There’s no set ticket price; we invite you to kindly give what feels right for you. N.B. This will be held online via Zoom; registrants will be sent a link on the afternoon of the event.
Cathedral, the venue for the 2023 Three Choirs Festival.
Friends’ Annual Meeting Join us to find out what’s happening at Cathedral Music Trust. Hear about the latest developments from trustees and staff, with the opportunity to ask questions. N.B. This will be held online via Zoom; registrants will be sent a link on the afternoon of the event. If you cannot make the meeting time, but would like to watch a recording afterwards, please continue to register and a link will be sent out after the meeting.
S ATU R D AY 1 3 JA N UA R Y 2 0 2 4
SEPTEMBER 2024
Chester Cathedral Gathering Join us in Cheshire for the first Trust gathering of 2024.
Salisbury National Gathering Join us for an autumn National Gathering beneath Britain’s tallest cathedral spire.
M O N D AY 1 8 D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 3
S U N D AY 4 F E B R UA R Y 2 0 2 4
Cathedral Music Quizmas Watch the sharpest minds in the choral world delve deep into their knowledge of Christmas music, all in aid of Cathedral Music Trust, with Alexander Armstrong as your host. Enjoy an evening of curious
Southwark Cathedral Gathering Save the date for a Trust gathering by the banks of the River Thames. S ATU R D AY 2 7 A P R I L 2 0 2 4
Gloucester Cathedral Gathering Come and join us at Gloucester
F R I D AY 1 0 – S U N D AY 1 2 M AY 2 0 2 4
Brecon National Gathering Save the date for a National Gathering at Brecon Cathedral, including a Three Choirs Evensong. F R I D AY 2 0 – S U N D AY 2 2
For more details, including information on how to register, visit www.cathedralmusictrust.org.uk/ events, email info@ cathedralmusictrust.org.uk, or ring 020 3151 6096 (Monday–Friday, 9am–4pm).
www.cathedralmusictrust.org.uk 19
CATHEDRAL MUSIC TRUST
GRANT RECIPIENTS
IN SUPPORT OF EXCELLENCE As a Friend or Patron of Cathedral Music Trust, the support that you give allows us to make grants to cathedrals and churches all over the UK to enrich their work; in 2021 and 2022 the Trust made 68 awards totalling nearly £1 million. We profile a selection of last year’s recipients to see the impact that their awards have had By A D R I A N H O R S E W O O D
Franziska Tremper-Jeschke
SALFORD CATHEDRAL
Salford Cathedral received a grant of £16,000 to support its choral scholarships, the purchase of sheet music, and the work of an organ associate
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Have you ever had the experience of starting a new job and finding that nothing was as you were expecting it to be when you applied in the first place? Alex Patterson can sympathise: he started as Director of Music at the Roman Catholic cathedral of St John the Evangelist in Salford in July 2020, mere months after the Covid-19 global pandemic began, and so months of planning had to be discarded, to be replaced with a more cautious, yet reactive, approach to a rapidly changing world in which the place of choral singing, in particular, looked increasingly unsure. Nevertheless, Patterson plunged into his new role, working hard with the cathedral choir – whose members are a combination of auditioned local singers and adult choral scholars – and also setting up a children’s choir in September 2020 for those aged between 7 and 12. They have since been joined by a girls’ choir (ages 10–18) and a choir for boys whose voices are changing; these two groups often join together to form the cathedral’s youth choir, which sings regularly for Mass and for occasional concerts. ‘It wasn’t until May or June 2021 that I felt happy with the sound and make-up of the choirs, and that we had all finally got to know one another properly. Later that same year
Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
Salford Cathedral
we sang for two BBC Radio 4 broadcasts – once for Sunday Worship and then live for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, which was a fantastic experience for everybody.’ Patterson acknowledges that the timing of the Cathedral Music Trust award was extremely fortuitous. ‘It allowed us to build on the foundations we had laid during my first year, when – to be honest – everyone had worked extremely hard but we began to feel that there were limits to what we could offer, both musically and in terms of the training of our young singers. ‘One area I felt it was going to be really important to tackle was the sheet music library, where there were some significant gaps: for example, we had no music by Byrd, Tallis or Palestrina – composers that are part of mainstream cathedral music lists. The grant we received has allowed us to expand our core sheet music library, and also to diversify our repertoire; we’ve also acquired all three volumes of the Multitude of Voyces series [dedicated to women composers].’
Salford Cathedral celebrated the 175th anniversary of its opening on 9 August 2023; sadly, the building itself has lain silent since July as part of the ‘Restoring the Glory’ project that began in 2022, and is not due to reopen until 2025. ‘It has of course been challenging not to be in the cathedral,’ Patterson acknowledges, ‘and we hope to be back by May 2025. Our sung liturgy has continued in a temporary church building in the cathedral garden. We’ve had to pause the Thursday evening sung Mass, and our Sunday Mass is sung by each of the four choirs in rotation. It has also presented us with the chance to take the choirs out into the diocese and to nurture new followers, and we hope to obtain further funding to support this. ‘We also decided to record a CD, Rise Up and Wonder, with the cathedral choir in the few days between the doors closing to the public and the works beginning. It showcases a cappella works written within the last few years by living women composers and has just been released on Priory Records.’ ▷
www.cathedralmusictrust.org.uk 21
LEICESTER CATHEDRAL Clergy Support Trust
Leicester Cathedral received a grant of £29,700 to support vocal tuition for young songmen and the Senior Girl Choristers, transport for choristers, and the DioSing outreach scheme Like their colleagues at Salford, the choir of Leicester Cathedral and Director of Music Christopher Ouvry-Johns have also had to fulfil their choral mission while their home has been closed for repairs – in Leicester’s case, since January 2022. While Sunday morning services have been held in the neighbouring St Martin’s House and weekday services in St Nicholas’s Church, Ouvry-Johns and his colleagues made the decision to take the choir out on Sunday afternoons to locations not just around Leicester but further afield throughout the diocese. The reception has been positive, but everybody is looking forward to the cathedral reopening in November 2023. ‘We figured out that, when we came back after the summer this year, two-thirds of the boys’ and junior girls’ choirs had never set foot inside the cathedral,’ Ouvry-Johns remarked. One area of the choir’s work that has been relatively unaffected by the cathedral’s
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closure is the long-running DioSing outreach programme, which began in 2012. ‘It’s been great to work with our partner schools away from the cathedral, building up to our end-of-year Big Sing concert in St Andrew’s, Jarrom Street back in July.’ Ouvry-Johns is particularly pleased to be welcoming choral director Lucy Haigh to the team at Leicester, alongside her work at St Mary the Lace Market in Nottingham (see opposite). ‘It will be fantastic to have Lucy on board, not just for all her experience in working with young voices but also because we now have four members of the music staff, alongside assistant DoM Rosie Vinter and organist David Cowen – meaning we can continue our programme of parish visits, while still holding Choral Evensong at the cathedral. We’ve seen how much our choristers benefit from a sustained programme of vocal tuition. Boys whose voices are changing receive specialist support through that crucial stage in their development, and those children who didn’t have any real musical background before joining us gain confidence immeasurably: one junior girl chorister who was very shy and softly spoken when she joined the choir emerged as a strong leader towards the end of the last academic year and has just been made Deputy Head Chorister.’
Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
St Mary’s Church in the Lace Market, Nottingham, received a grant of £6,000 towards establishing three children’s choirs, and to work with local primary schools
ST MARY’S IN THE LACE MARKET
St Mary’s Church in the Lace Market, Nottingham
When Lucy Haigh was appointed to the position of Children’s Choir Director at St Mary’s Church in the Lace Market, Nottingham, her remit was to set up a children’s choir, a long-held objective of the congregation and clergy. Her response? ‘Why not have three?’ For many that might smack of hubris, but for Haigh – who has been working with children’s choirs for over thirty years, both in the UK and in Australia – it was a realistic vision. And so, just a year since Haigh started in July 2022, around 50 children come to St Mary’s each week for choir rehearsals. ‘I was clear that for the project not just to succeed but to endure, there really needed to be three choirs that were closely linked: separate boys’ and girls’ groups ranging in age between 7 and 11; and a mixed training choir for those aged between 6 and 9. ‘One of the major benefits of recruiting children so young is that we have plenty of boys singing in our choirs. The boys’ choir
itself has been a particular success: they’re very committed and utterly determined – and very lively, too!’ A key goal was that the membership of the choirs should reflect the diversity of the population of Nottingham. The choirs’ members are drawn from 20 schools; 96% of the children are educated at state schools and, at the time of writing, the proportion of children from ethnically diverse backgrounds had increased to 45%. Another new initiative launched since Haigh joined is Sing Nottingham!, a programme that so far has involved over 200 children from three local primary schools. They receive weekly whole-class singing lessons in line with the Model Music Curriculum. Alongside these regular sessions, in her first year in post Haigh made twentyfour visits to other schools for one-off singing workshops, extending the reach of the project by over 2,000 additional children. ‘We really had to work hard to build everything from scratch here in Nottingham,’ Haigh explains. ‘Not just the choirs at St Mary’s, but every aspect of the relationships with schools and the structure of Sing Nottingham!’. It’s clear that the hard work has paid off, and that the foundations have been laid for many years of children’s musicmaking at St Mary’s. ▷
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PORTSMOUTH CATHEDRAL Mike Cooter
Portsmouth Cathedral received a grant of £20,400 towards the Cathedral Sing programme and vocal training for its choristers, and to cover core costs for the Sub-Organist and Choir Matron For a long while, the choir of Portsmouth Cathedral channelled its efforts and its funding towards supporting its principal activity of singing the regular services; after all, as Director of Music David Price points out, ‘you can’t do outreach work if you don’t have something with which to reach out! ‘What really acted as a springboard was the decision to take the quality of music-making out into the community, which was the start of our Cathedral Sing programme.’ Adrian Green, a tenor lay clerk at Portsmouth and director of Cathedral Sing, explains further. ‘It’s an educational opportunity for our cathedral choristers and adults to see what goes on musically in local schools and vice versa. We want to bring the cathedral to churches around the diocese, as well as inviting them into the cathedral.’ ‘What we’ve always been keen to avoid,’ says Price, ‘is just having some pupils in Years 3 to 5 coming to sing a bit with us and then
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never again; it’s about making this into a legacy. For example, we work with schools that don’t currently have a Music curriculum lead, not only in terms of what we do here at the cathedral but also, say, putting them in touch with the music director of a nearby church, so that they can begin to share resources and build their own partnership.’ The financial awards made over recent years from Cathedral Music Trust have gone a long way to funding the work of lay clerks and organists as animateurs in the schools, and the benefits are numerous, letting them develop their skills in the most efficacious way possible, being out and about in schools and working with children and teachers. More generally, according to Green, ‘the Cathedral Music Trust grant has helped us to be braver in having something visible and visual to share with schools, and making sure that the project isn’t on the periphery of what we do. Members of Cathedral Sing took part in the installation service in March 2022 for the new Bishop, who also recognises the valuable role music can play in engaging the young. He’s very supportive, and extremely welcoming to all the children – preaching to them at their level, having them read the lesson or prayers – because, combined with their musical contributions, it all helps to nurture the next generation of Christians.’
Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
Truro Cathedral received a grant of £30,000 to support choral scholarships and bursaries for choristers
For more information on the Trust’s grant programmes and other recipients of awards, visit www.cathedralmusictrust.org.uk/grants
Mark Gregory
TRURO CATHEDRAL
The girl choristers of Truro Cathedral enjoyed prime billing with the other musicians at the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Westminster Abbey in June, and while Director of Music James Anderson-Besant, who started at Truro that month, readily acknowledges that the credit lies with his predecessor Christopher Gray (now at St John’s College, Cambridge), it is still a source of pride for him that cathedral music in southwest England had its moment in the spotlight – especially as AndersonBesant was assistant director at Exeter Cathedral before moving down the A30. ‘I’ve been so fortunate to inherit a choir in such fantastic shape from Christopher: we have seventeen boy choristers aged between 8 and 13, and fifteen girl choristers aged between 13 and 18, with room to have up to eighteen of each. They spend most of the time singing separately, to allow me to focus on the different needs of each group: the boys need lots of support at their comparatively younger age, while for the girls the challenge is more to help them to
continue to flourish vocally while they balance the demands of school and exams.’ One recent part of the cathedral choir’s outreach work is the series of Mega Zoom Assemblies, in which thousands of children from primary schools across the Truro diocese – including the Isles of Scilly – collaborate via video-link with the cathedral choristers. These began in May 2022, and numbers have steadily risen, from 800 at the beginning to over 2,500 children taking part virtually to mark International Women’s Day in March 2023. ‘The choristers have really taken the lead with the Assemblies, devising exercises and teaching the music to the schoolchildren,’ Anderson-Besant explains. ‘It’s an important way of showing that the chorister experience really is for everyone. ‘What has really struck me the most since I started at Truro is the deep sense of community that infuses everything that happens in the cathedral and with the choir. At every service there are numerous family members and friends in the congregation, and there’s a real feeling that we are making music that represents not just the cathedral or the city, but the whole of Cornwall.’
www.cathedralmusictrust.org.uk 25
Andrew Dunsmore
FEATURE
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Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
TRADITION AND INNOVATION Even before starting perhaps the most high-profile choral job in the country, Andrew Nethsingha began planning the music for the Coronation, a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. Now he’s looking to the future By S T E P H E N P R I T C H A R D
A
ndrew Nethsingha, Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey, slips into the room all smiles, clutching scores, papers and an impressively bound book, an autobiography by one of his many distinguished predecessors, Sir Frederick (‘Westminster’) Bridge. Nethsingha has reason to identify strongly with Bridge. Like him, Bridge took charge of the music for a coronation when the nation had not seen one for decades – that of Edward VII in 1902, when the last had been for Victoria in 1838. But Bridge had an advantage: he had been in post for twenty-seven years. Nethsingha hadn’t even started at the Abbey when planning for the coronation of Charles III and Queen Camilla – the first such event for seventy years – got under way. As a baptism of fire, it could hardly have been hotter. Nethsingha was Director of Music at St John’s College, Cambridge when appointed to the Abbey in July last year, and would not take up his new post until January this year. ‘I spent a lot of time reading about coronations, as it seemed inevitable one would come in my time … but I didn’t expect it so soon,’ he said. ‘When the Queen died in September I was still working in Cambridge and it took a while to see a first draft of the order of service.’ In October he was told he would have to travel to London to collect it in person, such was the secrecy surrounding the whole process. To the title of Master of the Choristers might also be added Master of Discretion, as he is reluctant to go into too much detail about his courtly dance with the Palace over the ensuing months. ‘I would make proposals in writing for pieces and composers and Buckingham Palace would come back in writing with acceptances and their own suggestions. We gradually made progress, but the breakthrough came in the week before Christmas when I
had an audience with the King at Windsor. We had an enjoyable hour talking about the music. It was so much easier face-to-face.’ Virtually everything was agreed that morning, which allowed Nethsingha to get the new commissions up and running. He says the King had already invited one composer to write a piece, ‘and various different proposals came back from the King, so I would accommodate those as the process unfolded’. For instance, the King had heard and appreciated work by Tarik O’Regan and by Roxanna Panufnik and readily accepted their names being added to a list for commissions that eventually included Sarah Class, Patrick Doyle, Iain Farrington, Nigel Hess, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Paul Mealor, Shirley Thompson, Judith Weir, Roderick Williams and Debbie Wiseman. Hess, Williams and Thompson were invited to arrange the traditional Irish hymn tune ‘Slane’ (usually sung to the text of ‘Be thou my vision’, and a particular favourite of the King) as a triptych for orchestra, inspired by Variations on an Elizabethan Theme, a piece written before the last Coronation in an enterprise shared by Lennox Berkeley, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Oldham, Humphrey Searle, Michael Tippett and William Walton. Above all, Nethsingha was determined to shape a sonic experience that was both coherent and balanced, bearing in mind the central role of music throughout the service. The event as a whole featured six new orchestral works, five new choral pieces and a new organ solo, alongside Renaissance polyphony, Byzantine chant, Gospel singing and coronation blockbusters Parry’s I was Glad and Handel’s Zadok the Priest. ‘A coronation is an extraordinarily complicated service, full of extremes of pageantry, joy, splendour and solemnity, closely allied to the architecture of the ▷
www.cathedralmusictrust.org.uk 27
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Benjamin Ealovega
‘At any service in any building the key is the way the music relates to the silence on either side of it. The music needs to emerge from the silence, and they become one with another’ building. Equally important are the private, prayerful, intimate moments. With the music in any service, be it Evensong, Eucharist or a coronation, the job is to find the right mood and enhance it. You want to weave it all into one seamless whole.’ As he warms to his theme, Nethsingha becomes more animated, his large, expressive hands moving constantly, moulding his thoughts, almost kneading his musical ideas into existence. ‘At any service in any building the key is the way the music relates to the silence on either side of it. The music needs to emerge from the silence, and they become one with another. Likewise, I try to finish a piece in a way that you can’t quite tell when the music has ceased and when a prayer starts. You should still be able to feel the music in your body as the prayer proceeds. This is something I suppose I inherited from my dad [Lucian Nethsingha, organist and director of music at Exeter Cathedral from 1973 to 1999].’ With Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir, Sir Antonio Pappano conducting a specially invited orchestra in a series of works before the service, and the Choir of Westminster Abbey, the Choir of the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, and girl choristers from Truro and Belfast, the whole service became a brilliant showcase for the best of British music-making, just at a time when musicians were feeling politically under siege, with proposed cuts at the BBC and a hostile Arts Council England. This is something not lost on Nethsingha, but he is too deftly discreet to go further, other than to make a glancing reference to a sparky conversation he had with the Culture Secretary, Lucy Frazer, when he bumped into her the day after the Coronation.
Surely the man must have nerves of steel to A B O V E Andrew Nethsingha worked conduct so much music in front of the entire closely with the King to British Establishment and millions of create a diverse musical television viewers? ‘I don’t want to blow my offering at the own trumpet, but you get nervous if you are Coronation not properly prepared. When I played the organ a lot more than I do now, I remember I got much less nervous for broadcasts because I had done so much preparation. I’ve always tried to do that with choirs when broadcasting. Some say, “You shouldn’t prepare more than usual: the BBC is only coming along to eavesdrop on what we do”. I’ve never subscribed to that. What our eight- to thirteen-year-old choristers do is, frankly, completely bonkers. Amateur adult choirs will spend a month preparing a service; we have twenty-three minutes of full-choir rehearsal. The potential for stress and anxiety is huge. It’s my job to minimise the pressure with careful planning and preparation so the singers can feel confident. I try to absorb the stress myself and not transfer it on to the children. If you are nervous about the next note the mental tension translates into physical tension and you don’t sing so well.’ He was told that that more time was given to Coronation musical rehearsals than has ever been given to any service in the Abbey. ‘I just didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Two weeks before the day, loads of boys in the choir school were ill, but because we had it ninety per cent prepared I wasn’t too concerned. You can’t put a notice on the TV screen saying sorry, the choir doesn’t sound so good because some of the singers were ill last week.’ Now, with the huge task of the Coronation past, he is beginning to formulate his aspirations for the future. Girl choristers were ▷
www.cathedralmusictrust.org.uk 29
Benjamin Ealovega
A B O V E The choir for the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla involved singers from five establishments
STEPHEN PRITCHARD Stephen Pritchard writes on music for the Observer and the classical music website Bachtrack.
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a welcome sight in the stalls at the Coronation, and Nethsingha is excited and impressed by the genesis of a girls’ choir next door at St Margaret’s Westminster. The girls sing regular Sunday services at St Margaret’s and will sing some Wednesday Evensongs in the Abbey. He is keen to increase equality of access to singing at the Abbey and has recently appointed the first female alto deputy, and sees more appointments in the future. He also greatly enjoys the opportunity to conduct the Abbey’s Special Service Choir, when professional sopranos join with the lay vicars, and would like to explore the possibility of further performing opportunities for this combination in the future. And he’s keen to diversify the boys’ intake, too. ‘It’s vital to stress that any boy can apply to sing here, irrespective of background, and to make it clear that these great buildings are for everyone. And it’s important to support music-making in schools. There are all sorts of initiatives to counteract the scaling back of singing in the curriculum and there’s a lot we could do to play our part.’ He’s inspired by the Abbey’s determination to be more open to the world through digital streaming. He believes it could make thousands across the globe feel part of the Abbey community, not only by taking part in services but by ‘meeting’ the many people who make the Abbey so special. He puts the choir’s lay vicars in this category. ‘There are no better consort singers in the world. Not surprisingly, they are also heavily in demand with The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen and other ensembles. There are many possibilities for us such as filming the Tallis Lamentations, one to a part, around the Abbey. Our lay vicars and
organists are great soloists and they deserve more of a showcase.’ Right now he is concentrating on making his singers into ‘my choir’. This self-effacing man says it’s extraordinary how much influence the person in charge has on the sound, ethos, phrasing and character of a choir. ‘I went back to St John’s to conduct recently and it was noticeable how much the choir had changed in the two terms since I had left. That’s not a value judgement, it’s just an observation that choirs change when conductors change. So I am seeking to forge a deep musical relationship with my Abbey singers.’ At 54, he thinks he is probably the oldest person ever to be appointed organist at the Abbey, but believes his long experience with cathedral and collegiate choirs paid off when presented with the Coronation. He is also very conscious of his illustrious predecessors. He lists Cornysh, Purcell and Blow … but prefers not to dwell too long thinking about Gibbons. ‘He died within two years of taking up the job.’
FROM EXETER TO THE ABBEY Andrew Nethsingha, born 1968 Chorister, Exeter Cathedral Music Scholar, Clifton College Organ Scholar, St John’s College, Cambridge Prizewinner, Royal College of Music Organ Scholar, St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle Assistant Organist, Wells Cathedral, 1990–94 Master of the Choristers, Truro Cathedral, 1994–2002 Director of Music, Gloucester Cathedral, 2002–07 Director of Music, St John’s College, Cambridge, 2007–22 Organist and Master of the Choristers, Westminster Abbey, 2023–
Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
FEATURE
WOMEN’S MUSIC AT WINDSOR Recent investigations into the musical history of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle have discovered probably the first composition by a woman ever performed there By G E O F F R E Y W E B B E R
Royal Collection
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eaders familiar with rare breeds of goat or the Staffordshire horn dance will probably recognise the name Bagot. This ancient family, whose home remains Blithfield Hall near Abbots Bromley, has presented many notable figures to public life, and in an ecclesiastical context one of the most prominent of these was the Reverend Richard Bagot D.D. (1782–1854), whose impressive career included the post of Canon of St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Richard, known in the family as ‘Dandy Dick’, composed a short setting of the Kyrie that was performed at Canterbury Cathedral around 1841 while he was Dean there; but at least three female members of his family were more ambitious composers. One of these composed a substantial anthem, attributed simply to ‘Lady Bagot’, that was copied into the choir books at St George’s at the remarkably early date of 1808. In fact, Lady Bagot was not the sole woman composer whose music was performed at Windsor in the early nineteenth century, for there were two musical wives of Windsor canons who also composed liturgical music: ‘Mrs Canning’ (Mary Jane Canning, née Birch, 1779–1856) and ‘Mrs Musgrave’ (Catherine Musgrave, née Lowther, 1792–1867). Their music comprises short liturgical items for the service of Holy Communion. By contrast, the verse anthem by Lady Bagot is composed on a much more impressive scale. But who exactly was Lady Bagot? The Windsor music catalogue states that this is Harriet Bagot, wife of Richard Bagot. But Richard only became a Canon at Windsor in
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B O V E Lady Louisa A Bagot, by William Owen
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1822, long after the anthem was first performed there. More crucially, the title ‘Lady Bagot’ cannot properly be applied to her, since it can only refer to the wife of a Lord or Baron Bagot. The description ‘Lady’ on its own can indeed be applied to her, but only with her Christian name inserted, i.e. Lady Harriet Bagot. The anthem is listed in William Marshall’s A Collection of Anthems used in the Cathedral and Collegiate Churches of England and Wales, first published in 1840, where she is described as ‘The Rt Hon. the Lady Bagot’. Even more clearly, this description cannot refer to Harriet, the wife of Richard. We know from the 1808 copy of the anthem at Windsor that the piece was composed in or before that year, but between 1760 and 1808 there were three women who were called ‘Lady Bagot’: Elizabeth Louisa Bagot (c.1744–1820), Emily Bagot (1770–1800) and Louisa Bagot (1787–1816). The first Baron Bagot died in 1798, and so Elizabeth Louisa then became the Dowager Lady Bagot until
Private Collection
The manuscripts have numerous performance indications suggesting a highly expressive manner of delivery her death in 1820. The second Baron Bagot married Emily Fitzroy in 1799, but she died in 1800 and so was Lady Bagot for a matter of months; the second Baron then married Louisa Legge in 1807, just a year before the piece was copied at Windsor. Thus, in 1808 ‘Lady Bagot’ referred to only this third woman, Louisa Bagot, then around 20 years old. Since these women all lived in Staffordshire, there is likely to have been a strong connection between the composer and St George’s Chapel for the anthem to have been performed there. Fortunately, the likely connection can be determined since not only did Louisa’s father George Legge, the third Earl of Dartmouth, become a Knight of the Garter in 1805, but more crucially, in the same year, her uncle Edward Legge became Dean of the Chapel, having already served as a Canon there. It was he that conducted the wedding of Louisa to William Bagot, second Baron Bagot, in 1807 at St James’s, Westminster (known today as St James’s, Piccadilly). Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
Probably due to Louisa’s brother-in-law Richard Bagot, the anthem also survives in manuscripts at Canterbury Cathedral, where it is also ascribed simply to ‘Lady Bagot’. A further copy of the piece survives among the Sneyd family papers at Keele University – the neighbouring Bagot and Sneyd families were closely related – but here no author is indicated at all. Although it may never be completely certain that Louisa Bagot was the composer of the piece, the circumstantial evidence in favour of her appears very strong.
LADY BAGOT’S LIFE
Very little information about Louisa can be found, though a delightful portrait of her survives by William Owen. We do know what she wore to a major social occasion in 1807 shortly after becoming Lady Bagot, thanks to Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine. The widow of the previous Baron Bagot (Emily Fitzroy) wore a ‘superb dress of lilac’, while Louisa wore ‘a most superb and elegant white dress, richly embroidered with silver in wreaths of oak, with a profusion of diamonds and feathers’. More interestingly, a brief character sketch appears within the published letters of Harriet, Countess Granville, who stayed at Blithfield Hall in 1811: ‘Lady Bagot is a sensible, delightful person, more reserved than shy, and silent from habit, as I understand Lord Dartmouth never liked his children to join in general conversation. Her countenance is very intelligent and her tone of voice particularly pleasing. In short, I am much charmed with her.’ An obituary notice by another member of the Bagot-Sneyd dynasty written immediately after Louisa’s death in 1816 praises her as a paragon of religious virtue, but sadly there is no mention of any artistic accomplishment. However, amongst her children, Lady Eleanor Bagot (1814–96) was another of the female composers whose music was performed at Canterbury Cathedral later in the nineteenth century. Notwithstanding Louisa’s close connections with Windsor, it was the Organist at St George’s who was responsible for the performance of a musical composition by the young Lady Bagot, quite possibly the first composition by a woman ever performed in the Chapel. In 1808 this was William Sexton (1762–1824), a local boy who had been a
chorister before becoming Organist, Master of the Choristers and Succentor. The choir did not have a particularly strong reputation at this time; on all important royal occasions forces were mustered from the other London royal establishments. When the young George Elvey was appointed Organist in 1835 he was of the opinion that he had much work to do. His entertaining memoirs, written by his wife and published in 1894 (Life and reminiscences of George J. Elvey), recall that he inherited eleven aged lay clerks in 1835, only four of whom could sing; one died shortly afterwards and another was arrested for financial irregularities, leaving him with no altos or tenors. The Dean used to ask for Deliver us, O Lord, presumably the short anthem by Adrian Batten, on days when he was planning on going out for a ride. Elvey also learnt of an anecdote concerning the organist before Sexton, Theodore Aylward, who died in 1801: ‘Dr Aylward, on one occasion, having appointed the anthem, the choir sent word up that they were unable to sing it, because Mr. ____ had a cold. The Doctor returned answer that “they could do as they liked about singing it, but he intended to play it”.’ Perhaps the lay clerks were closer to their prime in 1808 when Sexton performed Lady Bagot’s anthem.
E L O W A mention of B Louisa Bagot’s anthem appears several decades after her death, suggesting it stayed in the repertoire at Windsor
THE MUSIC There is evidence that the anthem remained in the repertoire for some years after it was
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Geoffrey Webber
A B O V E The opening of the organ part of Louisa Bagot’s If we believe that Jesus died for us
GEOFFREY WEBBER Geoffrey Webber is General Editor of the Church Music Society and Director of Music at Hampstead Parish Church.
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composed, since it is listed in the Musical Gazette (vol. 2/16, p. 179) as having been performed in St George’s on Easter Day in April 1857, some thirty years after Richard Bagot left Windsor. Lady Bagot’s anthem does not survive in its complete form at Windsor, but happily the missing alto and tenor parts survive at Canterbury, and a slightly fuller version of the organ part is found in the Keele score. Like most extended anthems of the period, the work consists of several sections in contrasting styles: it comprises a solo trio, a bass recitative, a solo quartet, another bass recitative, a bass aria and finally a rousing five-part chorus. The first and last movements both begin with a brief introductory ‘symphony’ for the organ (see above). The opening presents the main melody of the first vocal section, with the left hand playing in octaves using the low-compass manuals of organs of the period. Those familiar with the music of composers such as Thomas Attwood or Samuel Wesley (senior) will recognise Bagot’s style, and the manuscripts have numerous performance indications suggesting a highly expressive manner of delivery with much use of appoggiaturas. The first recitative is notably dramatic, with the utterances of the bass soloist punctuated by illustrative organ writing inspired by ‘the trump of God’ and ‘the voice of the Archangel’ (marked dolce with ornaments). The text is taken from Mark, Thessalonians and Revelation, and the anthem is suitable for performance at Easter, Advent or for memorial and remembrance services. The ‘larghetto’ bass aria sets ‘And God shall wipe away all tears’, and in the final chorus
many repetitions of ‘Hosanna’ are sung against ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord’. The current Director of Music at St George’s Chapel, James Vivian, intends to perform the anthem once again at Windsor at some point in 2024, and so Bagot’s imaginative and expressive score will once again be heard in the Chapel. The anthem has recently been published by the Church Music Society (CMS RS157) and is available from Oxford University Press. For a fuller investigation of the music by women composers performed at St George’s, Windsor and Canterbury Cathedral in the nineteenth century, see www.church-music.org.uk. Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
A BRIGHT TOMORROW FOR THE MUSIC YOU LOVE
Your legacy is cathedral music's future
THE SIBTHORP CIRCLE The Sibthorp Circle recognises those who have notified us of their intention to remember Cathedral Music Trust with a gift in their Will. The Circle is named after our Founder, Revd Ronald Sibthorp, in honour of the longstanding impact of gifts in Wills. Leaving a gift in your Will to Cathedral Music Trust is an ideal way of supporting the music which has brought you pleasure during your lifetime.
Pledging a legacy will not cost you anything right now and will help to develop cathedral music for future generations. To find out more about joining the Sibthorp Circle or to discuss how you can support the work of the Trust, please contact Natasha Morris on 0203 151 6096 or email development@cathedralmusictrust.org.uk.
Michael Antcliff Marcia Babington Sarah Bourne David Bridges Michael Cooke Eric Merton Cox Stephen Crookes Robert Frier Rodney and Clarendon Gritten Edward and Rosemary Hart Sheila Kemp James Lancelot Robin Lee Jonathan Macdonald Roddie and Kate MacLean Iain Nisbet Martin Owen John Pettifer Denis Roberts David and Margaret Williamson And 27 anonymous members
Image: Choristers at Wells Cathedral
Legacies have formed the backbone of our grant-giving programme over recent decades. Such acts of kindness have provided muchneeded support for cathedral musicians, helping this priceless heritage flourish and grow.
We are very grateful to all those who have remembered the Trust in this way.
FEATURE
THE VOICE OF YOUTHFUL EXPERIENCE A moving experience of cathedral choristers changed the direction of Ben Liberatore’s research and has led to remarkable encounters with today’s young singers
Ben Liberatore
By C L A R E S T E V E N S
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participating in online forums, and informal conversations (largely digital) with adults. This was supplemented by observing and taking notes on Eucharists and Evensongs in American churches that imitate the English choral tradition. A lot of the discussions were ‘steeped in the gender wars about choristers’, he recalls, because ten years ago the issues surrounding whether treble lines should be boys, girls or mixed were still being hotly debated. Liberatore’s interest was in the ‘emotional heft’ attached to the gender of choristers; would that scene in the Royal Albert Hall have been as compelling if the singers were adult women, or if they were girls? However, he continues, ‘a lot of that early research revealed that there is a lot of nostalgia involved in adult appreciation of the work that choristers do. That personal history, that memory, are deeply intimated in what an adult sees when listening to and observing this tableau. One of the things that is coming out of my current research is a sense that what an adult thinks it is, what an adult sees it as reflecting, is very often not how the children themselves see what they are doing.’ The next step was a Master of Science in Education, Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania looking at the education of boys in the US and the wider anglophone world. But for his doctoral research Liberatore has returned to the world of Anglican cathedral music. The mission he has set himself is to try to understand the English choral tradition through the eyes of the children who are such an important part of it. He wants to fill a ▷
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Ben Liberatore
B
en Liberatore is accustomed to meeting people in the cathedral/ church/chapel music community who assume his academic research into the lives of choristers must have been inspired by his own childhood experience, or that he must be either a professional musician or a teacher. In fact, he tells me, he took a circuitous route into the world of cathedral music. Growing up in a Roman Catholic church in a Philadelphia suburb, he was aware of the choir stalls only as a dark, empty space up in the organ loft. He had heard snippets of things like the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge on the radio at Christmas, but had never really given that sort of music much thought. His academic training is in anthropology; while exploring the relationship between poetry – particularly war poetry – and the rites of collective memory-making for a course on ‘The Archaeology of Death and the Body’, he came across a video of the boy choristers of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, directed by Barry Rose, singing Mark Blatchly’s setting of Laurence Binyon’s poem ‘For the Fallen’ at a Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance in the Royal Albert Hall in 1982. ‘I clicked on the video and was immediately intrigued by the performance,’ he says. ‘The Queen is there, the army is there, the buglers are there; the boys are in their school uniforms, wearing their poppies, singing those lines about how “With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea” … and “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old” … I realised it was not an accident that children were part of this tableau, singing with voices that would not last. ‘I wondered why the scene had been constructed in that particular way, who the boys were and what it was like for them to sing like that … I was hooked from then on. I thought I was writing about poetry, but now, a decade later, I’m still writing about choristers.’ Resources for Liberatore’s first tranche of undergraduate work at Columbia University, New York, limited him to investigating how adults talk about choristership, rather than speaking to children themselves. The research mainly consisted of a literature review, media analysis and digital ethnography: collecting and analysing news, broadcasts and social media, reading and
‘I was struck occasionally by the depth of grief that accompanies some things for the choristers… The language some of them used was stark and striking’ major gap in the limited existing research, which has been based primarily on conversations with adults. ‘Children’s voices deserve to be heard in academic research,’ he says, ‘especially when, like choristers, their literal voices are so important to a beloved cultural phenomenon. They deserve to be taken seriously as liturgical actors, and as human beings.’ He is asking questions such as: • For what or for whom do choristers sing? • How do they digest and make sense of the texts they sing, hear and say throughout their choristerships? • How do they respond intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually to the music they learn? How do they embrace or challenge the preconceived notions that others – often adults – have about choristers, choirs and cathedrals? • How do choristers imagine the work they do connects to the wider world? • How do they feel about being part of something with such an extensive cultural history – especially now, when it seems like the post-Covid ‘new normal’ has often meant re-evaluating how we live and what matters to us?
WISDOM AND PROFUNDITY Following robust ethical and safeguarding reviews of his research plan both at Columbia University and at the institutions he had arranged to visit, Liberatore spent a substantial amount of time in the UK during the summer terms of 2018 and 2019, observing the routines of fifteen cathedrals and chapels, speaking informally to directors of music, choristers, adult singers, clergy and chorister parents. Then Covid hit, and the next stage of his research was conducted online, in Zoom interviews with seventy-eight current and former choristers, representing twenty-five English choral foundations. Was it an advantage, perhaps, that the hiatus caused by the pandemic meant that the choristers had more time to talk and their directors of music, teachers and parents had more time to consider the value of this 38
project and the wisdom of getting involved, whereas normally they might have simply dismissed it as too complicated to think about? It was, says Liberatore. A few directors of music sent his call around to choir families or volunteered one or two of their choristers themselves; initial sessions went well, and word got around via chorister parent WhatsApp groups and so on that this was a positive experience for their children and worth doing. ‘Some of the parents sat in on the interviews, some didn’t, but either way, they found it helpful to have their children occupied for an hour or so during that difficult period.’ The circumstances inevitably coloured the conversations. ‘I was struck occasionally by the depth of grief that accompanies some things for the choristers, for example when some of the children I spoke to described how they were forced to stop singing suddenly because of the pandemic and that was it – one minute they were in the middle of it and then suddenly it was gone with no valediction, none of the rites of passage that they’d seen other people go through, or when boys talked about their changing voices. The language some of them used was stark and striking, phrases such as “like being locked in a cage” or “staring into the abyss”.’ In 2022 Liberatore was able to return to the UK to conduct more fieldwork and interviews, spending a full academic year ‘hanging out with purpose,’ as he puts it, ‘chaperoning, helping out in choir schools, page-turning at services, sorting chorister tea, and listening to a lot of sung services!’ Speaking generally about their lives and answering Liberatore’s specific questions, the children’s responses tend to be positive and very thoughtful – sometimes, says Liberatore, deeply philosophical or theological. For example, in answer to a question about why cathedral choirs have children singing the top line and how it would be different in musical and practical terms if they used adult sopranos, some expressed their belief that seeing or hearing children singing is important to people because it helps them to reminisce about ‘better times’. Others answer Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
more pragmatically, with variations on ‘we’re cheaper than adults’, ‘you can make children do things that you can’t make adults do’ or ‘children are entertaining: people want to see us, so cathedrals can use us to make money’. Asked why he thought there were no girls in his choir, one chorister simply said, ‘because the choir school is a boys’ school. If there were girls at school, there would be girls in the choir’.
An interesting feature of the interviews has been that boys generally do not bring up the issue of gender unless they are asked about it, whereas girls tend to raise it unsolicited, usually very quickly. They notice the differences between how they and their male colleagues are treated, sometimes seeing hierarchical significance that the institutions may not be aware of – that there is no equivalent, for example, of being surpliced, if the girls’ vestments don’t include a surplice, or that the song school includes photographs of a cathedral’s all-male choirs going back 150 years, but nobody has made space to hang recent photos including girls and women. On the other hand, resistance among boys to singing alongside girls or sharing their duties with girls is vanishingly uncommon. ‘It has been really wonderful to see boys speak so graciously and defensively about their female colleagues,’ says Liberatore. This was particularly noticeable in one conversation with a boy whose all-male choir had been joined by girls from a school choir and another cathedral foundation to sing at a very high-profile recent event. ‘He spoke so vociferously about the amazing sound they made that his director of music heard him from two rooms away! He couldn’t understand why all churches don’t use girls as well as boys.’ Space here does not permit exploration of other themes that are emerging from Liberatore’s research, but one anecdote gives a pointer towards its value. ‘After a late summer mid-week evening service I overheard one chorister say to another, “Maybe God is real; maybe God isn’t real. I’m not sure: I’m still figuring out what I believe. But if God isn’t real, then we’ve lost nothing by singing here, if anything, we’ve been given something. And if God is real we’ve been given something anyway.” ‘To me the fact that a child of twelve or thirteen felt that a Church of England cathedral was a place where she could have doubts, was free to question faith, was a
Ben Liberatore
GENDER AND EQUALITY
wonderful thing,’ he says. ‘And then the fact that she could make sense of it to herself and articulate it so well to her peers, that there is nothing lost and in fact something gained, regardless of belief or ambivalence or doubt, that was another thing … how could you not want to hear that? ‘That was a moment I would not have heard if I had just been doing interviews. There is something about being embedded and being able to spend time and share space with people, and that is what I hope to have captured and been able to share.’ The working title of Ben Liberatore’s thesis is ‘Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang’: Child Choristers in the English Choral Tradition. He expects to be in the UK for the academic year 2023/24 and while the bulk of his research interviews have been completed, he would be interested to hear from representatives of institutions that he has not yet visited. He can be contacted on b.liberatore@columbia.edu.
CLARE STEVENS
Selected excerpts from interviews can be found under the #ChoristerResearch hashtag on Twitter/X, where his handle is @terratologist
Clare Stevens works as a writer, editor and publicist in the Welsh Marches.
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FEATURE
SHADOWS AND LIGHTS: MUSIC FOR REMEMBERING AND REFLECTION Music has always served to complement and amplify the liturgy and the contours of the church year – perhaps never more so than as the days grow shorter and thoughts turn towards winter By V I C T O R I A J O H N S O N
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n many ways music is always a form of time travel, connecting us to people and places of the past, the present and the future. It moves us from dust to glory, from death to resurrection; it gives us a glimpse of the heavenly realms and as well as expanding our imagination it also ministers to the heart. In this season of shadows and lights the music that accompanies the liturgies of the church carries upon its wings many contrasting emotions as autumn turns to winter. As October tips into November we celebrate All Saints, perhaps by singing the jubilant Gaudent in coelis by Sally Beamish (2012) or a Litany for the Saints. Within twenty-four hours, we are remembering the souls of the faithful departed, who now rest on a different shore and in a greater light. We move on to Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday with their solemn silence, melancholic sounds, Last Posts and Reveilles. St Cecilia, the patron saint of music, stands at the door as the liturgical year begins to close on the feast of Christ the King and we start to prepare for the dark blue skies and morning stars of Advent. I want to take us through this quarter season, by reflecting on some of the music which has accompanied me on this journey as a singer and a priest, all of which has been written in the last fifteen years or so. We are part of a living and evolving tradition and though we delight in the music of our ancient
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forebears and its ability to speak into our post-modern condition, we can also cherish the music of the twenty-first century as it enlivens our history and weaves our present memories into an ever-expanding past.
REQUIEM AETERNAM The form of the Requiem, a mass for remembering the dead, is a marker of this season. One would never want to take away from the beauty of the Fauré and Duruflé setting nor those by Victoria, Mozart and Verdi alongside them, but my mind was expanded when I sang Will Todd’s Requiem for Soprano, Electric Guitar and Choir (Tyalgum Press, 2008), originally commissioned for the Fairhaven Singers. It feels as if Todd is playing with fire as the soundworlds of choral music and a virtuosic rock guitar collide, but it is worth the leap into this unusual aural space. On Todd’s website it says that the Requiem was given five stars by Choir & Organ Magazine and an 18 certificate by Aled Jones. There is a rawness within this music and the portrayal of grief in its chaos and confusion, (the Dies Irae is spellbindingly dark), but there is also comfort, consolation, and a haunting and lyrical beauty which leads to peace as the soul is carried on angels’ wings into paradise. A more traditional take on the requiem is captured by Ghislaine Reece-Trapp in her In Paradisum – part of a collection of organ Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
Adobe Stock
‘In this season of shadows and lights the music that accompanies the liturgies of the church carries upon its wings many contrasting emotions as autumn turns to winter’
works Gregoriana (Stainer & Bell, 2022) inspired by Gregorian chant, curated by Anna Lapwood and most recently performed at the BBC Proms. This delicate piece elevates the same plainsong motif from the Duruflé In Paradisum and exemplifies in just a few minutes the layering of time and eternity through musical sound, carefully taking us to the peaceful resolution of all things, when death shall be no more.
IN A MIRROR DARKLY The merging of musical memories is a speciality of Judith Bingham. If you’ve ever sung one of Bingham’s pieces in this genre you will have imbibed the harmonies of a choral classic as she has deconstructed and reworked them. There are ripples and flashes of light and moments of reminiscence as if looking from far out to sea back to the shore. For this season, I would choose The darkness is no darkness, and a recording by Voces8 (Winter, Decca, 2016), which elides perfectly into Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, the anthem which Bingham was pre-empting through this composition. In a different kind of musical pairing to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd, the Sixteen commissioned Dobrinka Tabakova to write Turn our captivity, O Lord (A Watchful Gaze, Coro, 2023). Taking the text of Psalm 126, Tabakova
offers a response to Byrd’s interpretation of the same text which presents a rich choral texture to his polyphony and combines a byzantine soundworld with the Anglican and Catholic traditions which Byrd inhabited. The resolution of this piece again offers consolation, reassuring us finally that those ‘who sow in tears, shall reap in joy’.
E L O W Victoria B Johnson finds both solace and inspiration in music of remembrance and of shadows
BEFORE THE ENDING OF THE DAY The contemplative nature of this time of year is encapsulated in the office of Compline, a form of night prayer when we reflect on the day that is past, lay down our sorrows and seek that peace that the world cannot give. In her Dusk Songs, Kerry Andrew uses the liturgical texts of Compline to chart the movement from dusk to eventide. Commissioned for The Ebor Singers (Boreas, 2007), the antiphons, canticles and hymns of the night office are re-interpreted and can be sung as a cycle or used individually. The choristers of York Minster particularly love the Ambrosian hymn O lux beata Trinitas (OUP, New Horizons), a favourite at Evensong which shimmers with mystery and brings hope as night falls. Owain Park’s Phos Hilaron (Novello, 2018), based on the text of the ancient Christian hymn, finally offers the listener simple illumination as evening falls and lamps are lit. A single voice, like a candle in the dark, sings of Christ, the light of the world, who is the same, yesterday, today and forever.
VI CTO R I A J O H N S O N The Revd Canon Dr Victoria Johnson is the Canon Precentor of York Minster, and also writes about the arts and music.
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FEATURE
THE GREAT SURVIVOR Despite living at a time of great religious and political instability, William Byrd was astute enough to keep his head (literally). The beauty of his liturgical music has meant that it too has survived over the 400 years since his death
Mazur/cbcew.org.uk
By R E B E C C A T A V E N E R
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There is in the very words themselves, as I have learnt from experience, a power so perfectly concealed that as one meditates upon holy writ, reviewing it carefully and seriously, all the most apposite musical phrases present themselves, in some unknown way, as if of their own volition – William Byrd ( from the dedication to his Gradualia of 1605)
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hen Byrd wrote this dedication, whom was he addressing? The dedicatee, obviously, Lord Petre; the great Catholic families maintaining their private chapels; generations to come … certainly not the cloth-eared Calvinist King James I. It is amazing that it could be published openly because the canny Byrd had gained the approbation of the Bishop of London. While the breadth of his output beyond Latin liturgical music is impressive – secular, instrumental, English service music, etc – it is the edge of danger that surrounds his Latin works, as well as their supreme quality, that exerts the greatest fascination for today’s audiences. What does this dedication tell us about Byrd’s composing methods? The views of some of today’s leading composers of sacred music will follow; but first, who was Byrd? The life of William Byrd (c. 1540-1623) glows against a tenebrous background of fear and faith: how those two profound influences worked on the creative mind of a musical genius is a question that we can only answer in part; but to examine his creativity without placing it in historical context is to miss much of what makes him one of the exceptional figures in British musical history. To consider him without also acknowledging his friend and colleague, the musical elder statesman of the Tudor period, Thomas Tallis, is also to reduce our opportunity to appreciate him more fully. Their joint musical and spiritual legacy is immeasurable and we may infer something, perhaps, about them as people from their careers and works: Tallis the mentor, father-figure and friend, canny and diplomatic; Byrd the driven, uncompromising Catholic, obsessive, tenacious, and careful of his rights – something evinced by his property ownership and litigation in later life. Byrd did not have to swerve as many religious policy obstacles as Tallis, being 18 at
the time of Mary Tudor’s death. Byrd was a L E F T Simon Johnson conducts the Choir of true Elizabethan, serving a complex, Westminster Cathedral, enigmatic monarch whose pragmatic who have been Protestantism preserved music and other performing Byrd’s liturgical adornments while keeping hardcomplete settings of line Reformers from getting it all their own music for the Mass throughout 2023 way. Elizabeth I, the intellectual aesthete with a refined sense of the numinous, wouldn’t B E L O W Driven, give up the things she appreciated in church. uncompromising English reigned in the Book of Common Catholic, obsessive, Prayer, but Gloriana enjoyed her polyphony tenacious, and careful of his rights: William in Latin. In spite of that long Elizabethan era, Byrd. The Kyrie of Byrd’s festering religious division and paranoia Mass for four voices re-surfaced after the accession of James I, leading to the Gunpowder Plot (1605), the English Civil War (1640s), and much ongoing misery with poisoned tentacles reaching into the present day. Byrd was born in London c. 1540 and it is traditionally assumed that he was a chorister of the Chapel Royal under the direction of Tallis, who probably retained him as an assistant after his voice broke. No doubt that association helped the younger man obtain the post of organist and master of the choristers at Lincoln Cathedral in 1563, where he stayed for a decade in spite of clashes with the Chapter regarding the ‘popish’ nature of his lavish instrumental contributions to the liturgy. It was in these magnificent surroundings that he honed his craft, and he seems to have been conscious of the need to expand his expertise in as many forms and styles as possible with a view to greater advancement. In 1572 the death of Robert Parsons created a vacancy in the Chapel Royal and Byrd was sworn in and described as joint organist with Tallis. In 1575 they were granted the first music-printing monopoly under royal ▷
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E L O W As organist at B Lincoln Cathedral, and then as a member of the Chapel Royal, Byrd steered a delicate path through the political and religious uncertainties of the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I
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patronage – an achievement which reveals how effectively they worked their influential contacts, both for patronage and protection. Elizabeth I accepted the dedication of their joint production, the Cantiones Sacrae, probably for her private Latin service in the Chapel Royal, sending out an unmistakable message to detractors. Byrd surely learned the craft of entrepreneurial circumspection and diplomacy from Tallis, but this did not prevent them both from being watched. Accusations of recusancy (non-attendance at Protestant Communion) were levelled against Byrd on several occasions from 1584, and he was fined but rescued from further punishment by his friends at court. Was his adherence to Rome almost an ‘open secret’? In 1605 and 1607 Byrd felt confident enough to publish the volumes of Gradualia (arguably his magnum opus, anthologising his dazzlingly varied polyphonic settings of Propers for the Mass) openly, with a temporary withdrawal after the Gunpowder Plot inspired a resurgence of virulent antiCatholic feeling. After Byrd’s death in 1623, from natural causes and surrounded by family, he left considerable worldly
possessions including a farm and woodland at Stondon Massey, proof positive of his effective lifetime manipulation of patronage. Like Haydn, did Byrd feel isolated and thereby ‘forced to be original’? Cut off from cultural commerce with Catholic Europe by the English Reformation, we can see this in his Masses. Although they adhere to the tenets of the Council of Trent in terms of the moderation of melisma and clarity of wordsetting, they are utterly non-European in construction and could never be confused with works by Lassus or Palestrina. All three of Byrd’s Masses are freely composed rather than built on the European ‘parody’ format; moreover, Byrd, in a miracle of concision, manages in settings of greater brevity to sustain imitative counterpoint much more extensively than even Palestrina achieves. Byrd could never have heard his Gradualia or Mass settings sung by a full choir in the liturgical solemnity of Mass in a great cathedral. In his lifetime, his sacred music would mostly have been realised by tiny ensembles in clandestine settings. In the early years of James I, for example, Mass was celebrated in numerous wealthy households with music from the Gradualia: Appleton Hall in Norfolk, for example, the home of Edward Paston. The forces involved might well be one voice to a part, with a celebrant to sing the liturgical framework. While this knowledge influences today’s consort performances, we might speculate that the sound in Byrd’s own head, flowing out through his pen, would have been that of a full choir in a glorious ecclesiastical setting. He surely cherished a hope that England would return to Rome and that his Latin works would one day ring round her magnificent cathedrals: he was writing for a sublime, heavenly eternity, not merely for the restrictions of an uncertain, perilous present. As James MacMillan – whose work in tribute to Byrd’s 400th anniversary, Ye Sacred Muses, was commissioned by The King’s Singers – puts it in his blog for Byrd Central: ‘I was astonished to learn that if the composer had been found with the published scores on his person he could have been arrested. I pictured the scenario of how these Masses would have been first used – in secret, one singer to a part, musicians and a small band of terrified worshippers hiding and praying in a secluded back room somewhere. The priest, if caught could have lost his life. I’ve always had a profound admiration for William Byrd for remaining true to his faith in these desperate days.’ Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
MarcMarnie
“I was astonished to learn that if Byrd had been found with the published scores on his person he could have been arrested” – JAMES MACMILLAN
Byrd’s keyboard works are largely framed in old-school counterpoint, while he also produced organ works in the avant-garde ‘virginal’ style. While his reputation is greatly enhanced by his many surviving secular keyboard works, there is frustratingly little extant liturgical keyboard music, especially when one considers the complaints made about his improvised playing in Lincoln. This is tantalising if one imagines in Byrd’s unpreserved liturgical repertoire the brilliance and invention of his secular keyboard music. In Byrd’s time organ music was undergoing a gradual secularisation, but his keyboard music evolved from a vocal tradition – a concept we have all but lost touch with today. Composers of this period had a training that was at first vocal and then extended to instrumental activity without losing sight of the former – the Tudor composer had vocal music in his veins. It has taken us several centuries to arrive at our current extreme specialisation and, in some ways, a regrettable disassociation from the vocal. So, what do composers of today make of the above quotation taken from the dedication of the 1605 Gradualia? Judith Bingham finds that ‘studying words properly can, I find, kickstart the musical process, just as he says. But Byrd is, I think, talking about meditating on the religious meaning, and his music has an intensity of belief that is missing in many if not most contemporary composers. ‘Often, composers are looking for a metaphorical take on the words, or simply using them as a template for a musical idea. Byrd would be quite shocked by this, I think, just as his intention to put his and his wife’s
life on the line for his faith would maybe make us uncomfortable.’ Roxanna Panufnik, whose Kyrie After Byrd was commissioned by ORA Singers, agrees: ‘Words are extraordinary – some immediately conjure up vivid musical atmospheres the instant I read them. The drama and mysticism of liturgical words never fail to stir me and I always seem to “hear” new musics, even if I’m setting something for the second or third time.’ Other views are available – as Gabriel Jackson says: ‘I think Byrd is being a bit disingenuous here. And I certainly don’t believe in “divine inspiration”, so Byrd’s words don’t ring true for me. Of course certain words or phrases might suggest a particular treatment – which would be different for every composer – but one doesn’t have to go with that (and I often don’t). Just writing whatever comes into your head at any given point in the text isn’t composition, it’s improvisation.’ Considering Byrd’s noble and royal connections, perhaps the last word should go to the current Master of the King’s Music, Judith Weir: ‘I’m in close agreement with Byrd here. If you are working with a beautiful or apposite text – this is key here – the words themselves already present you with so much musical information. Perhaps it’s an exaggeration to say that, with the presence of a clear, well-constructed text, the music writes itself. But certainly, all sorts of details, rhythm, structure, emotional colour, are already there waiting for you on the page.’ This article was originally published in the June 2023 issue of Choir & Organ.
B O V E Composers A Roxanna Panufnik and James MacMillan have written tribute works to mark Byrd’s 400th anniversary
R E B E CCA TAVE N E R Rebecca Tavener is a singer and director specialising in early and contemporary music. She is founder–director of Canty, Scotland’s only professional medieval music group.
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FEATURE
A LAY CLERK RETIRES After forty-seven years in the choir of Exeter Cathedral, an alto lay clerk reflects on his many experiences By M I K E D O B S O N
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t all began in the autumn of 1976, when I started as an undergraduate at Exeter University, studying History and Archaeology, and became an alto choral scholar. In July 2023, I hung up my cassock for the final time. As the saying goes: ‘I’ve seen them come, I’ve seen them go’. For me this means (as accurately as I can remember) something resembling a version of the Twelve Days of Christmas: three Directors of Music, five Assistant Directors, seven Deans, four Bishops, seven Precentors, six Treasurers, five Chancellors, four Succentors, seven Head Virgers, eight Headmasters and five Punctators. I have also witnessed two organ rebuilds, one new chamber organ, several grand pianos, two sets of song schools, two sets of nave stalls (the 1970s set are still for sale in a local antique centre!), two sets of choir stall lights (both equally badly designed and annoying) and (thanks to Covid) probably the only period of interruption in the choir’s singing since the Commonwealth. I don’t know how many choristers have passed through the stalls in front of me, but I guess it could be over 250. As for the number of lay vicars and choral scholars, I have no idea, but it will be a significant number. I still remember my audition with Lucian Nethsingha in the old, stone-vaulted song school above the chapel on the north side of the quire. One of my sight-reading pieces was Howells's Gloucester Service. Lucian insisted that I hold on to those very long
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notes at the end of several phrases, right to the end, to see how good was my breath control! My prepared piece was Gibbons's This is the Record of John. (Little did I know how many times I would go on and sing that with the choir, including recording it for West German Radio and Swiss Radio.) I was the only candidate being auditioned for the one alto choral scholar vacancy remaining, but Lucian gave no indication whether I was good enough; that had to wait for a letter a couple of weeks later. I was one of two alto choral scholars on Decani; on Cantoris there was a lay vicar. The first few months were a very steep learning curve. I knew hardly any of the repertoire as I had not been a cathedral chorister. For the first term at least I could learn from the experienced (postgraduate) choral scholar next to me. But at that first Christmas, the Cantoris alto lay vicar left, seemingly rather unexpectedly. That meant I went over to Cantoris and there were just two altos for the rest of the year. To say I found that challenging is an understatement. A bass lay vicar once told me that singing in a cathedral choir was basically ‘hours of boredom, punctuated by seconds of terror’. That second term for me was quite the opposite! Thankfully the Cantoris tenor choral scholar next to me usefully sang corrections and prevented too many ‘variations on a printed theme’. (Incidentally, my first year was Andrew Nethsingha’s year as a probationer.) Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
Mike Dobson
Another alto lay vicar was not appointed until 1978 but it was not until 1980 that we actually had four altos; it has been three or four since then. Thankfully, with the introduction of female altos by Andrew Millington, we have usually been able to have four altos every year. The presence of the ladies also has the wonderful benefit of taking the strain out of any top Fs – Bruckner’s Ave Maria can now be approached with a smile. (I can’t remember exactly when I was made a lay vicar. There used to be a rule that a lay vicar could not be in full-time education. As I was doing a PhD, I was in that state until about 1983, so it would have been about then.) For many years the convention among the adults was to call everyone Mr Surname and never to use first names, even in general conversation. The choristers were similarly called just by their surnames; this changed when the girl choristers started, as it was felt
inappropriate to call them in this way and so A B O V E Shortly after Mike Dobson joined the all choristers were referred to by their first choir of Exeter Cathedral name to avoid any discrimination in practice. he found himself as one It was many years before I had the courage of only two altos to call Lucian by his first name. But I was not alone in that; for a very long time, only one of the bass lay vicars, contemporary at Cambridge with Lucian, had the privilege of addressing him thus. But that did not guarantee that Lucian would remember your name. After many years in the choir, the name of a tenor lay vicar escaped Lucian during a rehearsal, and he merely said ‘Whoever you are’ – much mirth followed! Choir tours started in 1982, thanks to the efforts of one tenor lay vicar, who, compared to what is common now, had to persuade the Dean and Chapter that they were a valid activity for a cathedral choir – but then, at that time, the Dean and Chapter could not see the point of having a cathedral shop! Among the highlights was singing in St Mark’s Venice, an amazing experience, ▷
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Mike Dobson
A B O V E Mike (front row, centre) with the Exeter Cathedral music department at his farewell
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though we never saw the service as we were up in a gallery, and a priest standing beside Lucian told us when to sing and to stop – the latter even if we were not at the end of a piece. When recording for West German Radio, the producer was, shall we say, ‘demanding’. Lucian had enough of the repeated comments about how we were singing Britten’s Jubilate, and firmly but quietly said ‘I am sure that is how Ben would have liked it sung’. No more takes after that. A tour to Rome saw us singing in St Peter’s – a wonderful and amusing experience, caused by us having three of their operatic tenors providing parts of the service, and the organist using an electronic keyboard to work out the pitch the priest was singing at so that he could follow with the accompanied response. Returning home from a tour to Lugano, in a coach driving through the night on motorways, a bass saved the lives of the choir when he noticed the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and so he ran the length of the coach to wake him up! During my time, the choir has sung for many members of the Royal Family. This included the Maundy Service in 1982, when we were each paid the official fee of a set of Maundy money. We sometimes talked to the royal visitors after services. On one such occasion during the mid-1980s, (the then)
Prince Charles – patron of the Music Foundation – asked in the vestry, ‘Do you have any altos? Are they the ones with the pained expressions on their faces?’ There have been numerous BBC choral evensongs, and it was interesting to see how these sessions changed over the years. They started with several vans outside the cathedral, many cables, a telephone then satellite connection to London and in wonderful BBC old-style convention, all the staff wore suits. The number of vans steadily reduced, until recently when there was just a car, an internet link and fewer cables; but the wonderful large brass microphone bases are still used. It’s also lovely to see that the current BBC choral evensong producer is Ben Collingwood, a former Exeter bass choral scholar. I was involved in numerous choir recordings, starting with LPs, then as technology developed, cassettes and CDs. There were also several television recordings over the years, as well as numerous small news items. During the mid-1980s, as a consequence of the Queen commenting during a Maundy Service at Ripon about whether that choir was entitled to wear the scarlet of royal cathedral foundations, the Clerk of the Closet (the then Bishop of Bath and Wells) sent a letter to all cathedrals questioning their right Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
‘It’s vital to stress that anybody can apply to sing here, irrespective of background, and to make it clear that these great buildings are for everyone’ Master Tallis’s Testament, Alain's Litanies, Liszt's Prelude and Fugue on B.A.C.H. How would I sum up the past 47 years? A wonderful privilege to belong to a very special club. Life-long friendships and god-parents for my children. Seeing and hearing the two youngest children develop as choristers in front of me (one still has another two years), feeling so proud of them talking to Charles and Camilla when they visited the cathedral in the summer of 2021, and regularly receiving their criticism of my efforts, in the car on the way home! Who knows, perhaps the Dobson presence and another rendition of Record of John may one day return at the end of the Decani stalls through them?
E L O W Mike’s long B tenure has meant that his children Freddie and Ginevra have both sung with him as choristers
MIKE DOBSON Mike Dobson is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter.
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Mike Dobson
to wear scarlet cassocks. Exeter was unable to definitively prove that it was a royal foundation and so would have to cease wearing scarlet cassocks. During the debate, it was mentioned to Father Venn – a PriestVicar of the cathedral – that he would have to cease this practice as well. It turned out, though, that he was the only person of the cathedral clergy actually entitled to wear scarlet, as he had been a Queen’s Chaplain. The outcome of the whole episode was that it was agreed the cassocks could be blood-red. The Dean had proposed this colour on the basis that it was the colour associated with St Peter, the cathedral’s patron saint. Thankfully, the choir were allowed to keep the scarlet, as their cassocks had only relatively recently been replaced, but on the understanding that they too would become blood-red when they needed replacing. One of the biggest changes in the history of the choir that I witnessed was the introduction of girl choristers in 1994. At the time, there was so much debate about this introduction, now, thankfully, largely committed to history. Someone even said to me at the time that, of course, the girls would never sing in ‘important’ services! Personally, I think it was an excellent development and the cathedral and music-making have benefitted enormously. It has been wonderful to see how the girls have steadily increased the number of times they sing and now the boys and girls have an equal, shared role providing the top line. Also personally, it meant that my youngest daughter could sing in the choir, and has provided her and many other girls with an excellent foundation to go on to professional singing careers. Needless to say I have some favourite pieces: anything by Purcell or Gibbons, Bairstow's Blessed city, heavenly Salem, Howells's St Paul’s and Gloucester evening services, Bruckner's Locus iste and Os justi, Croft's God is Gone Up, Vaughan Williams's Mass in G Minor, Requiems by Fauré and Duruflé, Wesley's Ascribe unto the Lord and The Wilderness, Duruflé's Ubi caritas, the list goes on … even some organ items: Howells's
FEATURE
A NEW S ON G
THE DOUBTER’S PRAYER John Sturt found Anne Brontë’s poem resonated with him as he grappled with his own beliefs. He talks about his new work for mixed choir and organ
Matthew Norriss/Piraxa Studios
By M A T T H E W P O W E R
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Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
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ith composition as his principal goal, John Sturt’s current day job is as a bass lay clerk at Peterborough Cathedral. Despite the structure to rehearsals, services and seasons, no two days are the same. ‘You are always alert,’ he says. ‘There is so much repertoire and little rehearsal time, so you have to squeeze every ounce of improvement out of it.’ On occasion, services are sung by the lay clerks only – six of them, plus two choral scholars – and Sturt has written Preces and Responses for this ATB line-up which have now entered the repertoire at Peterborough. Prior to his move north, Sturt spent a full six years studying Composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance, contained in a wing of the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, where he also sang in the chapel choir. Did this expanse of time in one place give him a sense of his own musical growth? ‘I stayed there because I felt secure without being sheltered and that journey did give me a sense of development. I was quite different by the end of my undergraduate training, then two years later, completing my Master’s degree, I had changed again.’ He was supervised by five composition tutors in total. Was that array entirely complementary or were there contradictions in their approach? ‘There was no difficulty. They all worked on different parts of my compositional life, to take it apart, strengthen it and put it back together. Deirdre Gribbin prised open my intellect and showed me the power of notation; Paul Newland showed me the breadth and depth of the musical landscape; Errollyn Wallen got me invested in drama and words; Stephen Montague encouraged my sense of self-discipline and desire for adventure; Soosan Lolavar furthered my intellectual curiosity and a sense of “do what thou wilt”, which is the beauty of post-Modernism.’ Did postgraduate study nurture a deepening musical approach? ‘I had to solidify what I had as a musician and then collaborate more with others. I had to be an active listener, to make compromises, but also to express [my aims].’ His major projects then were a set of songs in Anglo-Saxon and a chamber opera, Minutes to Midnight, working with librettist Sophia Chapadjiev. For composers (and organists), collaboration is
vital for growth. ‘As a composer, it is other musicians who will bring your music fully to life, so you have a vested interest in collaboration.’ Since college, Sturt also works as a professional music copyist on projects which include engraving for his previous teacher Errollyn Wallen. That must be rewarding, given how vibrant and extraordinary her music is. ‘That’s a perfect description of Errollyn! My work as a copyist is invigorating but it also brings a huge sense of responsibility. What I do will shorten or lengthen rehearsals, so it is of paramount importance that I get it right. I’m continuing to learn about the process, as every copyist does. I have produced parts for Errollyn’s new opera Quamino’s Map, alongside a team of other copyists; it has been lovely to be part of that group.’ Sturt was also tasked with completing Wallen’s score of The world’s weather for its world premiere last year given by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Composed twenty-two years earlier, Sturt had to recreate the score in a digital format for editing. That project played to his strengths: ‘Errollyn likes florid gestures, and to make those clear and exacting is one of the great joys of being a copyist.’
E F T John Sturt writes L ‘unashamedly tonal’ music: ‘I am coming round to the belief that influence can come from basically anywhere’
DEFENDING FILM MUSIC Listening to examples of Sturt’s music, especially his orchestral writing, I am struck not only by his overtly tonal language but by its cinematic quality. ‘I have been influenced by film music. I rewatched the 1996 remake of 101 Dalmatians with music by Michael Kamen. The leitmotif moments, the recognisable melodic content and compelling harmonies and orchestration must have rubbed off on me. I would like to compose production library music as a way to have my music recorded and used in different media, and also as a means to support my own projects. In “serious” composition we are encouraged to look for influences in a similar [genre]; but I am coming around to the belief that influence can come from basically anywhere, as long as I can explain it well. I have experienced negative comments about my music sounding filmic; I was once told by a conductor that it was “too simple to be taken seriously” which definitely came as a knockback, but it also gave me the determination to continue down this path.’ ▷
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‘As a composer, it is other musicians who will bring your music fully to life’ Sturt’s tonal style has influences of Vaughan Williams as well as contemporary composers; is there a challenge to writing purely tonal music in terms of achieving originality? ‘Inevitably in a universe of finite [musical] ideas there will be bits and pieces that could accidentally refer to another. I don’t believe that is a problem; of course I do my best not to tread on other people’s toes as a matter of courtesy, but I don’t find there is any challenge to originality in my writing of unashamedly tonal music. ‘I honestly believe [that] in this postModern age composers should be able to write whatever they like, whether that is tonal or experimental. I have plenty of friends who create the most extraordinary music, in whom I see so much – Caitlin Harrison and Amy Summers are two examples – we are very different musically, but of the same mould in that we shared some of the same teachers.’
LIFE AND HEALTH
M AT T H EW P OWE R Matthew Power works in London as a musician and writer; he is a former editor of Choir & Organ magazine.
His New Music piece, The Doubter’s Prayer for choir and organ, sets extracts from a poem by Anne Brontë. ‘I was attracted to it because, while not specifically about agnosticism, it deals with doubt, and I sympathised with what Brontë was going through when she wrote this poem.’ She struggled with ill health and had gastric fever, a form of tuberculosis, from which she died at the age of 29. Sturt references his
own serious illness, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which he contracted at the age of 11. ‘Although she was deeply religious, doubt followed Brontë wherever she went,’ he says. ‘Although I am agnostic and my journey with faith didn’t resolve itself in the same way that Brontë’s did, doubt is something I am familiar with.’ There is clarity to the text-setting and a luminosity to the organ writing, and he talked to Joseph Fort (who will direct the premiere performance) while composing it. ‘The end of the piece, with that high flute-like solo, was largely Joe’s idea, thinking of the “Lux aeterna” in Duruflé’s Requiem.’ Sturt also credits organist Francesca Massey, for whom he wrote a piece in 2021, with refining his organ writing at that stage. ‘Any prowess I show at organ writing is really down to Francesca and Joe!’ Citing Vaughan Williams and his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis as a key influence, Sturt reveals what drives his creative process: ‘I want to create enough richness in my harmony to be able to wrap myself in it. I write music to say what I can’t say in [words], and also as a shield against the unfiltered chaos of real life. ‘As a neurodivergent person I find the world incredibly overwhelming, and if a piece of music has a very warm harmonic texture – perhaps a divided string chord that extends across the consonant range of the harmonic series – then I have an almost euphoric response of feeling protected.’
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY ‘A New Song’ is a series of pieces for choir or organ by talented young composers, originally featured in Choir & Organ with support from PRS for Music. Visit
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bit.ly/3MX6vmo to register free of charge, see video performances of the pieces, and print unlimited copies free of charge. The Doubter’s Prayer is available under licence until
Commissioned for the Choir & Organ
31 December 2023, after which copies must be destroyed as copyright reverts to the composer. The score includes the composer’s contact details for future reference.
New Music Series 2023, in partnership with the Choir of King’s College London supported by PRS for Music
The Doubter’s Prayer
Anne Brontë
Joh
Adagietto = 72
Soprano
Alto
Tenor
Bass
like plainchant
E - ter - nal pow’r of Earth and Adagietto = 72
Organ
Air,
un - seen yet seen
in
all
a - round,
Cathedral Music Autumn 2023 5
CDS • BOOKS • SHEET MUSIC
Michele Stapleton/Office for the Arts at Harvard
RE VIEWS
CHORAL CDS
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ORGAN CDS
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BOOKS
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SHEET MUSIC
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Reviewers Mark Bellis Edward Breen Ian Curror Catherine Groom Adrian Horsewood Jeremy Jackman Bret Johnson Michael Quinn Clare Stevens
Colin Innes-Hopkins
Adam Davies
REVIEWS
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REVIEWS
CDS C HOR AL C Ds
Music on Christmas Morning Roderick Williams (bar), Martin Ford (org), Vasari Singers / Jeremy Backhouse (dir) Naxos 8.574542 [73:25]
Personally, I wouldn’t envy any choir director who sits down to plan a Christmas programme. How to balance the old and the new, the familiar and the innovative, the arcane and the crowd-pleasers? The Vasari Singers and Jeremy Backhouse have risen to the challenge and have compiled, in their own words, ‘a festive mix of fresh and favourite carols’; every item dates from after 1900, from Howells’s A Spotless Rose (1919) through to some specially written and arranged for this recording. The Vasaris are on fine form, wonderfully controlled and intimate when the music demands it, but also ready to let their hair down in Iain Farrington’s Nova! Nova!, a bluesy setting of a fifteenth-century paraphrase of the Annunciation story. And Roderick Williams is here, too, doing what Roderick Williams does best: his solos in Finzi’s In terra pax (the opening, and most substantial, item on the disc), A Spotless Rose and William (Bill) Llewellyn’s London Waits exude warmth, authority, and a healthy serving of Christmas spirit. The last of those pieces, which intersperses a poem by George Ratcliffe Woodward (the well-known Anglican priest and hymn-writer) with refrains from various carols, deserves to be much better known; a
performance such as this should help to find it new fans. For me, this disc is a very palpable hit, and an excellent reminder that these well-loved pieces aren’t – and shouldn’t be – exclusively the preserve of cathedral and collegiate choirs. Forty-five choristers are listed in the booklet and they handle the whole programme adeptly. It all certainly does what it says on the cover; I’d say this would make ideal listening as you bustle around prepping the sprouts, adjusting the tinsel, and worrying about who has to sit next to that dinner guest (you know the one). ADRIAN HORSEWOOD
New College: Commissions and Premieres Choir of New College, Oxford / Robert Quinney (dir) Linn CKD 720 [57:18]
New College, Oxford has such a rich musical heritage that by no means all the commissions and premieres here are recent compositions and this makes for a very satisfying compilation of old and new works. The disc opens with Harris’s evergreen Faire is the heaven – he was College Organist from 1919 to 1929 – beautifully paced by Robert Quinney with really exciting ‘Angels and Archangels’ and (as throughout) evidencing a terrifically confident sound from the fifteen trebles. The recording venue is the college’s own chapel, and while certainly appropriate, and indeed possessing a welcome, rather dry clarity for the newer compositions, perhaps one
would wish for a little more ‘atmosphere’ in repertoire such as this. Next comes Howells’s lovely New College Service (1949). Who knew that that the hemiolas throughout the Magnificat may be a tribute to the organist at the time, H. K. Andrews, and his studies of Renaissance polyphony (a shame, by the way, that no room could be found for his splendid but rarely done evening Services in D or G) or that the otherwise rather inexplicable pedal quintuplets in the penultimate bars both canticles may be a musical representation of the College’s double chevron crest! The Nunc Dimittis is lyrical and romantic with very effective accompaniment (here and throughout) by Donal McCann, and how delightful to hear it in the chapel for which it was conceived. Kenneth Leighton’s wonderful Crucifixus pro nobis (1961) is brilliantly done, with a superb tenor solo from Nick Pritchard – a former academical clerk at New College – and the final ‘Hymn’ is very moving, with immaculate intonation. These three works certainly set the bar high for the four contemporary composers who make up the remainder of the CD. Paul Drayton (b. 1944) – formerly Head of New College School contributes a New College Service whose challenging unaccompanied textures show off the choir to great effect, while O pastor animarum (2022) by Caitlin Harrison (b. 1996) is equally attractive, if similarly, not especially memorable. Deborah Pritchard (b. 1977), who teaches at Oxford, also contributes a serious-minded, but effective New College Service (2020); again, an unaccompanied setting, and the choir negotiates its fearsome challenges with huge panache. Finally, Toby Young’s (b. 1990) O God, make the door of this house (2016) is a rather more pop-infused anthem
Reviews marked with an asterisk (*) were previously published in Choir & Organ.
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with organ – pleasant, if, like most pop-derived inspirations, rather repetitive. Full marks to the boys throughout this CD for their stunning musicality. And if the lower voices would occasionally benefit from a rather more carefully graduated blend at times, the disc is certainly an enterprising and welcome release from this very professional choir.
The latest disc from the Choir of New College, Oxford showcases some of the many works it has commissioned and premiered over the years
Hugh Warwick
MARK BELLIS
Byrd 1589: Songs of sundrie natures Alamire, Fretwork, Jacob Heringman (lute), Lynda Sayce (lute) / David Skinner (dir) Inventa INV1011 (2 CDS) [122:37]
Many excellent recordings of Byrd’s music have been issued and reissued this year, the 400th anniversary of his death, yet this new offering from Alamire presents something of a rarity in the composer’s recorded output. The 1589 collection Songs of sundrie natures has never been recorded in its entirety before, with only a few choice ‘hits’ making it onto disc in the past. Perhaps this is due to the complexity of the forces required: the songs range from three parts to six, and decisions regarding instrumental participation need to be carefully made (which they clearly have been here). Furthermore, the subject matter varies throughout: the opening seven psalm settings (the ‘penitential’) are followed by a motley selection of mostly secular (and downright earthy, at that) texts – although a handful of verse anthems mean that the sacred isn’t ever too far away. Alamire and David Skinner are old hands in this repertoire, and with the ideal partners in lutenists
Lynda Sayce and Jacob Heringman, and viol consort Fretwork, this is a musical dream. Solo and ensemble singing is first-rate, and the larger-scale pieces are rich and noble without ever being overblown; the final Christ rising again is justly one of Byrd’s bestknown anthems and this performance shows us why. ADRIAN HORSEWOOD
Orchestral Anthems: Dyson, Howells, Elgar, Finzi Aíne Smith (s), Ruairi Bowen (t), William Thomas (b), Girl Choristers of Merton College Oxford, Choir of Merton College, Oxford, Britten Sinfonia / Benjamin Nicholas (dir) Delphian DCD34291 [55:08]
Hearing the familiar introduction to Edward Bairstow’s Blessed city, heavenly Salem played by a substantial number of orchestral
strings rather than on the organ is quite a shock to the system; it sounds like the overture to an oratorio. That is no accident, as this recording consists of arrangements of liturgical works that were made with either grand ceremonial occasions or the great choral festivals such as Three Choirs and the Birmingham Triennial Festival in mind. The forty-two undergraduate and postgraduate members of Merton College Choir and eighteen girl choristers rise with aplomb to the challenge of matching the superb Britten Sinfonia, producing a rich, robust yet bright sound that is very different from that of most of the cathedral choirs that have recorded this repertoire. They revel in the long lines and emotional depth of largescale anthems such as Elgar’s Ecce sacerdos magnos and in the splendour of Douglas Hopkins’s arrangement of Dyson’s Evening Service in D, embellished with orchestral trumpets and tuba. From beginning to end of the album everyone involved sounds as though they are having a wonderful time, and as a listener I shared their enjoyment. CLARE STEVENS*
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Philips & Dering: Motets Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, In Echo / Matthew Martin (dir) Linn CKD 717 [61:10]
This is the first recording from Caius since Matthew Martin took over as precentor and director of music in 2020, and it presents a selection of Latin-texted motets and short instrumental works by Peter Philips (1560/61–1628) and Richard Dering (c. 1580–1630). Both of these Englishmen spent time working abroad because of their Catholic faith, but Philips remained an exile in the Low Countries until the end of his life, while Dering was a convert and in fact later returned to England to enter the service of Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I. Thus, a programme such as this showcases the different prevailing musical trends around the turn of the seventeenth century as experienced through an English prism. For example, the opening track, Philips’s Ecce vicit leo, is in a distinctly Palestrinian vein; whereas the first piece by Dering on the disc, Jesu dulcedo cordium, shows the influence of the monodic style that
was all the rage in the early decades of the century. That said, the two composers The choir is a rather hefty twentyfour in number; this, perhaps perversely, suits those motets in fewer voices better than the more complex works (which would almost certainly have been conceived of for a single voice on each part). That said, the fresh sound of a young but skilled group of singers is ideal for this repertoire. The instrumental ensemble In Echo provides its customary sumptuous musicmaking, playing colla voce in a handful of motets (and occasionally substituting for voice parts) as well as in four pieces of their own. ADRIAN HORSEWOOD
What Joy so True: Anthems, Canticles and Consort Music by Thomas Weelkes Choir of Chichester Cathedral, Rose Consort of Viols / Charles Harrison (dir) Regent REGCD571 [77:12]
Thomas Weelkes (d. 1623) was organist of Chichester Cathedral from 1602, so who better than the
The 400th anniversary of the death of Thomas Weelkes is celebrated by the choir of Chichester Cathedral with a disc of sacred and instrumental works
current choir there directed by Charles Harrison and accompanied by Timothy Ravalde for this anniversary release? There are some lovely things here, not least the luxury of hearing services and anthems with viol accompaniment – the Sixth Service is especially successful in this regard – a delight. Two substantial verse anthems with viols are included: What joy so true and Christ rising again – with the proviso that the viol parts had to be reconstructed from the organ part, Weelkes having left us none extant. The latter anthem with its exquisite false relations and a lovely concluding ‘Amen’ is particularly well done, with nice tone from the boys. Also included are the Te Deum and Jubilate from the Short Service – good to hear, now that Mattins seems so rarely sung – though in these and in some of the unaccompanied anthems (for example, O how amiable and O Lord, grant the King a long life) the back row would sometimes benefit from rather more blended tone, as individual voices occasionally emerge. We also have delightful Pavanes and In nomines played by the Rose Consort of Viols and organ Voluntaries played by Thomas Howell. Apart from the two verse anthems, many of the twenty-four tracks are inevitably very short, leading to a rather ‘bitty’ effect, but overall, this is a comprehensive survey with a good variety of pieces and a welcome addition to this year’s Weelkes celebrations. MARK BELLIS
A Year at Llandaff Choir of Llandaff Cathedral, Aaron Shilson (org) / Stephen Moore (dir) Regent REGCD573 [71:50]
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This is, if my research isn’t faulty, the first disc recorded by the Llandaff Cathedral Choir under Stephen Moore, who has been in post since 2016, and as such it’s a wonderful testament to the work that he has done in that time. As the title suggests, the programme takes us through the liturgical year, beginning with John Scott’s arrangement of the medieval hymn Creator of the stars of night, and running through Will Todd’s The Call of Wisdom to mark All Saints’ Day; a delightful setting of the evening hymn Arglwydd mae yn nosi (known in English as ‘Night, O Lord, is falling’) rounds off the disc as a musical blessing. In between is a wonderfully rich cross-section of the choir’s repertoire – along with two organ pieces, Gaston Litaize’s Epiphanie (played by Assistant Director of Music Aaron Shilson, who accompanies on the rest of the disc) and Leighton’s Veni Creator Spiritus (played by Moore). The musical load is shared between the choir’s two sets of choristers, boys and girls, as well as jointly, and all involved acquit themselves extremely well; particular highlights include Undine Smith Moore’s arrangement of the spiritual We shall walk through the valley, the aforementioned John Scott arrangement, and Healey Willan’s ethereal Rise up, my love, my fair one. ADRIAN HORSEWOOD
Vidi Speciosam: Sacred Choral Music The Bevan Family Consort Signum Classics SSIGCD746 [60:42]
Musical families seem to be something of a ‘thing’ at the moment, but even the omnipresent Kanneh-Masons can hardly compete
with the extraordinary musical credentials of the Bevans on this CD – no fewer than seven of the fifteen participants are professional singers. Conducted by Graham Ross, we have a touching tribute to the late David Bevan (d. 2021), father of five of these siblings, who was organist of the Catholic church of Our Most Holy Redeemer and St Thomas More in Chelsea for thirty-five years. Hence the choice of mostly Renaissance repertoire – interesting, if not perhaps bestsuited to some of the rather operatic voices on show, including famous sopranos Mary and Sophie, even when their contributions are clearly moderated for much of the time in an to attempt to blend. The lower voices display nicely blended tone and sensitive tuning for the most part. The most substantial offering is Victoria’s Missa Vidi speciosam, which, while effectively done, is not immune from rather prominent soprano vibrato at times which may not be to everyone’s taste. The rather lower-lying O sacrum convivium by Tallis works well, as does the Robert Parsons Credo quod redemptor - something of a rarity but a fine piece, beautifully sung – a real highlight. David Bevan’s own Magnificat septimi toni, whose charming pastiche fauxbourdon style might easily be mistaken for a Renaissance work, is equally musically sung. Later repertoire, such as Holst’s familiar Nunc Dimittis allows the voices to ‘open up’ a bit more to good effect, and his eight-part Ave Maria for female voices also works well, the upper voices sounding entirely comfortable with the high tessitura. And finally we have Stanford’s exquisite Beati quorum via - a lovely performance with delightfully unforced vocal tone. Overall, this is clearly a very personal and touching tribute to David Bevan which leaves one rather speechless with admiration at the breathtaking musicality of some families! MARK BELLIS
Joanna Gill: Love Illuminates Chapel Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Matt Denton (vn), Emma Denton (vc), Maria Marchant (pno), Adam Field (org) / Sarah MacDonald (dir) Regent REGCD574 [75:36]
Listeners will quickly recognise the influences cited by Scottish composer Joanna Gill’s teacher Paul Mealor in his foreword to this anthology of her music: Lauridsen, Gjeilo, and Whitacre, with traces of Vaughan Williams, Leighton and Mathias. Personal influences include Gill’s deep Christian faith – she directs the classical side of music for worship at the evangelical Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, London – and her strong desire to create something beautiful and consoling during the pandemic when performing with other people was impossible. The four short movements of her Mass for HTB Queen’s Gate are an interesting mix of a cappella and accompanied; 16 individual pieces set a range of familiar texts attractively and sometimes with considerable complexity and intensity. Selwyn’s student singers have audibly taken Gill’s music to their hearts and perform it very well. CLARE STEVENS*
Jheronimus Vinders: Missa Myns liefkens bruyn ooghen, Missa Fors seulement, Secular Songs Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, Andrew Lawrence-King (harp, psaltery) / David Skinner (dir) Inventa INV1012 (2 CDS) [101:11]
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Christmas from the Chapel Royal Choir of HM Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace, Rufus Frowde (org) / Carl Jackson (dir) Resonus Classics RES10327 [67:27]
Following on from their disc of Tomkins for Resonus Classics, the choir of HM Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace and director Carl Jackson present a selection of the 58
In their debut recording, the young singers of St Martin’s Voices present fresh recordings of modern Christmas compositions and arrangements
Lia Vittone
This double-disc album is an exploration of the undeniably littleknown Flemish composer Jheronimus Vinders; documentary evidence for his life covers only the period June to December 1525 in the town of Ghent, and only his lament on the death of Josquin, O mors inevitabilis, has brought him any posthumous fame. On the basis of this recording from the choir of Sidney Sussex (not to mention the musicological leg work carried out by Eric Jas, who has edited Vinders’s surviving works), he is sorely due a great deal more. Comparisons with Josquin are inevitable but by no means cast Vinders completely into the shade; David Skinner has both the scholar’s and the performer’s backgrounds necessary to bring out the many wondrous moments in this music without neglecting the greater picture. It was also a stroke of genius to include the harp and psaltery of Andrew Lawrence-King in some of the secular songs, including those by other composers which Vinders used as the basis for the two parody masses (and one setting of the Salve Regina) on this disc. Overall, while you might not want to sit down to over 100 minutes’ music in one go, this is an outstanding disc that reveals new details with repeated listening.
repertoire they perform in and around Christmas time, with a healthy mix of familiar (musical) faces and newer compositions. Several works derive from within the ranks of the choir itself. Tenor Martin Hindmarsh’s Of a rose sing we was written in the 1980s but has been revised for this recording, and appears alongside his arrangement of We Three Kings of Orient are. Rufus Frowde, the assistant director of music, contributes a setting of Adam lay ybounden and an organ fanfare on Adeste fideles, Joyful and Triumphant (as well as playing for all accompanied pieces on the disc). Among the items to have appeared less frequently (or at all) on disc in the past are George McPhee’s Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing? (who this year celebrates 60 years as director of music at Paisley Abbey; see page 13 for more details) and the opening Shcho to za prevido by Vasyl Barvinsky (1888–1963). Balancing them out are favourites both new and old, including a fine performance of William Mathias’s A babe is born and the delightful miniature that is Paul Edwards’s No small wonder, which deserves many more performances (especially on the back of this one). The performances are fine and executed with the character and finesse for which Jackson and his choir are well-known, and overall this is an excellent contribution to the year’s Christmas discs. ADRIAN HORSEWOOD
A Winter Breviary: Choral Works for Christmas St Martin’s Voices, Polina Sosnina (org), Elizabeth Bass (harp) / Andrew Earis (dir) Resonus Classics RES10328 [66:06]
On their debut recording, St Martin’s Voices and director Andrew Earis – based at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London – present an intriguing programme of contemporary choral works for Christmas, with all of the ten living composers represented here aged fifty-five or younger. A thread that runs through the programme is triptychs, of which there are – of course – three: Reena Esmail’s A Winter Breviary (giving the disc its title), Sarah MacDonald’s The Manger is Empty and Lucy Walker’s The Christmas Life. Ismail and Walker set texts by female poets – the former three by Rebecca Gayle Howell, the latter those by Wendy Cope, Elinor Wylie and Sara Teasdale – and MacDonald three by R.S. Thomas. These are three very different takes on the Christmas experience, that together evoke the mixture of joy, wonder and contemplation that the season brings for many. Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
The opening two items, Olivia Sparkhall’s All and some and Cecilia McDowall’s There is no rose, perhaps represent the more widely-known end of the spectrum – the latter being the 2021 commission from the choir of King’s College, Cambridge – while Nils Greenhow’s Advent Calendar and Love is the Answer by Thomas Hewitt Jones (both written for St Martin’s Voices), Yshani Perinpanayagam’s When God made Eve, and Roderick Williams’s Queen Elizabeth’s Winchester Carol are pieces that deserve to be part of many more choirs’ repertoires (indeed, I hope that those as-yet unpublished items soon see the light of day on paper). The final, and most substantial, item is Bob Chilcott’s Mary, Mother, which was also written for and premiered by St Martin’s Voices, in 2022. To say that it displays many of the hallmarks of the composer is not to disparage it as run of the mill; on the contrary, this is a delightfully singable, memorable ending to the disc, for which the singers are joined by organ and harp. This is an outstanding compilation, both in terms of the performances and the construction of the programme – Earis and his singers are warmly to be commended for what is easily the best Christmas recording I’ve yet heard this season. A definite keeper for years to come! ADRIAN HORSEWOOD
OR GAN C D s
Carnival Francesca Massey, Harrison & Harrison organ (2010), St Edmundsbury Cathedral Priory Records PRCD 1247 [78:59]
Although built more than a decade ago, St Edmundsbury Cathedral’s
resourceful Harrison & Harrison is a rarity on disc. Francesca Massey rights that wrong with this collection of pieces contemporaneous with it and its two predecessors (Norman & Beard, 1914; Nicholson, 1970), whose pipes it retains. The centrepiece is Peter Eben’s chant-laced symphony in all but name, Sunday Music, its chiaroscuro contrasts vividly delineated. Roger-Ducasse’s Pastorale makes much of the instrument’s rich tonal voicing, and Thomas Hewitt Jones’s titular Carnival exploits its lavish colour palette. Massey treats Anton Heiller’s TanzToccata to a slow-burn leading to a blazing firework display, and dispatches Ad Wammes’s variegated Vallée des danses with due virtuosity.
too. It stands as a major concert work in its own right, as does the Choral in Homage to Cesar Franck, which – as the composer says in his concise notes – holds up a mirror to the Trois Chorals, both as a reflection and as a substantial elaboration in Hendrie’s own image. The impressive Sicilienne does the same for the central movement of Maurice Durufle’s Suite op 5. A very finely played and recorded CD by Tom Winpenny, who adds a further feather to his cap of successful solo organ discs. Another volume is promised in due course. Interesting and enjoyable. BRET JOHNSON
MICHAEL QUINN*
Sweelinck: His Legacy in North Germany Gerald Hendrie: Complete Organ Music, Volume One Tom Winpenny, organ of St Albans Cathedral Toccata Classics TOCC0684 [79:09]
This recording is a treasure trove. Gerald Hendrie (b. 1935) left these shores for France over twenty-five years ago but his influence and contribution to British organ music is remarkable. (He has also composed much other music, including a Requiem and choral works.) He has a deep understanding of and empathy with a huge range of musical styles, especially the French organ traditions which he masterfully evokes in many of the pieces we hear on this CD. Le Tombeau de Marcel Dupré is the largest work at over 30 minutes. Hendrie has assimilated Dupré’s early idiom (that of the three Preludes and Fugues of 1912). But this is much more than a mere tribute: at that early stage Dupre had not completely escaped from Louis Vierne’s shadow and you hear his virtuosic resonances
Douglas Hollick , Metzler organ (1976), Trinity College, Cambridge Riverrun Records RVRCD 125 [67:11]
Douglas Hollick explores the influence of Sweelinck, the ‘maker of organists’, in a fascinating survey of 17th-century German organ music. Sweelinck’s own Echo Fantasia and a miniature set of chorale variations seed a recital played with a becoming lightness of touch and deftly pointed nuance on Trinity College, Cambridge’s pleasingly responsive Metzler organ. Sweelinck’s pupils Heinrich Scheidemann and Melchior Schildt are represented by three works apiece, each providing contrasting treatments of Herr Christ, der einig Gottessohn; and Matthias Weckmann’s setting of the Christmas chorale Nun freut euch is a chromatic fantasia in all but name. Buxtehude’s take on both those pieces points towards a future soon to be dominated by Bach. MICHAEL QUINN*
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Francesca Massey plays a vibrant programme on the Harrison & Harrison organ of St Edmundsbury Cathedral
Jean Langlais: Organ Music, Volume 1 Giorgio Benati, Fausto Caporali (org) Brilliant Classics 96877 (5 CDS) [396:00]
It is hard to overestimate the significance of this release, the first instalment of what promises to be a complete survey of the organ works of Jean Langlais (1907–91). This feat has been accomplished just once before by Ann Labounsky (originally on the Voix du Vent label and recently reissued by the Musical Heritage Society), one of the composer’s former students and his biographer. It took her thirty-two years and twenty-six CDs. It is a quite amazing body of music, the vast majority of which is completely unexplored. There is a real paradox here as Langlais is a very familiar name in the organ world, and many of his works are already well known, but many more are not for a host of reasons. Some are technically very difficult, too long and complex for lunchtime recital slots or for voluntaries, or are too short or form part of a long 60
series of pieces which do not make for good and varied concert programming. He was dauntingly prolific, and whilst more does not always mean better I believe that there are so many original examples of his phenomenal inventiveness that we really do need a thorough exploration by several artists of this huge body of music so that we can begin to digest the scale of his genius (which also extends into his large output of chamber and choral pieces, as well as a significant number of concertante works including several organ concertos). It is incredible that this man who undertook dozens of concert tours, was organist of the prestigious church of Ste-Clotilde in Paris and teacher of many students, was blind. Despite serious health problems from the 1970s onwards he continued to compose avidly. This new project is driven by two artists of passionate enthusiasm, sharing the playing and using six different instruments. There is an associated Italian website, www.jeanlanglais.it, with photos, a forum and list of articles. These works were recorded in 2022 and the very well filled discs contain over six and a half hours of music. The notes are quite concise without being in any way expansive, largely confining themselves to background and dates. The typical ‘Langlaisian’ atmosphere is one of superbly adapted Gregorian
motifs and ancient modality, lending an aura of timeless beauty. The very first Suite pays homage to the Italian Renaissance master Girolamo Frescobaldi, and is cast like so many Langlais suites in the form of a Mass. He adds three extra movements including a virtuosic pedal solo, as an exercise whilst he was recovering from a broken ankle! It is followed by the celebrated Suite brève of 1947, the opening Grands Jeux full of the famous dissonant, rich chords. There is so much variety in this music and it is (largely) technically approachable, but the haunting slow movement Cantilène develops into a complex, exquisite arabesque, passing through many spine-tingling harmonic progressions. It is followed by Talitha Koum (‘Resurrection’), a fascinating late work from 1985 which tells the story from St Matthew of how Jesus brings a little girl back to life. One movement marks the day Langlais suffered a serious heart attack. The opening Salve Regina is a vivid prayer to the Virgin Mary, heard through a series of bird-like calls in the manner of Langlais’s friend Olivier Messiaen, to whom he often pays tribute. Poignantly, two movements are dedicated to his daughter Caroline, then about five years old. Some of his most spiritual music is heard here. I must however express my disappointment at the decision to use harmonium instead of organ for the 24 Pièces pour harmonium ou orgue (1933–39), one of Langlais’s early miniature masterpieces. The instrument is hardly used nowadays and its tonal limitations and primitive mechanism have rendered it virtually obsolete. Of course, ninety years ago a harmonium may well have been the only (default) option, but I felt that the huge variety and colour of these little preludes was not fully captured and they sounded monochrome over the space of one hour. They deserve to be re-recorded with organ in a future volume. Soon though we are immersed in the Organ Book (1956) an intriguing set of ten preludes, several of which are within easy technical reach. There is so much diversity, especially the ethereal Flûtes, and the famous Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
Pasticcio. Especially beautiful are the Douze Petites Pièces (1962), ten of which take the form of Gregorian versets. They are another set of miniatures. The Six Petites Pièces (1976) are another example of his readiness to write little sketches for learning players and at the same time to provide interest and enjoyment for listeners. Then there are the wondrous Neuf Pièces (1945) including the Chant Heroïque, another tribute to Jehan Alain (1911–40). Expressions (1988) is a very long series of pieces designed to provide effective service music, and can be used in almost any situation. Each piece has its own identity. Huit Préludes (1984) are a brilliant exposition in variety, being written as a progression from one to eight voices (he also wrote another large suite, Progression, yet to come). Also included is one of his very last works Suite in simplicitate (1991), a pretty set of preludes on Gregorian themes. Many corners of each disc are filled with short pieces, thus building up an impressive panorama. The wonderful thing is that this is just the start. There is so much more to come including the organ symphonies, the Gothic and Roman Sketches and many more suites and the magnificent Cinq Méditations sur l’Apocalypse (1975). The budget pricing of this release is very compelling and I hope our enjoyment will soon continue with the next volume. Very highly recommended. BRET JOHNSON
Sir Edward Bairstow: The Complete Organ Music Daniel Cook, ‘Father’ Willis (1876)/ Harrison & Harrison (1905) organ, Durham Cathedral Priory Records PRCD 1248 [78:40]
Here’s a treat for lovers of English
organ music: the first single disc collection of Edward Bairstow’s complete works for the instrument. Although Bairstow is more readily associated with York Minster, Durham Cathedral’s 1876 ‘Father’ Willis, built two years after the composer’s birth and later enhanced by Harrison & Harrison, proves to be a fine vehicle for his distinctive voice. Daniel Cook is an ever-eloquent advocate, clearly relishing Bairstow’s feeling for emotional subtlety and tonal nuance. Obvious dividends are heard throughout, from the early Evensong to the posthumously published Three Short Preludes, with the discursive Organ Sonata and characterful Nocturne particular highlights. MICHAEL QUINN*
Widor, Vierne, Duruflé David M. Patrick , Harrison & Harrison organ (1962), Coventry Cathedral; Walker/Downes organ (1952/1963), Buckfast Abbey Willowhayne Records WHR083 [75:16]
This first instalment in a projected series reissuing previous releases alongside new recordings finds David M. Patrick in familiarly secure French territory. A brace of Sixth Symphonies – Widor’s and Vierne’s – are encored by Duruflé’s op. 5 Toccata finale. Dating from 1976, it is well served by the Walker/Downes organ in Buckfast Abbey, venue, too, for Vierne’s symphony whose thrilling Scherzo is realised with a deliciously drunken swagger and cartoonish glee. Heard on Coventry’s Harrison & Harrison in 2000, Widor’s symphony is treated by Patrick with requisite poetic robustness. MICHAEL QUINN*
William Byrd: Keyboard Works Stephen Farr, Taylor & Boody organ of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Resonus Classics RES10326 [66:06]
Sneaking in towards the end of the 400th anniversary year of Byrd’s death, this sparkling collection illuminates the many sides to the composer’s keyboard works. Stephen Farr utilises the remarkable sound of the organ to the full, and it’s the shorter works that really benefit from performance on an organ of this size. It goes without saying that the playing is deft and nuanced – as if it were flowing from Farr’s fingers in the heat of the moment – but what especially impresses is the cheerful nobility, the sprezzatura (or effortless artfulness). In all the celebrations this year, Byrd’s keyboard music has perhaps enjoyed less fanfare than his choral works – this recording is a valuable contribution to his recorded presence; Francis O’Gorman’s booklet note is also an informative starting-point for further exploration of this part of Byrd’s output. ADRIAN HORSEWOOD
Stephen Farr uses the unique sound of the Taylor & Boody organ of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge to illuminate this selection of Byrd’s organ music
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BOOKS
The Higher Storie: Alan Ridout’s music for counter-tenor Andrew Plant Swallowtail Print ISBN 978-1-739-10130-5 Hardback; 111 pages plus images, prelims and appendices. £20 (Limited edition of 150 copies available only through www.darnton.net)
The revival of the countertenor voice in the second half of the twentieth century is frequently contextualised within the early music revival of the same years, but less attention has been paid to the contemporary composers who wrote for pioneers Alfred Deller and James Bowman. Andrew Plant’s study of Alan Ridout’s music for solo countertenor, therefore, serves a dual purpose: a survey of a neglected series of works but also as a larger sign-o’-the-times study which enriches British countertenor history beyond a heady cocktail of early music and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Originating from a paper in British Music 43 (2021) this book packs a much-expanded narrative into just over 100 pages with several photographs and concert programmes. Plant devotes each of twenty-four chapters to a single
Alan Ridout was fascinated by the countertenor voice throughout his compositional career
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work or song-cycle; these are then bookended by a compact, insightful Introduction and Evaluation. Alongside the countertenor revival Plant also situates Ridout among British composers such as Richard Rodney Bennett, John Joubert and Elisabeth Lutyens and although beyond the scope of his study, there are several fascinating asides about Ridout’s choral legacy. Describing Ridout’s music as settling on ‘a fluent and accessible tonal language’ helps us understand the general structure of each chapter. Ordering the pieces chronologically with contextual introductions and generous transcription samples, Plant focuses on formal analysis presented in accessible language. For example, Oscar Wilde’s C.3.3. The Ballad of Reading Gaol is likened to Morley’s verse anthem Out of the deep, and contains the following beautiful observation: ‘This enterprising use of the panoply of available colours occasionally recalls the exoticism of Grainger’s rich scoring, varying from three muted trumpets marking the chaplain’s biting hypocrisy, to the six flutes [...] depicting the striking clock as the singer murmurs a dreadful litany of the hours.’ (p. 56) However, as the book progresses I would have appreciated dates in the chapter headings to prevent continual reference to the table of works. Perhaps for this reason the ten-year gap between Soliloquy and King Frost is less obvious than it could be. I appreciated Plant’s evaluative candour, especially when it came to Ridout’s sparse use of counterpoint, but at the same time I would have enjoyed a deeper focus on his choice of texts, from Oscar Wilde to Walt Whitman. There may well be another narrative here to be explored in future. And there is also the matter of premiere performances which, where mentioned, are invariably fascinating, such as Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
Whom Time Will Not Reprieve, certainly the first countertenor premiere in an HIV Hospice that I know of. This must have been a deeply moving occasion and I would love to know more. The towering figure of James Bowman is also present throughout these pages, a timely reminder of a great artist. Despite many of these scores still being difficult to access this book should appeal to today’s countertenor performers as well as those who wish to explore this rich vein of British music history.
Organist Geoffrey Tristram was an esteemed performer and teacher, leaving a legacy for generations of musicians after him
E DWA R D B R E E N
Geoffrey Tristram: A Very British Organist “I am He” David Baker AuthorHouse ISBN 978-1-665-59982-5 Hardback; 380 pages. RRP £16.95
Reading this biography of Geoffrey Tristram is like opening a door on to a fast receding but fascinating world, a world in which the Organist was the local ‘Mr Music’, providing choral and organ music in the church. In Tristram’s case this was Christchurch Priory (from 1949 to 1979), teaching music at school and overseeing various aspects of community music-making. It was a period when girls’ choirs had generally not been thought of and it was still common for organists to add the reeds towards the end of Bach fugues. Most mid-twentieth century players knew of Tristram’s influential work at Christchurch and he was admiringly regarded as something of a legend. The book outlines his main areas of
activity in the six opening chapters. David Baker is on top form. The biographical section is presented with an engaging combination of affection for his subject and characteristically meticulous scholarly method. He has benefited from access to archive material from Christchurch Priory, the BBC, Tristram’s own detailed records and from the Tristram family. The author’s detailed appendices include organ specifications, lists of BBC broadcasts and, most interestingly, recital programmes of music played by Tristram and an impressive array of visiting organists. These reflect the fashions of the period, including frequent appearances of music by Bach, Schumann, Reger, Howells, Jongen and Flor Peeters. Tristram clearly had an affinity with the French romantics, represented especially by Franck, Guilmant, Mulet, Widor and Vierne. Tristram must have possessed a highly developed technique as his own repertoire included such demanding pieces as
Reger’s Fantasia and fugue on BACH, Vierne’s Symphony no. 3, Duruflé’s Toccata and Thalben-Ball’s tricky pedal variations. Given his heavy workload at home it is extraordinary that Tristram also gave so many recitals at churches and cathedrals throughout the country. One of the appendices is a useful discography. Tristram’s work with the Priory’s choir is described in detail, supported by affectionate testimonies from many singers. To achieve good blend, ‘if you can’t hear the boy next to you, you’re singing too loudly’; for a consistent vocal line, ‘stroke the cat from the head to the tip of its tail.’ His versatility extended to very successful local Gilbert and Sullivan productions and the composition of a beautifully crafted (if somewhat derivative) Mass for choir and organ. A CD of Tristram’s favourite organ pieces, played by Ted O’Hare, is included with the book. IAN CURROR
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REVIEWS
SHEET MUSIC
Carols for Choirs 6 Bob Chilcott & David Hill (eds.) Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19355111-4, £21.95 (paperback) / 978-0-19355112-1, £26.95 (spiralbound paperback)
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Oxford University Press’s Music Department. Of all the choral anthologies that it publishes, surely the widest known and best-loved is the ‘Carols for Choirs’ series. So it is highly appropriate that 2023 sees the issue – 62 years after the first volume – of Carols for Choirs 6, edited by Bob Chilcott and David Hill. In their introduction they tell us that they see this publication as ‘an opportunity to present a broad scope of Christmas music.’ They have certainly achieved their objective: the 50 compositions offer new music to old words, old tunes in new arrangements, extended contemporary essays, simple strophic carols, and more. Accompaniment is provided by piano or organ where necessary, but more than half of the pieces are a cappella. This compilation feels very much ‘of-the-moment’; as far as I know all the composers/arrangers represented are living. Four of the carols are wholly or partly in Latin, there is one carol in each of French and Ukrainian (these have alternative English versions), and one which has to be in Spanish or it would sound very odd; otherwise the rest of the pieces are in English. The editors each have two pieces in 64
the collection. Bob Chilcott offers new music for Jesus Christ the Apple Tree for three equal voices of either sex – indeed, the piece could be sung by any three singers. In melody and form the carol unfolds naturally; this is a real winner. The traditional tune to The First Nowell has always been one of the worst in the repertoire; Chilcott has provided us with a brand new tune in a fairly standard arrangement, but it is not one of his most memorable. David Hill’s Adam Lay Ybounden is one of the best short pieces in the book. I have the feeling that while he was writing it, Richard Rodney Bennett was looking over his shoulder and nodding approvingly. Hill’s new music for In the Bleak Midwinter is also full of beautiful harmonies (soloists required here – and the soprano will need a top B flat), but somehow the sum of the parts doesn’t seem to add up to a convincing whole. Those looking for carols that explore contemporary issues will be pleased to find Joanna Forbes L’Estrange’s A Present for the Future, an effective piece to a text by the composer that links the Wise Men’s gifts to our present environmental concerns. Coincidentally, its next-doorneighbour in the book is A Ukrainian Alleluia, a well-crafted arrangement by Mykola Leontovych of the familiar, one-3/4-measure, repetitive, bell-like tune. John Rutter has supplied an English Christmas text above the original Ukrainian, in which a swallow in flight welcomes in the New Year. A small number of carols secular in nature are included. Earth Grown Old by Ghislaine Reece-Trapp makes persuasive use of harmonies and chromaticism that hark back to the 19th century; Toby Young gives us The Owl, a compelling setting of a fine text by Jennifer Thorp that juxtaposes rhythms in 6/8 and 3/4; and The Unexpected Early Hour by Reena Esmail (part of a longer suite) skilfully uses repetition to give impetus to a work based on a classical Indian raga.
Perhaps the most challenging piece in the book is Nico Muhly’s Alma Redemptoris Mater, but it is also certainly one of the best. The macaronic text may be strophic, but there is a powerful sense of throughcomposition here. The piece is full of varied textures (there are solos for two sopranos and a tenor), and dynamic contrasts. I am very taken, too, with James Whitbourn’s Our Gold, which also features interesting textures, in this case pitting low tenors and basses against high sopranos and altos to good effect. Cecilia McDowall has provided entirely new music for In Dulci Jubilo and there is much here to delight the performers – rhythmic and melodic interest, attractive vocal scoring, with an organ part that makes a full contribution to the whole. O Be Joyful, another contribution by Toby Young, has all the right elements adroitly woven together: a strong tune underpinned by a driving accompaniment, subtle changes of harmony, a key shift at just the right moment, and a majestic touch at the words ‘He, the great incarnate Word’. Also at the top of my list is Fernando Taberner’s Villancico Xicarrero. You will need two percussion players for this, and the text is something of a tongue-twister, but it is great fun, and a worthy prize-winner of a recent Bach Choir carol competition. There are two contributions from the prolific Sarah Quartel. On This Silent Night (her own text) seems to have little new to say: Before the Song was Done (words by Sara Teasdale) is a much better piece, boasting an attractive melody with imaginative phrase extensions and an idiomatic piano accompaniment. The organist will no doubt take a separate and well-earned bow at the end of Stuart Nicholson’s entertaining arrangement of I Saw Three Ships and Jerrick Cavagnero’s step-upand-up-and-up version of Masters in this Hall (which also features some lovely portamenti!). Cathedral Music Autumn 2023
Lute Book Lullaby by Richard Allain is the only carol to offer accompaniment other than by piano or organ; it was written for choir and harp (though the composer provides a keyboard accompaniment). This piece is a lovely addition to the collection, as is John Rutter’s All the Stars Looked Down. Carol Barnett’s Bells, Blessings demonstrates once more how good she is at word-setting. Two carols that owe something to modes rather than scales are Hush, my Babe by Adolphus Hailstork, in which we can discern a mixture of Dorian and Mixolydian features, and Philip Moore’s What Child Is This? in which the composer has invented his own mode, at least for some of the organ part – his scale contains a flattened second degree and a raised sixth – lovely! JEREMY JACKMAN*
The Oxford Book of Choral Music by Black Composers Marques L. A. Garrett (ed.) Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19356100-7, £20.95 (paperback) / 978-0-19356101-4, £28.25 (spiralbound paperback)
I’m all too aware that a volume such as this can function as a double-edged sword. The Multitude of Voyces series unquestionably constitutes a fine step in destabilising, to some extent, the liturgical canon where gender is concerned, provided it is understood to be just that – a step. Those books are affordable resources and have been a boon in enabling sincerely conscientious and interested choirs with smaller budgets to expand their repertoire beyond the hegemonic.
But the other face of the sword has been almost equally in evidence: choirs on larger budgets, which ought to be doing rather better, using the often fine but narrow vein of repertoire therein in virtue-signalling lip-service, and going no further, feeling that their work is done. Marques L. A. Garrett, has done a canny job here in positioning this volume, with that double-edged sword presumably very much in mind. For amateur choirs on small budgets, the volume is a superb starter anthology of choral music by Black composers: it’s far more than a convenience volume in terms of the standard of its editing, high-quality in its repertorial content, and with a commentary treading a sensible line between depth and concision. There is some attainable repertoire here in items such as Nathan Carter’s delightful yet small-scale Psalm 131 setting, and straightforward liturgical elements that are easily, immediately and regularly employable in parish liturgy (Mark Butler’s Dona nobis pacem and Carlos Simon’s Sanctus, to name two). At the more involved end of the difficulty range, though, there are pointers onwards, such as the ‘taster’ inclusion of Zanaida Stewart Robles’s appealing Magnificat without its partner Nunc dimittis in order to incentivise the purchase of OUP’s edition of the pair. David Hurd’s Miserere is beginning to be justly well-known in the UK, and so the inclusion here not of that fine piece but of his Ecce sacerdos magnus, similar in difficulty and in practicality for Anglican liturgical usage but quite different in character, constitutes a helpful consolidation of this composer’s reputation this side of the pond that should encourage further exploration. The same might be said of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s By the lone seashore and The Lord is my strength, Undine Smith Moore’s I, too and Florence Price’s Resignation, pointing to a continuation of the ways started with the canticles, We shall walk through the valley and Adoration respectively. The term ‘Black’ is glossed by Garrett as ‘a hypernym for any person of the African diaspora’ and the
composers featured are from Brazil, Canada, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States, with a preponderance of those of American heritage. Though one manuscript describes Vincente Lusitano (c.1520–c.1561) as ‘homem pardo’, suggesting possible African heritage, there is also reasonable basis for argument that he may have had Jewish converso origins, and I’m a little uncomfortable with the excision of that possibility from his discourse; the failure by traditional musicology to address the Jewish roots of a great many composers of the Iberian peninsula is another wrong to be righted. Still, this Emendemus in melius is a positive addition to Lusitano in contemporary print, possessing as it does a thoughtful and practical keyboard reduction. In terms of addressing the principal seasonal needs of Anglican parish choirs, there are some pleasing Christmas items here in the shape of José Mauricio Nunes Garcia’s Alleluia, angelus Domini, Ulysses Kay’s As Joseph was a-walking and Julia Perry’s Song of our Savior. OUP has done well on matters of gender and race with its Carols for Choirs 6, but there’s abundant scope for further development where Lent and Easter are concerned, though H. Leslie Adams’s Hosanna to the Son of David, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s The Lord is my strength and R. Nathaniel Dett’s Son of Mary here are unquestionably good things to have. Thirteen secular and twenty-two liturgical texts are included here, making this a worthwhile purchase for SATB choirs of many sorts. I hope that an SSA equivalent volume will follow, allowing a broader cross-section of young people to access a range of choral riches more representative of the make-up of the school-age population. This venture isn’t a moment too soon; indeed, it’s significantly too late. To conclude that I hope it’s soon superseded by the presence of these works in the mainstream and not simply in a specialist anthology, is to wish it the very best indeed. CAT H E R I N E G R O O M
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Q&A
MIC H AE L J. COOKE
‘My time at Durham Cathedral were three of the best years of my life’ Interview by A D R I A N H O R S E W O O D
What is your earliest memory of performing in church? My father was organist and choirmaster at Gedling Parish Church, about 3½ miles from Nottingham. His father and grandfather had held this post before him. At school, pupils and staff attended the morning service each Sunday during term-time, but it was not until I was living in Wanstead, London and I joined a good men and boys’ choir at St John’s, Leytonstone that I began regularly to sing in a choir. Later, when I was living in Leicester, I was a member of the choir of St John’s, Victoria Park under a great director, John Cooper. One of the trebles there was Richard Armstrong, who after an organ scholarship at Cambridge became the youngest music director of the Welsh National Opera and was later knighted for his service to music. Is there a cathedral or church that’s especially close to your heart? My time at Durham Cathedral as the first choral scholar were three of the best years of my life. It started a friendship with Conrad Eden [Organist and Master of the
Choristers at Durham 1936–74] which continued until his death. Conrad retired to Sherborne and I visited him every year while I was in the U.K.; it was this friendship which brought my wife Joy and I to live in Yeovil, only five miles from Sherborne Abbey which became an important element in our lives. The Priory Church of St Mary, St Katharine and All Saints, Edington in Wiltshire was another important church in my life, as that is ‘home’ to the Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy. I became very involved with the Festival and in the year 2000, I established the Edington Music Festival Association, also serving as its administrator for the first twelve years. As one of the founding members of the Friends of Cathedral Music, later to become Cathedral Music Trust, what changes have you seen? In Leicester I was singing cathedraltype services every Sunday, both morning and evening. I enjoyed my role in that choir and had no idea that the cathedral music tradition was under threat until I read a letter in The Times from the Rev’d Ronald Sibthorp and others expressing their concern. I was one of some 240 who
replied, and one of the forty who subsequently attended a meeting at St Bride’s, Fleet Street in London at which the foundation of a new organisation was proposed. Mr Ronald Lockwood, headmaster of a boys’ school in Kidderminster, offered his services as secretary and I offered mine as his assistant. Ronald Sibthorp was elected as chairman; Dr Martin Shaw, the well-known church music composer of, amongst others, Fanfare for Christmas Morning, was elected as president; and the Bishop of Truro was made patron. Most noticeably, the growth of cathedral girls’ choirs. The other change is the move from voluntary administration to paid key positions. I served on the FCM Council for over fifteen years, including twelve years as Secretary. Which piece would you use to introduce a newcomer to the world of cathedral music? In the general repertoire, I would suggest Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s Blessed be the God and Father and then at Christmas time, Harold Darke’s In the bleak midwinter. Also, I would say that the music of John Rutter has much to commend it.
N E X T I S S U E The new director of music and the Dean of Sheffield Cathedral discuss the new vision for music in the Steel City / Pierre Dubois supplies an update on the ongoing works on the organ of Notre-Dame in Paris / We look at the history of the Clergy Support Trust and its annual Festival Service / Convivium Records turns 15
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REGENT RECORDS
New and Recent Releases THOMAS TROTTER: A CELEBRATION 40 years as Birmingham City Organist REGCD584
Thomas Trotter was appointed Birmingham City Organist in 1983 in succession to Sir George Thalben-Ball. This album, recorded in Town Hall, Birmingham, is released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of that appointment. It complements ‘Symphony Hall Sorcery’ (REGCD566, released in 2022) in celebrating Trotter’s consummate artistry over four decades on these two iconic Birmingham instruments.
A YEAR AT LLANDAFF The Choir of Llandaff Cathedral Aaron Shilson (organ) directed by Stephen Moore
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2023 GRANT CELEBRATIONS Join us at a cathedral or church near you to celebrate the amazing work of our choirs and kickstart a year of support from the Trust
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A journey through the church’s year, including recent compositions by Bob Chilcott, Jonathan Dove, and Will Todd, and two large-scale solos on the new Nicholson organ, installed in 2010. ‘...expressively performed, and projected with a sense of occasion.’ Classical Music Sentinel August 2023
SWEET WAS THE SONG CHRISTMAS MUSIC FROM TEWKESBURY ABBEY Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum Carleton Etherington (organ) directed by Simon Bell REGCD577
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BATH BAROQUE CHRISTMAS MUSIC FOR ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS The Choir of Bath Abbey Réjouissance directed by Huw Williams REGCD581
Music by Praetorius and Purcell, culminating in Charpentier’s ‘Messe de minuit’. The Choir of Bath Abbey and its soloists are joined by period instrument ensemble Réjouissance. REGENT RECORDS, PO Box 528,Wolverhampton, WV3 9YW 01902 424377 www.regentrecords.com (with secure online ordering). Retail distribution by RSK Entertainment Ltd, Tel: 01488 608900, info@rskentertainment.co.uk. Available in the USA from the Organ Historical Society www.ohscatalog.org. Scan QR code to sign up to our mailing list.
The Prayer Book Society For more than 50 years the Prayer Book Society has been working to keep the Book of Common Prayer at the heart of the worshipping life of the Church of England. New generations are discovering the beauty, depth and majesty of the BCP, many through Cathedral services. In addition to promoting Prayer Book services across the country, the Society runs many national and local events. Join us and help keep this wonderful tradition thriving in our churches.
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