Choral Evensong from Tewkesbury Abbey - CD Booklet by Delphian Records

The Abbey School Choir Tewkesbury

Carleton Etherington Organ

Benjamin Nicholas Director

Chor al Evensong Tewkesbury Abbey from

Choral Evensong from Tewkesbury Abbey

The Abbey School Choir , Tewkesbury (2–5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15)

Voluntary: Master Tallis’s Testament

Herbert Howells (1892–1983)

[7:00]

Benjamin Nicholas Director Carleton Etherington Organ (1, 4–5, 7, 9, 14–16) 11

Responses and Collects

Heathcote Statham

[6:27]

Cantor: Christopher Monk 2

Introit: Sancte Deus

Thomas Tallis (c.1505–1585)

[6:43]

Preces

Heathcote Statham (1889–1973)

[1:34]

Cantor: Christopher Monk 4

Psalm 91

Anthem: Valiant-for-Truth

Prayers & Blessing

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) [5:39]

[2:38]

The Reverend Canon Paul Williams

Chant: Walter Alcock (1861–1947)

[5:52]

Hymn: The day thou gavest

Tune: St Clement

Psalm 131

First Lesson (Isaiah 6: 1–8)

[3:28]

Descant: John Scott (b. 1956)

Chant: Michael Peterson (1924–2006) [2:11]

Te Deum (Collegium Regale)

Herbert Howells

[9:31]

[1:52]

Voluntary: Toccata in B flat minor

Louis Vierne (1870–1937)

[4:10]

Neil Gardner, Headmaster of The Abbey School, Tewkesbury 7

Magnificat (Tewkesbury Service)*

Second Lesson (1 Corinthians 13)

Gabriel Jackson (b. 1962)

[8:57]

Total playing time

[74:37]

*premiere recording

[2:45]

The Reverend Canon Paul Williams, Vicar of Tewkesbury 9

Nunc Dimittis (Tewkesbury Service)*

Creed

Gabriel Jackson

[4:50]

[0:57]

Recorded on 26 June & 5 July 2006 in Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter 24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Design: John Christ Booklet editor: John Fallas

Notes on the music In the early 1970s a preparatory school was founded in Tewkesbury by Miles Amherst with the express purpose of singing Evensong on weekdays, and thus complementing the Abbey’s own choir, which sings the Sunday services. The Abbey School Choir’s recording plans for the end of the Trinity Term 2006 took a rather different tack when, on 28 April, the school’s Governors announced that the school would close at the end of the academic year. It was felt that a valedictory recording of the service which the choir had sung four times a week during term-time for the previous thirty-two years would be an appropriate memento of a very special choir school, and of a happy period in the musical life of the Abbey. The twelve months prior to the closure announcement had seen the choir riding high, enjoying tours of France and the USA, making two recordings for CD release, and giving performances of Bach’s St John Passion and Mass in B minor, Handel’s Messiah and Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. Most exciting of all, and closest to the choir’s heart and to its raison d’être, was the number of newly commissioned works it was able to perform in the context of the daily Evensong services. In 2005 and 2006 alone, Geraint Lewis, John Caldwell, Richard Popplewell and Gabriel Jackson all composed settings of the evening canticles especially for the choir to sing in the Abbey.

Breadth of repertoire had always been a hallmark of the Abbey School Choir. Being able to introduce children, some as young as eight years old, to glorious polyphony one minute and new works fresh from the pen of a living composer the next is an immense privilege. This recording was designed to show the diversity of the choir’s repertoire, and at the same time it demonstrates the striking links that can exist between the earliest works and the most contemporary. Late medieval and Renaissance music is an important source of inspiration for the youngest composer on the disc, Gabriel Jackson, just as an earlier generation of twentieth-century English composers sought to re-imagine the legacy of their Tudor forebears; the threads that run through English church music are strong, and the tapestry they weave is rich and allusive. The programme is also nourished by geographical connections, inspired by the county of Gloucestershire in which the Abbey is situated. Herbert Howells was born in the Forest of Dean, in the far west of the county, and was an articled pupil, alongside Ivor Gurney and Ivor Novello, to Herbert Brewer, Organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1896 to 1928. In that position Brewer played a leading role in the Three Choirs Festival, which then as now was hosted in turn in the cathedrals of Gloucester, Worcester and Hereford on a

three-year cycle; and it was at a Three Choirs concert in Gloucester Cathedral in 1910 that Howells, then a month short of his eighteenth birthday, was to have perhaps his most formative musical experience: he was present at the first performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis. Unable to sleep, Howells spent the next hours walking the streets of Gloucester with Gurney, overwhelmed by this new musical language. Besides a large amount of choral music, Howells himself wrote a number of keyboard works which re-create the Tudor keyboard style within the parameters of his own harmonic language. They include two clavichord collections as well as the organ work Master Tallis’s Testament, which seems almost designed as a companion piece to our introit, Tallis’s Sancte Deus. Howells referred to Master Tallis’s Testament as a ‘footnote to the Vaughan Williams work, and even more a personal throw-back to the Tudors’. Sancte Deus itself dates almost certainly from the reign of Henry VIII – probably from the 1530s, when Latin remained the main language for worship in the English church but when the short votive antiphon to Mary or Jesus was gaining in popularity. The text addresses Jesus, and includes phrases derived from the liturgy for Holy Week (the opening invocations – ‘Holy God, Holy strength, Holy and immortal one’ – come

from an ancient Greek prayer to Christ appropriated by the Catholic Church for Holy Week, and the last line quotes the Holy Week chant Adoramus te, Christe). Tallis’s setting, in four parts, expresses the text simply and directly, using short phrases with strong cadential articulations. Intimate and prayerful, it is a masterful demonstration of the powerful eloquence of Tallis’s early style. The Preces and Responses sung here are by Heathcote Statham, written while he was Organist of Norwich Cathedral. Their gentle neo-modality recalls the great Tudor settings, whose poised functionality they also share. The psalms appointed for the day are sung to chants by Sir Walter Alcock (for thirty years Organist of Salisbury Cathedral) and by Michael Peterson, who was The Abbey School’s first Director of Music. Gabriel Jackson’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (Tewkesbury Service) was commissioned by Michael Amherst in 2006, the year of this recording, to celebrate the 75th birthday of The Abbey School’s founder and first headmaster, Miles Amherst. Miles had always been slightly saddened that Herbert Howells, so well known for composing service music with particular buildings in mind, had not composed a Tewkesbury Service. Howells’ Dallas Service (1975) was his last setting of the evening

Notes on the music canticles. Howells told Miles’s sister, a student of his at the Royal College of Music, that the Abbey School Choir was to be the beneficiary of his next setting; but between 1977 and his death in 1983 he completed little music, and the work was never to be written. Jackson’s new work is intended to go some way to making good this lack: it is a sometimes overt homage to Howells, with its extended opening for trebles alone, long flowing melismatic phrases, rich harmony, and a harmonic pace appropriate to the building it was written for. Some listeners may furthermore identify a specific allusion to Howells’ Gloucester Service. And yet Jackson’s own stylistic characteristics are in evidence too. The longbreathed vocal lines, inspired by the elegance of medieval monody, are typical, as is the strikingly independent organ part. And the sudden burst of joy at ‘light’ in the Nunc dimittis is a typical Jackson touch. Howells may not have written for Tewkesbury Abbey, but he knew the building well; the last performance he heard of his masterpiece Hymnus Paradisi was in the Abbey in June 1980. He returned to Gloucestershire for the last time in August of the same year, when he made a pilgrimage to Vaughan Williams’ birthplace at Down Ampney, sealing his lifelong connection with the elder composer. And so it seems particularly apt to include Valiant-for-Truth, Vaughan Williams’ setting

of a narrative from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, as the anthem on this recording. Composed in the early stages of the Second World War, this work was one of a number of unaccompanied motets which the composer wrote in his final two decades. The valedictory text is given a dark, resonant treatment, until the musical depiction of echoing fanfares at ‘the trumpet sounded for him’ brightens the mood and brings the work to a triumphant conclusion. We have already mentioned Howells’ readiness to respond to specific places through his music. Spurred on by a desire to revitalise the music in these great churches, Howells produced his morning and evening canticles for King’s College, Cambridge in 1944. The music of the Te Deum is perfectly suited to the architecture of the chapel and its warm acoustic. Much of the first part of the text is treated with unison and homophonic writing, the contrapuntal interest coming chiefly from the organ part. Melismas adorn and identify what for Howells are the key words – ‘praise’, ‘infinite’, and ‘everlasting’ – and reach their most ecstatic in representing ‘glory’. The impassioned entries at ‘We believe that thou shalt come to be our judge’ and at ‘Vouchsafe, O Lord’, and the sheer strength of the final climax on the word ‘confounded’ all add up to make this a remarkable and deeply moving setting of the text.

It was with a huge sense of relief and hope that, on the announcement of the school’s closure, we heard from The Reverend Tim Hastie-Smith, Headmaster of Dean Close School, Cheltenham. He put to the Vicar (Canon Paul Williams) and Headmaster (Neil Gardner) the offer of places at Dean Close Preparatory School for all of the choristers. From the beginning of the Michaelmas Term 2006 the choir was re-styled Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum. Thus Miles Amherst’s dream – to have a choir sing the service of Evensong daily in Tewkesbury Abbey – continues to be realised, with further generations of choristers aided, it is to be hoped, by new works from the pens of further generations of composers, continuing to forge links between the past, present and future of our wonderful choral tradition. © 2010 Benjamin Nicholas & John Fallas

Texts and translation 2

Thomas Tallis: Sancte Deus Sancte Deus, Sancte Fortis, Sancte et Immortalis, miserere nobis. Nunc, Christe, te petimus, miserere, quaesumus. Qui venisti redimere perditos, noli damnare redemptos: quia per crucem tuam redemisti mundum. Amen. Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy and Immortal One, have mercy upon us. Now, O Christ, we ask thee, we beseech thee, have mercy. Thou who came to redeem the lost, do not condemn the redeemed: For by thy cross thou hast redeemed the world. Amen.

Heathcote Statham: Preces Versicle. O Lord, open thou our lips. Response. And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise. Versicle. O God, make speed to save us. Response. O Lord, make haste to help us. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Versicle. Praise ye the Lord. Response. The Lord’s Name be praised.

Psalm 91 Whoso dwelleth under the defence of the most High: shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say unto the Lord, Thou art my hope, and my strong hold: my God, in him will I trust. For he shall deliver thee from the snare of the hunter: and from the noisome pestilence. He shall defend thee under his wings, and thou shalt be safe under his feathers: his faithfulness and truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night: nor for the arrow that flieth by day; For the pestilence that walketh in darkness: nor for the sickness that destroyeth in the noon-day. A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee. Yea, with thine eyes shalt thou behold: and see the reward of the ungodly. For thou, Lord, art my hope: thou hast set thine house of defence very high. There shall no evil happen unto thee: neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee in their hands: that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt go upon the lion and adder:

the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him up, because he hath known my Name. He shall call upon me, and I will hear him: yea, I am with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and bring him to honour. With long life will I satisfy him: and shew him my salvation. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Psalm 131 Lord, I am not high-minded: I have no proud looks. I do not exercise myself in great matters: which are too high for me. But I refrain my soul, and keep it low, like as a child that is weaned from his mother: yea, my soul is even as a weaned child. O Israel, trust in the Lord: from this time forth for evermore. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Jackson: Magnificat (Tewkesbury Service)

7 Gabriel

My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded: the lowliness of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is his Name. And his mercy is on them that fear him: throughout all generations. He hath shewed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away. He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel: as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Texts 9

Nunc Dimittis (Tewkesbury Service) Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen: thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared: before the face of all people; To be a light to lighten the Gentiles: and to be the glory of thy people Israel. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Versicle. O Lord, save the Queen. Response. And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee. Versicle. Endue thy Ministers with righteousness. Response. And make thy chosen people joyful. Versicle. O Lord, save thy people. Response. And bless thine inheritance. Versicle. Give peace in our time, O Lord. Response. Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, O God. Versicle. O God, make clean our hearts within us. Response. And take not thy Holy Spirit from us.

Statham: Responses and Collects Versicle. The Lord be with you. Response. And with thy spirit. Versicle. Let us pray. Response. Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us. Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. Amen. Versicle. O Lord, shew thy mercy upon us. Response. And grant us thy salvation.

1st Collect. Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire, or deserve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Response. Amen. 2nd Collect. O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed; Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that our hearts may be set to obey thy

commandments, and also that by thee, we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may pass our time in rest and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Response. Amen. 3rd Collect. Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Response. Amen.

When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went, he said, ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ And as he went down deeper, he said, ‘Grave, where is thy victory?’ So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side. John Bunyan (1628 -1688)

14 12

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Valiant-for-Truth After this it was noised abroad that Mr Valiant-for-Truth was taken with a summons, and had this for a token that the summons was true, ‘that his pitcher was broken at the fountain’. When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he, ‘I am going to my Father’s, and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword, I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill, to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me, that I have fought His battles, who now will be my rewarder.’

The day thou gavest The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended, The darkness falls at Thy behest; To Thee our morning hymns ascended, Thy praise shall sanctify our rest. We thank Thee that Thy church, unsleeping, While earth rolls onward into light, Through all the world her watch is keeping, And rests not now by day or night. As o’er each continent and island The dawn leads on another day, The voice of prayer is never silent, Nor dies the strain of praise away. The sun that bids us rest is waking Our brethren ’neath the western sky, And hour by hour fresh lips are making Thy wondrous doings heard on high.

Texts So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall never, Like earth’s proud empires, pass away: Thy kingdom stands, and grows forever, Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway. John Ellerton (1826 -1893)

Howells: Te Deum (Collegium Regale)

15 Herbert

We praise thee, O God: we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee: the Father everlasting. To thee all Angels cry aloud: the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubin and Seraphin: continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy: Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty: of thy glory. The glorious company of the Apostles: praise thee. The goodly fellowship of the Prophets: praise thee. The noble army of Martyrs: praise thee. The holy Church throughout all the world: doth acknowledge thee; The Father: of an infinite Majesty; Thine honourable, true: and only Son; Also the Holy Ghost: the Comforter.

Thou art the King of Glory: O Christ. Thou art the everlasting Son: of the Father. When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man: thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb. When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death: thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. Thou sittest at the right hand of God: in the glory of the Father. We believe that thou shalt come: to be our Judge. We therefore pray thee, help thy servants: whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood. Make them to be numbered with thy Saints: in glory everlasting. O Lord, save thy people: and bless thine heritage. Govern them: and lift them up for ever. Day by day: we magnify thee; And we worship thy Name: ever world without end. Vouchsafe, O Lord: to keep us this day without sin. O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us. O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us: as our trust is in thee. O Lord, in thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded.

The Abbey School Choir, Tewkesbury

Biographies

Trebles Benoit André Billy Bailey Silas Barke David Bath Oliver Bullock Jack Butterworth James DeansSidgreaves Marcus Emmerson Oliver Gay Michael Hedges Harrison Hunter Aaron King Nathan King Thomas Ooi Andrew Swait Hector Watson

Tenors James Atherton James Brown Christopher Hand Nicholas Scott Henry Watson

Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum (previously The Abbey School Choir, Tewkesbury) is the choir of men and boys which sings the weekday services in Tewkesbury Abbey. The choristers are all educated at Dean Close Preparatory School, Cheltenham.

Basses Nicholas Ashby Christopher Monk Yang Wern Ooi Elvin Young

Since 2000, the choir has undertaken eleven foreign tours, including three lengthy visits to the USA, six visits to France and trips to Italy and Germany. It has performed large-scale choral works with the Orchestra of St John, Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, Cheltenham Bach Choir and the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales. In December 2008, the choristers represented Great Britain in a concert which was the closing event of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The choir has broadcast regularly from Tewkesbury Abbey, and in September 2006 broadcast Choral Evensong from St Michael’s Church, Tenbury Wells, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the foundation of St Michael’s College.

Altos Derek Acock David Coulton Ian Harrold Jeremy Kenyon Stephen Taylor

Vocal Coach: Stephen Taylor

The choir has made numerous recordings. The Three Kings (Delphian DCD34047) was released in November 2007 to great critical acclaim, and the following year the choristers’ recording of Honegger’s Cantate de Noël appeared on the Hyperion label. The choir’s most recent recording for Delphian, of sacred choral music by Thomas Weelkes (DCD34070),

Also available on Delphian

Biographies received great acclaim on BBC Radio 3’s CD Review upon its release in January 2009 and is a Gramophone ‘Recommended Recording’. The choir has also been active in commissioning new works. In Christmas 2007 it gave the first performance of Bob Chilcott’s The Night He was Born, and in September 2008 the choristers joined with the Choristers of Westminster Abbey and their director James O’Donnell to give the first performance of Gabriel Jackson’s The Land of Spices in Westminster Abbey as part of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference. Benjamin Nicholas is Director of Choral Music at Dean Close School, in which capacity he directs the boys and men of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum in the weekday services in Tewkesbury Abbey. His work with the Schola (previously The Abbey School Choir) has included eleven foreign tours, broadcasts and recordings on the Delphian, Guild, Priory, Regent and Signum labels. He has been Organ Scholar at Chichester Cathedral, Lincoln College, Oxford and St Paul’s Cathedral. During his time in London he was also Director of Music of St Luke’s Church, Chelsea. Since October 2008 he has also held an appointment at Merton College,

Oxford where, with Peter Phillips, he has been instrumental in establishing the new choral foundation. He has recently directed the Choir of Merton College in concerts in Paris and London and in a series of podcasts. Benjamin Nicholas has conducted numerous premieres including works by Bob Chilcott, Gabriel Jackson, Howard Skempton, Philip Wilby and Howard Goodall. Carleton Etherington is Organist and Director of Music of Tewkesbury Abbey, in which capacity he directs the Abbey Choir and accompanies the Schola Cantorum. He is also conductor of Pershore and Cirencester Choral Societies and a member of the music staff at Dean Close School, Cheltenham. Educated at Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester and The Royal Academy of Music, London, he is a former winner of the Paisley International Organ Competition and a former Royal College of Organists Performer of the Year. As a recitalist he has performed at most of the major British venues and has toured abroad in the USA, Australia and Europe. He has broadcast many times on BBC Radio and has several recordings to his credit, both as a soloist and accompanist, all of which have been warmly received by the critics. His first solo CD for Delphian, featuring the Milton and Grove organs at Tewkesbury, is due for release in early 2011.

Thomas Weelkes: Sacred Choral Music Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum / Benjamin Nicholas DCD34070 Born around 1575, Thomas Weelkes is remembered as one of the outstanding English composers of the seventeenth century. This survey of Weelkes’ services, verse anthems and sacred madrigals features first recordings of several works in new reconstructions by scholar Peter James. Benjamin Nicholas’s Tewkesbury choir delivers telling performances passionately conveying the range, imagination and technical accomplishment of Weelkes’ settings. ‘Weelkes is a composer to make you think again, and Tewkesbury Abbey currently has the choir to present him in strongest colours and with the most personal accent … The choir has developed a strong style, remarkable for its sense of personal (or corporate) commitment as for the sonority of its tone and the assurance of its delivery’ — Gramophone, April 2009 The Three Kings: Music for Christmas from Tewkesbury Abbey Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum / Benjamin Nicholas DCD34047 In the vast, echoing space of their medieval home the boys and men of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum celebrate the awe and mystery of Christmas, ushering in the birth of the Christ-child with a sequence of carols from the last two centuries that combines familiar names with offerings from some of today’s foremost composers. ‘I doubt whether there are many more admirable choirs outside Westminster, Oxford and Cambridge than the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum. … Nicholas’s choir give proof yet again of the qualities that place them firmly in the front rank: flair, acumen, versatility and poise’ — Church Times, December 2007

DCD34019