Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh THE CRUCIFIXION Duncan Ferguson conductor Liam Bonthrone tenor Arthur Bruce baritone Imogen Morgan organ
STAINER
JOHN STAINER (1840–1901) THE CRUCIFIXION
1 Recit. – And they came to a place
[1:19]
named Gethsemane 2 The Agony
[6:11]
3 Processional to Calvary
[10:24]
4 Recit. – And when they
[0:58]
were come
Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh Duncan Ferguson conductor Liam Bonthrone tenor Arthur Bruce baritone Imogen Morgan organ
[4:45]
Humiliation (‘Cross of Jesus’)
with the pupils and staff of St Mary’s Music School, and members of the Chapter House Singers and the cathedral congregation [5, 10, 13, 15, 20]
6 Recit. – He made Himself
[1:17] [3:52] [1:11]
up the serpent 9 Chorus – God so loved the world 10 Hymn – Litany of the Passion
Recorded on 22-26 May in St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter 24-bit digital editing: Jack Davis 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Design: John Christ Booklet editor: Henry Howard
Cover: Diocesan Meeting of Parish Choirs at Salisbury Cathedral, Illustrated London News, 15 June 1861; photo: duncan1890/iStock Session photography: foxbrush.co.uk Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.com
11 Recit. and Chorus – Jesus said: @ delphianrecords @ delphianrecords @ delphian_records
‘Father, forgive them’
14 Recit. and Chorus – And one
[2:32]
of the malefactors Charles Marshall, James Kennedy voices from the choir
[1:46]
Crucified (‘I adore Thee’) [2:55]
therefore saw his mother 17 Recit. – Is it nothing to you?
[1:00]
18 Chorus – The Appeal of the
[6:58]
Crucified [3:49]
19 Recit. and Chorus – After this,
[4:22]
Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished
(‘Holy Jesu, by Thy Passion’)
Gifted in loving memory of Susan Christina Mavor
[5:21]
Intercession (‘Jesus, the Crucified, plead for me’)
16 Recit. and Chorus – When Jesus
Humiliation 8 Recit. – And as Moses lifted
13 Hymn – The Mystery of
15 Hymn – The Adoration of the
of no reputation 7 The Majesty of the Divine
[4:23]
divine petition
Charles Marshall bass from the choir
5 Hymn – The Mystery of the Divine
12 Duet – So Thou liftest Thy
[0:50]
20 Hymn – For the Love of Jesus
[2:04]
[3:00]
(‘All for Jesus’) Total playing time
[69:08]
Notes on the music In 1854, while a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral, John Stainer took part in the first performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in England under the aegis of the Bach Society and its chairman and conductor, William Sterndale Bennett. Bach’s music was enjoying a major revival in England; it was also the time of the Bach Gesellschaft and the publication of Bach’s works in the Bach-GesellschaftAusgabe which began in 1851 with some of the cantatas; Stainer also appears to have become acquainted with Bach’s Magnificat which had been published in 1840 in a piano reduction by Robert Franz. The performance of the St Matthew Passion was by no means flawless, but the experience left an indelible mark on the fourteen-year-old Stainer, who retained a love of Bach for the rest of his life. Another, later, formative influence on Stainer was the growing desire for order in the Anglican liturgy instigated essentially by the Tractarians (later better known as the Oxford Movement). There were few signs of this at St Paul’s during Stainer’s days as a chorister, but after taking up employment as the organist at Frederick Ouseley’s collegiate institution at St Michael’s College, Tenbury in 1857, he was soon influenced by Ouseley’s aspirations to inculcate a sense of excellence in the execution of church music. After two years at Tenbury, which was more ‘broad church’ in practice, a new challenge in the form of the role of informator choristarum at Magdalen
College, Oxford brought him into contact with a more Anglo-Catholic ambience, and for twelve years he trained the college chapel choir to a new standard which was recognised nationally, whilst cultivating a productive life as a composer of anthems and service music, as an able academic and musical theoretician, and as a professional organist. In 1872, Stainer was head-hunted by the clergy at St Paul’s after the resignation of its organist, John Goss. On the strength of Stainer’s appointment, and with funds made available by ecclesiastical reforms, within three years huge musical changes had taken place at the cathedral. The choir expanded from 12 choristers to 36 (and four probationers), and from 6 men to 18, with more regular rehearsals; a new choir school was inaugurated, bringing improved physical and educational conditions for the choristers. The changes were at first hard-won, principally owing to the recalcitrant freehold lay clerks (whom Stainer threatened with abolition if they did not comply), but by the mid 1870s, the reputation of St Paul’s, as London’s metropolitan cathedral, had risen to new heights. Stainer did much to broaden the choir’s musical repertoire, in collaboration with the cathedral’s succentor, William Sparrow Simpson. Indeed, the composer Charles Gounod considered Mattins at St Paul’s to be the finest musical service to be heard anywhere in Europe, such was the
quality of the singing and the new discipline of the choir. Special services, not least the annual inclusion of Bach’s St Matthew Passion during Passion Week, drew large crowds, and such was the popularity of these events that people queued and frequently had to be turned away. Besides his commitment to high standards in church music, which became a benchmark for other cathedral choirs, Stainer’s sense of mission manifested itself in the acceptance of the appointment as H.M. Inspector of Music in Schools and Training Colleges after the resignation of John Hullah in 1882, a post which bore witness to his support for the Liberal government of Gladstone, a close friend and high churchman. The inspectorship was a hugely exacting undertaking which involved extensive travel and administration, but it also tells us something about Stainer’s deeply held principles of bringing music to a wider audience. This was reflected not only in his work for education in general, but also in his work as a church musician where his creative output was aimed not only at proficient cathedral and college choirs, but also at parish churches, both large and small, which entertained aspirations of nurturing a choir. This new sentiment of democracy was embodied not least in a work composed in 1887, a year before he retired from St Paul’s – The Crucifixion. Supported by Novello, who
undoubtedly spotted the commercial potential of such a venture, Stainer clearly saw that there was an opportunity for a work of moderate length of a Passion character, that parish churches could enjoy hearing sung in a liturgical context without the expense and technical difficulty – not to mention the requirements of space – of Bach’s Passions. For this he recruited William John Sparrow Simpson, the son of his colleague at St Paul’s. When The Crucifixion was conceived, W.J. Sparrow Simpson was a young man of 27 and a deacon at Christ Church, Albany Street, Marylebone, but he already boasted some literary credentials in having won the Chancellor’s Gold Medal for English verse as an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, a competition judged by Robert Browning. After graduating with a first-class degree in Theology in 1882, he produced a libretto for Stainer’s oratorio St Mary Magdalen which was performed at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in 1883 to considerable acclaim. After the curacy at Christ Church, Albany Street, he went on to become vicar at St Mark’s, Regent’s Park from 1888 until 1904 before moving to Ilford as chaplain to the Ilford Hospital Foundation. He remained in this appointment for the rest of his long life (he died in 1952) and this allowed him enough time to publish many books on theology and church history, including The History of the Anglo-Catholic Revival 1845–1932. A prominent advocate
Notes on the music of Anglo-Catholicism, his theological stance is also evident in the words of The Crucifixion. An important feature of The Crucifixion’s success was its appeal as a short oratorio or cantata; central to its conception, however, was its succession of solo and choral numbers which explored the humanity and vulnerability of Christ, rather than the drama of the Passion narrative with its violence and scourging (a sense further accentuated by the ‘theological’ titles given to each movement and hymn). In stressing this reflective, personal dimension, truly born out of Romanticism, Stainer and his high-church librettist imbued the work with something of the spirit of the Lutheran Passion by including narrative-style recitative, taken principally from the Gospels and Lamentations, verse and prose poetry for the choruses and arias, and Anglican-style hymns for congregational participation (in place of chorales). Written for the choir of Marylebone Parish Church, where Stainer’s former pupil William Hodge was organist – the published vocal score bears their dedication – The Crucifixion was first sung as part of a series of special Lenten Thursday services there on 24 February 1887. At that service a choir of boys and men was directed by Stainer himself with the accompaniment provided by Hodge on the organ recently installed by Gray and Davison
in 1884. This instrument consisted of no less than four manuals (Great, Swell, Choir and Solo) and pedals, which would have given Stainer and Hodge a wide tonal and expressive range of pipework and would explain why Stainer was able to suggest the optional use of the Tuba in the chorus ‘Fling wide the gates’, an option obviously not available to smaller parish church organs. The Crucifixion was repeated at three further services on 10 and 24 March and 8 April. It also received its first performance in the United States at St Luke’s Church, Baltimore, on Palm Sunday, 3 April. Sales of The Crucifixion must have exceeded Novello’s wildest dreams; it sold many thousands of copies during the rest of the nineteenth century, from which Stainer and Sparrow Simpson must have happily benefited. This recording uses a new critical edition by Jeremy Dibble, published in 2023 by the Royal School of Church Music. The Crucifixion is divided effectively into four principal choral sections. The first is ‘The Agony’, where the choral refrains complement the statements for solo bass. The ‘Processional to Calvary’, a longer movement in A minor, is in March and Trio form, including the well-known choral exclamation ‘Fling wide the gates’ and a trio for solo tenor. The central, unaccompanied anthem in D major (and the preludial bass solo immediately before it), which sets St John’s Gospel, ‘God so loved the world’, is arguably
one of Stainer’s masterpieces in its simplicity and powerful word setting (note the double suspension on ‘so’ in the first line). In the rather Gounodesque final chorus (‘The Appeal of the Crucified’) in C minor, which again begins with a march, we are introduced to the recurring interrogation ‘Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?’, from the first chapter of Lamentations (v. 12). (This was a text also used by Stainer’s mentor, Frederick Ouseley, for his eponymous Passion anthem.) We first hear a reference to this musical idea in the ‘Processional to Calvary’ as sung by the tenor soloist (‘Past evil, and evil to be’), but from No. 17, which functions as an introduction to the ‘The Appeal of the Crucified’, it becomes an integral part of the musical structure, assuming the role of a recurring motto, first in the march, and later, more insistently, in the moving supplication (‘O come unto me’) in the dominant major, where the sense of emotional entreaty is enhanced by Stainer’s imaginative use of diatonic harmony. The choral paragraphs are themselves balanced by music for two soloists, a tenor and bass, whose music is deliberately more demanding and intended for professional or semi-professional singers. The bass’s opening solo (‘The Agony’), which epitomises Christ’s vulnerability, is a strophic song in C# minor with refrains for the chorus. This is complemented by the tenor aria (‘The Majesty
of the Divine Humiliation’), a passionate quasi-operatic movement in which Stainer’s modified strophic design is heavily imbued with his particular brand of ‘High Victorian’ chromaticism. It is worth mentioning here something about Stainer’s harmonic language. His understanding of chromatic harmony was considerable and a good deal of his music – his oratorios Gideon and St Mary Magdalen, the cantata The Daughter of Jairus, the anthems, service music, and less well-known corners of his output such as the early madrigals of 1864 and the late solo songs – reveal his contemporaneity with the ‘moderns’ of his day. This chromatic predilection was clearly something which offended the postVictorians such as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Erik Routley with their bent for muscular diatonicism (though Routley seems to have changed his mind in later life). An objection to Stainer’s chromaticism, or indeed that of his contemporary John Bacchus Dykes, does not ultimately constitute rational criticism any more than would objecting to Bach as being too contrapuntal or Schubert for being too lyrical. Perhaps the high point of the solo material is the duet (‘So Thou liftest Thy divine petition’) whose binary structure emerges from the darker hue of F minor into the more lyrical, buoyant tonic major at its conclusion. In this music, especially in such yearning phrases as ‘So Thou pleadest’, it is not difficult to
Notes on the music hear the musical spirit of Elgar’s earliest works for the church such as ‘Ave verum’ and ‘Ave maris stella’, written in the same year. The entire fabric of The Crucifixion is punctuated by a series of five hymns in which the congregation joins, all of them inventive examples of Stainer’s brilliance as a hymnwriter (in his time rivalled only by Dykes). The first of these, ‘Cross of Jesus’, is perhaps the finest, yet the quasi-plainchant refrain of ‘Holy Jesu, by Thy Passion’, is deeply affecting, and the uplifting E major of ‘All for Jesus’ at the close simply yet perfectly transforms the darkness of the work’s opening C# minor into a mood of expectancy at the coming of the Resurrection. In this recording the hymn is sung with the additional sixth verse which was omitted from the original published edition by Novello of 1887 and others that followed during the course of the twentieth century.
© 2024 Jeremy Dibble Jeremy Dibble is Emeritus Professor of Music at Durham University. His book on John Stainer was published in 2007. He has written widely on British and Irish music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including monographs on Parry, Stanford, Esposito, Harty and Delius. He is also musical editor of the Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology and (with Julian Horton) editor of British Musical Criticism and Intellectual Thought 1850–1950. He has worked as a consultant and editor for many commercial recording companies. His edition of Stainer’s The Crucifixion was published by the RSCM in January 2023.
Text 1 Recit. – And they came to a
place named Gethsemane Recit. (Tenor)
And they came to a place named Gethsemane, and Jesus saith to his disciples: ‘Sit ye here, while I shall pray.’ 2 The Agony
Bass
Could ye not watch with Me one brief hour? Could ye not pity My sorest need? Ah! If ye sleep while the tempests lower, Surely, my friends, I am lone indeed. Chorus
Bass
Could ye not watch with Me? Even so: Willing in heart, but the flesh is vain. Back to Mine agony I must go, Lonely to pray in bitterest pain.
released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged Him, to be crucified. And the soldiers led Him away. 3 Processional to Calvary
Recit. (Tenor)
Chorus
And they laid their hands on Him and took Him, and led Him away to the High Priest. And the High Priest asked Him and said unto Him,
Jesus said,
Fling wide the gates! for the Saviour waits To tread in His royal way; He has come from above, in His power and love, To die on this Passion day. His cross is the sign of His love divine, His crown is the thorn-wreath of woe, He bears His load on the sorrowful road, And bends ’neath the burden low.
A Bass from the Choir
‘Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?’ Tenor
Jesu, Lord Jesu, bowed in bitter anguish, And bearing all the evil we have done, Oh, teach us, teach us how to love thee for thy love; Help us to pray, and watch, and mourn with thee.
Bass
Tenor
‘I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.’
Bass
Then the High Priest rent his clothes and saith:
How sweet is the grace of His sacred face And lovely beyond compare; Though weary and worn with the merciless scorn Of a world He has come to spare. The burden of wrong that earth bears along, Past evil and evil to be. All sins of man since the world began, They are laid, dear Lord, on Thee.
Tenor
Could ye not watch with Me one brief hour? Did ye not say upon Kedron’s slope, Ye would not fall into the Tempter’s power? Did ye not murmur great words of hope?
‘What need we any further witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy.’
Chorus
Tenor
Jesu, Lord Jesu, bowed in bitter anguish …
And they all condemned Him to be guilty of death. And they bound Jesus and carried Him away, and delivered Him to Pilate. And Pilate, willing to content the people,
A Bass from the Choir
Chorus
Then on to the end, my God and my Friend, With Thy banner lifted high, Thou art come from above, in Thy power and love, To endure and suffer and die.
4 Recit. – And when they were come
Bass
And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the right, and the other on the left. 5 Hymn – The Mystery of the
Divine Humiliation Cross of Jesus, Cross of Sorrow, Where the Blood of Christ was shed, Perfect man on thee was tortured, Perfect God on thee has bled! Here the King of all the ages, Throned in light ere worlds could be, Robed in mortal flesh is dying, Crucified by sin for me. O mysterious condescending! O abandonment sublime! Very God Himself is bearing All the sufferings of time! Evermore for human failure By His Passion we can plead; God has borne all mortal anguish, Surely He will know our need. This – all human thought surpassing – This is earth’s most awful hour, God has taken mortal weakness! God has laid aside His power!
Text Once the Lord of brilliant seraphs, Winged with Love to do His will, Now the scorn of all His creatures, And the aim of every ill. Up in Heaven, sublimest glory Circled round Him from the first; But the earth finds none to serve Him, None to quench His raging thirst. Who shall fathom that descending, From the rainbow-circled throne, Down to earth’s most base profaning, Dying desolate alone. From the ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, We adore Thee, O most high,’ Down to earth’s blaspheming voices And the shout of ‘Crucify!’ Cross of Jesus, Cross of Sorrow, Where the Blood of Christ was shed Perfect man on thee was tortured, Perfect God on thee has bled! 6 Recit. – He made Himself of no reputation
Bass
He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, ev’n the death of the Cross.
7 The Majesty of the Divine Humiliation
8 Recit. – And as Moses lifted up the serpent
Tenor
Bass
King ever glorious, The dews of death are gath’ring round thee; Upon the Cross Thy foes have bound Thee Thy strength is gone.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Not in Thy Majesty, Robed in Heaven’s supremest splendour, But in weakness and surrender, Thou hangest there. Who can be like Thee? Pilate high in Zion dwelling, Rome with arms the world compelling, Proud though they be? Thou art sublime. Far more awful in Thy weakness, More than kingly in Thy meekness, Thou Son of God. Glory, and honour: Llet the world divide and take them; Crown its monarchs and unmake them, But thou wilt reign. Here in abasement; Crownless, poor, disrobed, and bleeding; There, in glory interceding, Thou art the King!
9 Chorus – God so loved the world
God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 10 Hymn – Litany of the Passion
Holy Jesu, by Thy Passion, By the woes which none can share, Borne in more than kingly fashion, By Thy love beyond compare: Crucified, I turn to Thee, Son of Mary, plead for me. By the treachery and trial, By the blows and sore distress, By desertion and denial, By Thine awful loneliness: Crucified, I turn …
By Thy look so sweet and lowly, While they smote Thee on the Face, By Thy patience, calm and holy, In the midst of keen disgrace: Crucified, I turn … By the hour of condemnation, By the Blood which trickled down, When, for us and our salvation, Thou didst wear the robe and crown: Crucified, I turn … By the path of sorrows dreary, By the Cross, Thy dreadful load, By the pain, when, faint and weary, Thou didst sink upon the road: Crucified, I turn … By the Spirit which could render Love for hate and good for ill, By the mercy, sweet and tender, Poured upon Thy murderers still: Crucified, I turn … 11 Recit. and Chorus – Jesus said:
‘Father, forgive them’ Tenor
Jesus said: Chorus
‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’
Text 12 Duet – So Thou liftest Thy divine petition
Bass
So thou liftest Thy divine petition, Pierc’d with cruel anguish through and through; Tenor
So Thou grievest o’er our lost condition, Pleading, ‘Ah, they know not what they do.’ Tenor & Bass
Oh! ’Twas Love, in Love’s divinest feature, Passing o’er that dark and murd’rous blot, Finding, e’en for each low fallen creature, Though they slay Thee, one redeeming spot. Tenor
Yes! And still Thy patient heart is yearning With a love that mortal scarce can bear; Bass
Thou in pity, deep, divine, and burning, Tenor & Bass
Liftest e’en for me Thy mighty prayer. Bass
So Thou pleadest, e’en for my transgression, Bidding me look up and trust and live; Tenor
So Thou murmurest thine intercession, Bidding me look up and trust and live;
Tenor & Bass
So thou pleadest, ‘Yea, he knew not’; For my sake, forgive. 13 Hymn – The Mystery of Intercession
Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me, While he is nailed to the shameful tree, Scorned and forsaken, derided and curst. See how his enemies do their worst! Yet, in the midst of the torture and shame, Jesus, the Crucified, breathes my name! Wonder of wonders, oh! how can it be? Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me! Lord, I have left Thee, I have denied, Followed the world in my selfish pride; Lord, I have joined in the hateful cry, ‘Slay him, away with him, crucify!’ Lord, I have done it, oh! ask me not how; Woven the thorns for thy Tortured brow: Yet in His pity, so boundless and free, Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me! ‘Though thou hast left Me and wandered away, Chosen the darkness instead of the day; Though thou art covered with many a stain, Though thou hast wounded Me oft and again: Though thou hast followed thy wayward will; Yet, in My pity, I love thee still.’ Wonder of wonders it ever must be! Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me!
Jesus is dying, in agony sore, Jesus is suffering more and more, Jesus is bowed with the weight of His woe, Jesus is faint with each bitter throe. Jesus is bearing it all in my stead, Pity Incarnate for me has bled; Wonder of wonders it ever must be! Jesus, the Crucified, pleads for me! 14 Recit. and Chorus – And one
of the malefactors Bass
And one of the malefactors which were hanged, railed on him, saying, A voice in the choir
‘If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us.’ Bass
But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, Second voice
‘Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man has done nothing amiss.’
Bass
And Jesus said unto him, Chorus
‘Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.’ 15 Hymn – The Adoration of the Crucified
I adore Thee, I adore Thee! Glorious ere the world began; Yet more wonderful Thou shinest, Though divine, yet still divinest In Thy dying love for man. I adore Thee, I adore Thee! Thankful at Thy feet to be; I have heard Thy accent thrilling, Lo! I come, for Thou art willing Me to pardon, even me. I adore Thee, I adore Thee! Born of woman yet Divine: Stained with sins I kneel before Thee, Sweetest Jesu, I implore Thee Make me ever only Thine. 16 Recit. and Chorus – When Jesus
therefore saw his mother
Bass
Tenor
And he said unto Jesus,
When Jesus therefore saw His Mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith unto His Mother:
Second voice
‘Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom.’
Text Chorus
‘Woman! behold thy son!’ Tenor
Then saith he to the disciple: Chorus
‘Behold thy mother!’ Bass
There was darkness over all the earth. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying: Chorus
‘My God! my God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ 17 Recit. – Is it nothing to you?
Bass
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow, which is done unto Me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted Me in the day of His fierce anger. 18 Chorus – The Appeal of the Crucified
From the Throne of His Cross, the King of grief Cries out to a world of unbelief: ‘Oh! men and women, afar and nigh, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?
‘I laid My eternal power aside, I came from the Home of the Glorified, A babe, in the lowly cave to lie; Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? ‘I wept for the sorrows and pains of men, I healed them, and helped them, and loved them, but then, They shouted against Me “Crucify!” Is it nothing to you? ‘Behold me and see: pierced through and through With countless sorrows, and all is for you; For you I suffer, for you I die. Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? ‘Oh! men and women, your deeds of shame, Your sins without reason and number and name; I bear them all on the Cross on high; Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you that I bow My head? And nothing to you that My Blood is shed? Oh! perishing souls to you I cry, Is it nothing to you? O come unto Me, by the woes I have borne, By the dreadful scourge, and the crown of thorns, By these, I implore you to hear My cry, Is it nothing to you?
O come unto Me! This awful price, Redemption’s tremendous sacrifice Is paid for you, Oh! why will ye die? O come unto Me! 19 Recit. and Chorus – After this,
Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished Tenor
After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, saith: Chorus
‘I thirst!’ Tenor
When Jesus had received the vinegar, he saith, Chorus
‘It is finished! Father, into thy hands I commend My spirit.’ Tenor
And He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost. 20 Hymn – For the Love of Jesus
All for Jesus – all for Jesus, This our song shall ever be; For we have no hope, nor Saviour, If we have not hope in Thee.
All for Jesus – Thou wilt give us Strength to serve Thee, hour by hour; None can move us from Thy presence, While we trust Thy love and power. All for Jesus – at thine altar Plead we still that dreadful price; Thee we offer, Thee we worship, In the Holy Sacrifice. All for Jesus – at Thine altar Thou wilt give us sweet content; There, dear Lord, we shall receive Thee In the solemn Sacrament. All for Jesus – Thou hast loved us; All for Jesus – Thou hast died; All for Jesus – Thou art with us; All for Jesus Crucified. All for Jesus – all for Jesus – This the Church’s song must be; Till, at last, her sons are gathered One in love and one in Thee. Amen. Texts written and selected from the Scriptures by William John Sparrow Simpson (1859–1952)
Biographies The Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh was founded in 1879 to provide choral music for the daily services at Edinburgh’s new Episcopal Cathedral, with its own choir school. This tradition, of singing regular weekday and Sunday services in the Cathedral, continues to this day, the only place in Scotland to do so. The choir comprises the choristers (aged 9–14) who all attend St Mary’s Music School, and up to twelve lay clerks and choral scholars. In 1978 the Cathedral allowed girls to join boys as choristers, the first cathedral in the UK with a similar pattern of daily services to do so. In addition to singing services at St Mary’s the choir is well known for its recording work with Delphian Records, concerts, and broadcasts. Recent recordings have included single-composer discs from Tudor England (of Taverner, Sheppard and Mundy respectively), Bruckner (DCD34071, one of several to be featured as Gramophone Editor’s Choice), Gabriel Jackson, Stravinsky (with instrumentalists from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra), and Leighton, celebrating the ninetieth anniversary of the birth of the former Edinburgh Professor of Music (DCD34218, BBC Music Magazine, FIVE STARS). The Choir makes annual broadcasts of Choral Evensong on BBC Radio Three during the Edinburgh Festival. Other recent events have included music for the Steve Coogan film The
Lost King, a collaboration with the Traverse Theatre, and a recording for BBC Scotland’s Christmas Watchnight service 2022. The choir has toured widely, performing in venues such as Suntory Hall, Tokyo and at the International Choral Festival in Taiwan, as well as the USA and Canada, and in Europe, most recently to Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Over the last decade or so the choir has worked with many orchestras including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Dunedin Consort and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Duncan Ferguson is Organist and Master of the Music at St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh. He rehearses and directs the choir for its schedule of weekday and Sunday services, as well as recordings, broadcasts, concerts and tours. A former organ scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford and St Paul’s Cathedral, London, Duncan’s recordings with St Mary’s, which include seven single-composer discs, have gained critical acclaim. He has also recorded the St Mary’s organ for Delphian as part of the Organs of Edinburgh project (DCD34100) and a solo disc of music by William Faulkes (DCD34148) of which Choir and Organ said ‘Ferguson’s playing and Delphian’s presentation provide Faulkes’s music with as fine a podium as anyone could wish for’. He has worked with several of Scotland’s orchestras and ensembles including the
Scottish Chamber Orchestra and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He was President of the Edinburgh Society of Organists in its centenary year and is the organ teacher at St Mary’s Music School; he has also been a tutor at the University of Edinburgh. Duncan enjoys performing a wide range of choral and organ music, be it at Evensong, in concerts or in recitals, and has a particular interest in music from mid sixteenth-century England. Imogen Morgan is Assistant Master of the Music at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, where she accompanies the choir for its services, broadcasts, concerts, and recordings, regularly conducts the choir and helps train the choristers. Imogen is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and was a finalist in the 2020 Northern Ireland International Organ Competition. Between 2017 and 2020, she was the Senior Organ Scholar of Durham Cathedral and University College, Durham (with whom she recorded Duruflé’s Requiem for their album ‘In Memoriam’, released in July 2020), before spending a year as the Organ Scholar of Peterborough Cathedral. Outside of her work at St Mary’s, Imogen is co-chair of the Cathedral Music Trust’s Future Leaders Group as well as holding positions within the Society of Women Organists and the Edinburgh Society of Organists. In 2021, she released her first solo disc of the organ works of Robin Milford with Priory Records.
Perth-born tenor Liam Bonthrone is a member of the Opera Studio of the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, where roles have included Pedrillo (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Brighella (Ariadne auf Naxos), Gran Sacerdote (Idomeneo), Remendado (Carmen), Rustighello (Lucrezia Borgia), Ein Junger Seemann (Tristan und Isolde), Un Lampionaio (Manon Lescaut), and Player 2 (Hamlet). Liam has also performed Conte Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia) with Nevill Holt Opera, Don Ramiro (La Cenerentola) with British Youth Opera, Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Gonzalve (L’Heure espagnole), and Flute (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) at Royal Academy Opera. Liam recently released his debut solo album titled Soirée parisienne with pianist Benjamin Mead. Concert performances include Handel Messiah and Samson, Mendelssohn Elijah, Mozart Requiem and Mass in C minor, Bach Christmas Oratorio, Haydn The Creation, Finzi For St Cecilia and MacMillan All the Hills and Vales Along. He also appeared in various roles in the ensemble for Bernstein’s Candide with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop at the Barbican Centre. He is a recent alumnus of The Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Biographies
Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh
Scottish baritone Arthur Bruce is a former Scottish Opera Emerging Artist, a Samling Artist, and a Britten–Pears Young Artist. He is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Alexander Gibson Opera School, and English National Opera’s Opera Works programme.
Trebles Joseph Cao Renata Dalla Costa Rose Duffy Zuzanna Dul Diya Eddleston Beatrice Elliott Lily Grabsztunowicz Nicholas Howard Cynthia Huang Connie Kong Antonia Mackie Carina Mackie Katie Macleod Mateo McWilliams Gomez Kirsty Olu-Audu Santiago Otero Fernandez Ethan Reilly Harper Reilly Mike Sun Jake Thomson
Whilst at the RNCM, Arthur won the John Cameron Prize for Lieder and the Kate Snape Scholarship, and was a finalist in the Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Award and the Gold Medal Competition. In 2018 Arthur was a finalist in the Concorso per il Biennio di perfezionamento per cantanti lirici at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Recent engagements include covering the Gamekeeper in Rusalka (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden); singing Belcore in L’elisir d’amore (Longborough Festival Opera); Moralès in Carmen (Waterperry Opera Festival); covering the title role in Don Giovanni and singing Schaunard in La Bohème, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte and Starveling in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, all for Scottish Opera; and singing Wolfram in Tannhäuser (Saffron Opera Group). Arthur recently sang the Priest and the Angel of the Agony in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with Southbank Sinfonia and the Parliament Choir at the Basilica papale di San Paolo fuori le mura in Rome.
Altos David Coney Alice Latham Felix Schneideman Michael Wood Tenors Alasdair Bisset Max Carsley Timothy Coleman Taylor Torkington Samuel Weatherstone Basses James Kennedy Charles Marshall Joshua McCullough Jacob Olah Will Sims Alex White
Also available on Delphian William Mundy (c.1529–1591): Sacred Choral Music Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh / Duncan Ferguson DCD34204
William Mundy’s music was at the heart of the Marian Catholic revival and then, just a few years later, made a vital contribution to the development of the Elizabethan motet. The present programme centres on Mundy’s two most extended festal compositions, possibly sung to Queen Mary on the eve of her coronation in 1553 – the celebrated Vox patris caelestis and, newly reconstructed, the little-known Maria virgo sanctissima. Two further premiere recordings feature alongside the remarkable collaboration of Mundy, Sheppard and a young William Byrd on music for the Easter procession to the font, In exitu Israel. Combining powerful music on a ceremonial scale with shorter liturgical works, this recording conveys the choir’s sheer joy as ambassadors of sixteenth-century polyphony.
Stravinsky: Choral Works Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh / Duncan Ferguson; Scottish Chamber Orchestra Soloists; Ruby Hughes soprano; Nicholas Mulroy tenor DCD34164
In Duncan Ferguson’s most ambitious recording project to date, the St Mary’s choir is joined by instrumentalists and soloists in major works by the twentieth century’s most influential composer. The choir rarely get to perform Stravinsky’s Mass in its full version with wind instruments, while a performance of the Cantata with cathedral choristers rather than an adult choir is rare indeed. Also included are Stravinsky’s ‘completions’ of three cantiones sacrae by Gesualdo; their weird contrapuntal twists and turns are relished by this intelligent, committed choir, and provide a stark contrast to the austere simplicity of Stravinsky’s own short sacred choruses. Gabriel Jackson provides the illuminating accompanying essay.
‘Ferguson secures a rich, purposeful tone … All-Mundy recitals are a considerable rarity, and this one can be confidently recommended’ — BBC Music Magazine, October 2018
‘Beautifully sung and blessed with outstandingly vivid recorded sound’ — Gramophone, October 2016
A Gaelic Blessing Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh / Matthew Owens
Kenneth Leighton: Sacred Choral Works Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh / Duncan Ferguson
DCD34007
DCD34218
Through its daily choral services, St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh is unique in sustaining the rich and diverse Anglican cathedral music tradition in Scotland. Here, in the first in a significant series of recordings made by the Choir of St Mary’s on Delphian, the singers under their Director Matthew Owens offer a selection of music that reflects the enormous changes that have shaped the church as we know it at the dawn of the new millennium, amply demonstrating the choral tradition’s richness and variety.
Released to mark the ninetieth anniversary of his birth, this programme of Leighton’s choral music reflects his outstanding accomplishments in the genre across his entire career: it includes his earliest and last pieces for unaccompanied choir, three Christmas carols, two extended masterpieces, and two works composed for the Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral itself. Extensively praised under its director of music Duncan Ferguson, the choir has both a historical affinity for Leighton’s work and a sophisticated musicianship which here produces performances of focused maturity and depth.
‘This recording is a real gem … the performance is always delicate but nonetheless abounding in richness’ — Choir & Organ, April 2003
‘It’s Ferguson’s strong grasp of [the music’s] architecture which impresses, and the vibrantly assured responses of the singers in all four voice-parts’ — BBC Music Magazine, February 2020
DCD34275