Orchestral Anthems: Dyson | Howells | Elgar | Finzi

Orchestral Dyson Howells Elgar finzi Anthems

CHOIR OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD

BRITTEN SINFONIA

BENJAMIN NICHOLAS

Orchestral Anthems

Dyson Howells Elgarfinzi

CHOIR OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD BRITTEN SINFONIA BENJAMIN NICHOLAS

Áine Smith soprano 1,8

Ruairi Bowen tenor 6,8

William Thomas bass 6,8

Girl Choristers of Merton College, Oxford 3,4

Delphian Records Ltd and the artists gratefully acknowledge the generosity of Reed Rubin, The Reed Foundation, John Sykes and Barbara Small in the making of this recording. With thanks too to Fr David Houlding and the clergy and staff of All Hallows’, Gospel Oak for allowing the use of their church.

1 Edward Bairstow (1874–1946) Blessed city, heavenly Salem [7:53]

2 Edward Elgar (1857–1934) Ecce sacerdos magnus [3:17]

3 George Dyson (1883–1964)

orch. Douglas Hopkins (1902–1992)

Magnificat (Evening Service in D)* [4:16]

4 Nunc dimittis (Evening Service in D)* [2:45]

5 Herbert Howells (1892–1983) Behold, O God our defender [3:22]

6 Henry Purcell (1659–1695)

orch. Edward Elgar

7 Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)

orch. Arnold Foster (c.1898–1963)

8 Gerald Finzi (1901–1956)

Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei [6:51]

Te Deum in G [13:58]

Lo, the full, final sacrifice [6:28]

9 Edward Elgar The Spirit of the Lord [6:12]

Total playing time [55:08]

* premiere recordings in this orchestral arrangement

Recorded on 1-2 July 2022 in All Hallows’, Gospel Oak

Producer: Paul Baxter

Engineer: James Waterhouse

24-bit digital editing: Jack Davis

24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter

Design: John Christ

Booklet editor: Henry Howard

Cover image: Cover image: Jan Sitek, Falling Sands Viaduct, Severn Valley Railway, etsy.com/uk/shop/JanSitekIllustration

Session photography: foxbrush.co.uk

Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK

www.delphianrecords.com

@ delphianrecords

@ delphianrecords @ delphian_records

Whether or not Oscar Adolf Hermann Schmitz truly believed his assertion, made in a 1904 polemic, that England was ‘The Land without Music’, even a cursory glance at the national musical landscape would have shown him that – whatever else it was at the time – Britain was certainly not a land without singing , especially singing together. The pastime had been popular since the sixteenth century – nourished first by the fifty-year English craze for madrigal singing at home, and later through taverns, glee clubs and the singing societies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. And if choral singing of the more ambitious type, with larger choirs accompanied by orchestra, was more the territory of professional singers when Handel’s oratorios became all the rage in the 1730s, by the end of the eighteenth century it had become an activity in which the enthusiastic amateur could participate. The Handel Commemorations – festivals held regularly after 1784, the 25th anniversary of the composer’s death – brought together increasingly large numbers of singers and players, more often than not for performances of the amateur choral singer’s most beloved work: Messiah. By the middle of the next century, such renditions had become positively elephantine in scale. An 1857 performance of Messiah, mounted at the Crystal Palace in London, numbered 3,222 performers in total,

no fewer than 2,765 of them (recruited from all over the country) in the choir.

Two practical factors made this possible, and the first was not musical but technological: the rapid expansion of the railways. By the 1850s Britain could boast a national network which enabled performers and audiences to travel previously unimaginable distances to the choral and musical festivals popular across the nation. The second factor was commercial: inexpensive performing materials, especially those published through the pioneering work of Alfred Novello who – via the family firm that bore his name – initiated the mass production of vocal scores at modest prices. This (combined with Novello’s willingness to challenge government taxes on paper and printing and even contemporary trade union practices) made it possible at last for the keen amateur to purchase copies of not only the familiar classics but also the oratorios, cantatas and other works newly written to feed the national enthusiasm for choral singing. In 1846 Novello’s Messiah vocal score cost six shillings and sixpence and its first edition of 20,000 copies sold out in three years. By 1859, a Novello pocket edition of the piece could be had for just one shilling and fourpence.

At the same time, ecclesiastical reforms were revitalising singing in churches. The Tractarian Movement of the mid nineteenth

century introduced organs and robed choirs (including women) into chancel spaces and brought higher standards and greater ambition to the performance of liturgical music. The organ, increasingly large and technologically sophisticated as the century progressed, replaced the old west gallery bands (which Thomas Hardy described in his 1872 novel Under the Greenwood Tree ) as the preferred means of musical accompaniment in chapel, church and cathedral. But it was to be expected that choirs in such places should wish to offer, from time to time and for special occasions, more ambitious orchestrally accompanied music-making of the sort enjoyed by their cousins, the choral societies and secular choirs.

Which brings us to the current recording: a collection of sacred works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, more usually heard with accompaniment for organ alone, but here presented in arrangements deploying instead the colours of an orchestra. Some are pieces intended for grand occasions: an enthronement, even a coronation. Some were made for less exalted celebrations in ordinary parish churches. And a third category sees music from the liturgy repurposed and rearranged as concert repertoire for the bestestablished national choral festivals – including the Three Choirs and the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival.

In December 1928, for the enthronement service at which Cosmo Lang was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, a new setting of the Te Deum was commissioned. For such a solemn occasion, the choice of composer was not immediately obvious. The family background of Ralph Vaughan Williams might have been devoutly Christian (his father was an Anglican clergyman), but his own beliefs were later described by his widow Ursula as a lifelong ‘cheerful agnosticism’. But by 1928 he had nevertheless already made an important contribution to Anglican church music through his work as music editor of the 1906 English Hymnal and his output of sacred choral music would eventually embrace everything from hymn tunes and chants to anthems, canticles and ceremonial music for grand occasions –of which this Te Deum in G, originally written with organ accompaniment, was one of the first. The orchestration was made later by Arnold Foster, a friend and pupil who shared many of Vaughan Williams’ musical interests (not least the preservation of folk music and the encouragement of amateur music-making).

Despite its title, the Festival of the Sons of the Clergy is not a festival but rather an annual service which has been held since 1655 at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, raising funds to support families and dependants of Church of England clergy. But it has also come to be a celebration of church music, drawing (by long

tradition) singers from cathedrals and churches across the country to form a choir of several hundred voices, accompanied by an orchestra.

The music list for the Festival in 1935 included the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis that make up George Dyson’s Evening Service in D. This musical statement of muscular Christianity was composed in 1907, in fact in Germany where Dyson was studying on a four-year travelling scholarship. For the Sons of the Clergy service it was orchestrated, on the grandest scale, by Douglas Hopkins (later organist of Peterborough and Canterbury cathedrals, but at this time sub-organist at St Paul’s) – a perfect complement to Dyson’s big-boned music.

Dyson would later become well known as a prolific contributor to the cantata and oratorio repertoire which was the staple choral festival fare. But he was also a significant presence in other fields of British musical life, as a teacher of music at a succession of English public schools, a broadcaster and lecturer at Glasgow and Liverpool universities, an influential administrator as Director of the Royal College of Music, and even (on active service during the First World War) as the author of the standard British Army manual on hand grenade technique. His musical language remained conspicuously conservative: ‘I am familiar with modern idioms’, he would later declare,

There can be few grand occasions grander than a coronation, and for that of Elizabeth II in 1953, the importance of the event –not to mention the large numbers present in Westminster Abbey (400 singers in the choir and 7,000 in the congregation) – meant that the musical resources of a full symphony orchestra were incorporated in the planning from the start. Sixty players from the major London orchestras were crammed onto the organ screen, and much of the music was conceived with orchestral accompaniment in mind. For the Communion service which preceded the rituals of the coronation proper, Herbert Howells composed the introit: Behold, O God our defender. This recording was made using a facsimile of Howells’ original, elegantly handwritten, full score.

Festal occasions in places less exalted than a cathedral or an abbey could also provide a good excuse for orchestral participation. In 1893 the Catholic church of St Catherine of Siena in Birmingham held a service of dedication to mark the completion of the building’s new chancel, Lady chapel and sacristy. The 36-year-old Edward Elgar, already an established figure on the local musical scene, made an orchestral version of his motet Ecce sacerdos magnus.

This had been composed five years earlier for the visit of the Archbishop of Birmingham to another Catholic church, St George’s in Worcester, where Elgar was then organist. The piece borrows its opening notes from the Benedictus of Joseph Haydn’s Harmoniemesse, though Haydn’s energetic original is scarcely recognisable in the steady tread of Elgar’s reworking; Elgar dedicated it to ‘my friend, Hubert Leicester’, choirmaster of St George’s Church.

Another celebratory piece for a parish occasion was amongst the first pieces composed by Edward Bairstow when he arrived as the new organist of York Minster in 1913. Blessed city, heavenly Salem is based on the melody of the plainsong hymn Urbs beata Jerusalem, setting an English translation by the Anglican priest and hymn-writer John Mason Neale. This substantial anthem, one of Bairstow’s most popular, was composed for the combined choirs of All Saints’ and Heaton parish churches in nearby Bradford, and Bairstow himself later made the arrangement recorded here. Interestingly it forgoes the large-scale symphonic resources which would have been the natural counterpart of the original organ accompaniment, instead using simply piano and strings (richly divided, with a part for solo violin). The character of the music becomes much more thoughtful and expressive as a result, and at times seems

to prefigure the language of Bairstow’s sometime composition pupil Gerald Finzi.

Finzi secured his own place as a notable composer in the Anglican pantheon with his 1946 festival anthem Lo, the full, final sacrifice, commissioned to mark the 53rd anniversary of another parish church, St Matthew’s in Northampton. Finzi’s knowledge of, and love for, English poetry was profound and he selected words from two poems by the seventeenth-century Metaphysical poet Richard Crashaw, setting them with characteristic and fastidious care. In this recording we hear Finzi’s own orchestration, made for performance the following year at perhaps the best-known of all British choral festivals: the Three Choirs Festival, which has been held almost every summer since 1715 at the cathedrals of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester.

In 1929 it was the turn of Worcester and Sir Ivor Atkins – the cathedral organist and festival conductor – wondered if it might be possible to coax a new work from his friend Edward Elgar. Something ‘significant’ was Atkins’ particular request to the composer – by which he probably hoped for the much-anticipated conclusion to the trilogy of oratorios which Elgar had begun with The Apostles and The Kingdom thirty years earlier. Instead, Elgar (in a creative slump

‘but they are outside the vocabulary of what I want to say.’

since the death of his wife in 1920) agreed to make an orchestration of a motet by Henry Purcell – Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei, a piece already scheduled for the festival programme. Delivering the completed score, Elgar wrote to Atkins that he had found it ‘an awkward thing to do’ but ‘I have done what I could: if you object to the full (org. & brass) ending, just knock it out’.

Purcell’s original is an intimate piece composed around 1680, probably for the private Catholic chapel of Catherine of Modena, daughter of the future James II. Elgar’s orchestration of Purcell’s continuo accompaniment is characteristically sensitive and skilful, but (as The Times music critic pointed out after the first performance) could nonetheless ‘not avoid thickening the texture of Purcell’s limpid style’. Matters were surely not helped by the fact that ‘in the a cappella section … the choir lost pitch by nearly a semitone’.

Had Atkins managed to secure a new oratorio from Elgar for Three Choirs, it would have been only the latest occasion when a British festival had been the crucible in which an important new choral work was forged. And not only from British composers: the headline commission for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival in 1845 was Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Indeed, for the next hundred years or so, a composer in Britain

proposing to set a substantial dramatic text (whether sacred or secular) as a work for voices and orchestra was far more likely to cast it as oratorio or cantata than in any other form – a position largely unchanged until 1945, when Britten’s Peter Grimes reset the national musical compass, making opera the preferred vehicle for large-scale music drama.

At the Birmingham Festival of 1903, the most important event was the premiere of Elgar’s new oratorio The Apostles. The Spirit of the Lord forms its Prologue, and this wonderfully atmospheric movement seems impossible to imagine separated from Elgar’s rich orchestral accompaniment. But in fact this is a piece which has subsequently had an independent life as a popular church anthem, accompanied instead by organ. Thus, in the final track of this recording, music from the oratorio tradition is re-versioned as church music: we have come full circle.

Michael Emery is a former Organ Scholar of Merton College who now works as Artistic Director of the Danish National Vocal Ensemble and Concert Choir – the professional choirs of DR, Denmark’s public-service broadcaster, in Copenhagen.

© 2023 Michael Emery

1 Blessed city, heavenly Salem

Blessed city, heavenly Salem, vision dear of peace and love, who of living stones art builded in the height of heaven above, and by angel hands apparelled, as a bride doth earthward move;

Out of heaven from God descending, new and ready to be wed to thy Lord, whose love espoused thee, fair adorned shalt thou be led; all thy gates and all thy bulwarks of pure gold are fashioned. Bright thy gates of pearl are shining; they are open evermore; and their well-earned rest attaining thither faithful souls do soar, who for Christ’s dear name in this world pain and tribulation bore.

Many a blow and biting sculpture polished well those stones elect, in their places now compacted by the heavenly architect, nevermore to leave the temple which with them the lord hath decked. To this temple, where we call thee, come, O Lord of Hosts, today; with thy wonted loving-kindness, hear thy servants as they pray; and thy fullest benediction shed within its walls alway. Amen.

3 Magnificat

My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

Ecce sacerdos magnus

Ecce sacerdos magnus qui in diebus suis placuit Deo et inventus est iustus.

Antiphon at vespers of a confessor bishop Behold a great priest who in his days was pleasing to God and found to be righteous.

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.

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.

5 Behold, O God our defender

Behold, O God our defender: and look upon the face of thine anointed.

For one day in thy courts: is better than a thousand.

Psalm 84: 9–10 (Book of Common Prayer)

Urbs beata Jerusalem, 7th or 8th century, tr. John Mason Neale (1818–1866)

2

6 Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei

Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei, quam multi insurgunt contra me. Quam multi dicunt de anima mea, non est ulla salus isti in Deo plane.

At tu, Jehova, clypeus est circa me: gloria mea, et extollens caput meum. Voce mea ad Jehovam clamanti, respondit mihi e monte sanctitatis suae maxime. Ego cubui et dormivi, ego expergefeci me, quia Jehova sustentat me.

Non timebo a myriadibus populi, quas circumdisposuerint metatores contra me. Surge, surge Jehova, fac salvum me, Deus mi; qui percussisti omnes inimicos meos maxilliam [sic], dentes improborum confregisti.

Jehova est salus super populum tuum, sit benedictio tua maxime.

Psalm 3, tr. Immanuel Tremellius (1510–1580) and Franciscus Junius the elder (1545–1602)

Jehovah, how many are my enemies, how many rise up against me. How many say of my soul, there is plainly no salvation for him in God.

But you, Jehovah, are a shield about me: my glory and the one who lifts my head.

When I cried with my voice to Jehovah, he answered me greatly from his hill of holiness. I lay down and slept, I woke again, because Jehova is my support.

I will not be frightened by the myriads of people, that they have set round about me to mark me out. Rise up, rise up Jehova, save me, my God; who have struck all my enemies in the jawbone and smashed the teeth of the wicked.

Jehova is the salvation over your people; may he be your blessing to the greatest degree.

7 Te Deum

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 Cherubim and Seraphim: 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.

8 Lo, the full, final sacrifice

Lo, the full, final sacrifice on which all figures fix’d their eyes, the ransom’d Isaac, and his ram; the Manna, and the Paschal lamb.

Jesu Master, just and true! our Food, and faithful Shepherd too!

O let that love which thus makes thee mix with our low Mortality, lift our lean Souls, and set us up Convictors of thine own full cup, Coheirs of Saints. That so all may drink the same wine; and the same way. Nor change the Pasture, but the Place to feed of thee in thine own Face.

O dear Memorial of that Death which lives still, and allows us breath! Rich, Royal food! Bountiful Bread! whose use denies us to the dead!

Live ever Bread of loves, and be My life, my soul, my surer self to me.

Help Lord, my Faith, my Hope increase; and fill my portion in thy peace. Give love for life; nor let my days grow, but in new powers to thy name and praise.

Rise, Royal Sion! rise and sing thy soul’s kind shepherd, thy heart’s King. Stretch all thy powers; call if you can harps of heaven to hands of man. This sovereign subject sits above the best ambition of thy love.

Lo! the Bread of Life, this day’s triumphant Text provokes thy praise. The living and life-giving bread, to the great twelve distributed when Life, himself, at point to die Of love, was his own Legacy. O soft self-wounding Pelican! whose breast weeps Balm for wounded man.

All this way bend thy benign flood to a bleeding Heart that gasps for blood. That blood, whose least drops sovereign be to wash my worlds of sins from me. Come love! Come Lord! and that long day for which I languish, come away. when this dry soul those eyes shall see, and drink the unseal’d source of thee, when Glory’s sun faith’s shades shall chase, and for thy veil give me thy Face. Amen.

Excerpted from Adoro Te and Lauda Sion Salvatorem by Richard Crashaw (c.1613–1649), after St Thomas Aquinas (c.1225–1274)

The Spirit of the Lord

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor: he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord; to give unto them that mourn a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden that causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel.

Luke 4: 18–19; Isaiah 61: 3, 11 (KJV, slightly altered)

Translations © Henry Howard

Biographies

The Choir of Merton College, Oxford is known internationally through its tours, recordings and broadcasts. In 2020, the choir won the ‘Choral Award’ at the BBC Music Magazine Awards for its recording of Gabriel Jackson’s The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ (Delphian, DCD34222). The choir’s discography on the Delphian label has seen numerous five star reviews and a number of recordings have been Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’. A 2022 release of Ian Venables’ Requiem with orchestral motets by Howells (DCD252) was nominated as one of MusicWeb International’s Recordings of the Year.

Merton College Choir has appeared at The Three Choirs Festival and the Cheltenham Music Festival, and recent London appearances include the concert series at St John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall and The Temple Church. The choir is regularly heard in concert with orchestra, and recent collaborations have seen the choir perform with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Elgar’s The Apostles ), Instruments of Time and Truth (Bach’s St Matthew Passion ) and Oxford Baroque (Bach’s Mass in B minor ). The Passiontide at Merton festival has an established place in Oxford’s musical calendar, and has led to exciting collaborations with such groups as The Cardinall’s Musick and The Marian Consort.

Merton College Choir regularly tours overseas, and has recently visited the USA, Hong Kong and Singapore, France, Italy and Sweden. In 2017, the choir sang the first Anglican service in St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

The choir’s commitment to contemporary music has seen numerous composers write for the choir. In recent years the choir has premiered works by Kerry Andrew, Birtwistle, Chilcott, Dove, Ešenvalds, Kendall, MacMillan, McDowall, Rutter, Tabakova and Weir. In July 2021, the choir gave the world premiere of a new work by Daniel Kidane.

In 2016 Merton College became the first college in Oxford University to admit girls into its choral foundation. The 24 Girl Choristers of Merton College, Oxford attend many different schools across Oxford and beyond, and rehearse at Merton on Mondays and Wednesdays during school term-time. Receiving specialist musical training from the college’s professional musicians, they sing Choral Vespers each Monday and Choral Evensong each Wednesday during the University term, often joined on Wednesdays by six professional adult singers who sing the lower parts. In addition, the choristers undertake a number of concerts and other activities each year, including performing in the Passiontide at Merton festival.

They first appeared on disc alongside the Choir of Merton College in Sleeper’s Prayer (2020, Delphian DCD34232); their own first recording, of Christmas music, In the Stillness (DCD34262), was Classic FM’s Album of the Week.

Britten Sinfonia emerged in 1992 as a bold reimagining of the conventional image of a chamber orchestra. A flexible ensemble comprising the UK’s leading soloists came together with a vision: to collapse the boundaries between old and new music; to collaborate with composers, conductors and guest artists across the arts; and to create music events that audiences and performers experience with an unusual intensity.

Today Britten Sinfonia is heralded as one of the world’s leading ensembles and its philosophy of adventure and reinvention has inspired a new movement of ensembles. Resident Orchestra at Saffron Hall, Associate Ensemble at the Barbican, with residencies in Norwich and Cambridge, Britten Sinfonia also appears at UK festivals including the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh and Norfolk & Norwich Festival. The orchestra has performed a livestream to a million people worldwide from the Sistine Chapel, and has toured to the US, Asia and all over Europe.

of The Oxford Bach Choir. As a conductor, he has appeared with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London

Mozart Players, The BBC Singers and The Holst Singers. At Merton he has developed the work of the College Choir through tours to USA, Singapore and Hong Kong, Sweden, France and Italy, and numerous recordings and broadcasts. In 2016 he founded the College’s Girls’ Choir, and in 2010 founded the Passiontide at Merton Festival. He was elected a Bodley Fellow of Merton in 2018.

Benjamin was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral before holding organ scholarships at Chichester Cathedral, Lincoln College, Oxford and St Paul’s Cathedral. After a period as Director of Music of St Luke’s Church, Chelsea, he was Director of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum and Director of Choral Music at Dean Close School. From 2011 to 2016 he served the Edington Music Festival, firstly as conductor of the Schola and then as Festival Director.

Benjamin Nicholas is Director of Music at Merton College, Oxford and Music Director

As an organist, Benjamin has given recitals across the UK, in the USA and in Europe. Recent engagements include Munich Dom, Bath Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral. Benjamin’s recording of Elgar’s organ music was an Organists’ Review Editor’s Choice and his debut disc received five stars in Choir & Organ.

Sopranos

Eleanor Bufton Lowe

Izzy Mohan Cuquerella

Anna Gatrell

Anna Gunstone

Francesca Hamilton

Amy Higgins

Cecily Moorsom

Imogen Otley

Maia Pereira

Verity Peterken

Agatha Pethers

Isobel Sanders

Áine Smith

Amalia Wardle

Ciara Williams

Altos

Izzi Blain

LucyAnne Fletcher

Lucy Gibbs

Matthew Holland

Saphia Hussain

Kit Thickett

Luca Wetherall

Olivia Williams

Tenors

Clement Collins-Rice

Ben Crossley

Oliver Kelham

Joshua Kenney

Henry Le Feber Robertson

Louis Morford

Wilkie Robson

Oscar Tovey Garcia

Basses

Edward Chesterman

Freddie Crowley

Felix Fardell

Tom Herring

Louis O’Carroll

Matthew O’Connor

Joe Morford

Katie Le Poidevin

Joseph Rhee

Benedict Roose

Alexander Smith

Organ Scholars

Owen Chan

Kentaro Machida

Girl Choristers of Merton College, Oxford

Isabella Aravejo

Margarita Harff

Miuccia Huang

Phoebe Hutt

Felicity Jones

Harriet Kerr

Emily Meredith

Sophie Meredith

Rosie Price-Nowak

Abigail Rolfe

Hannah Rowe

Anna Samuel

Esther Samuel

Emilia Scaber

Rhea Schenke Gonis

Katherine Scott

Molly Templeton

Robyn Underwood

Violin I

John Mills

Fiona McCapra

Clara Biss

Hannah Bell

Lucy Jeal

Michael Jones

Antonia Kesel

Ariel Lang

Minn Majoe

Dorina Markoff

Eleanor Mathieson

Maria Mazzarini

Madeleine Pickering

Violin II

Miranda Dale

Nicola Goldscheider

Suzanne Loze

Anna Bradley

Judith Stowe

Paula Clifton-Everest

Bridget Davey

Georgina Leo

Violas

Clare Finnimore

Sascha Bota

Bridget Carey

Mircea Belei

Abby Bowen

Laura Cooper

Chris Pitsillides

Cellos

Caroline Dearnley

Ben Chappell

Joy Hawley

Chris Allan

Alessandro Sanguineti

Double Basses

Stephen Williams

Ben Russell

Ben Daniel-Greep

Flutes

Thomas Hancox

Katie Bedford

Sarah O’Flynn

Oboes

Peter Facer

Adrian Rowlands

Clarinets

Jernej Albreht

Jon Carnac

Anton Clarke-Butler

Bassoons

Sarah Burnett

Simon Couzens

Trumpets

Chris Deacon

Heidi Bennett

Sam Kinrade

Charlotte Buchanan

Trombones

Andrew Connington

Mark Templeton

Rory Cartmell

Matthew Lewis

Bass Trombone

Paul Lambert

Tuba

Adrian Miotti

Timpani

William Lockhart

Percussion

Owen Gunnell

Harp

Tomos Xerri

Tamara Young

Piano

Richard Gowers

Contrabassoon

Bruce Parris

Horns

Andrew Littlemore

Lindsay Kempley

John Davy

David McQueen

Organ

Owen Chan

Kentaro Machida

Choir of Merton College, Oxford Britten Sinfonia

Ian Venables: Requiem; Howells: anthems for choir & orchestra

Choir of Merton College, Oxford; Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia; Benjamin Nicholas conductor & solo organ

DCD34252

Ian Venables’ Requiem, warmly received at its 2020 premiere with organ accompaniment, is heard here in an orchestrated version made specially for this recording. Conductor Benjamin Nicholas draws parallels between Venables’ work and the familiar English choral soaund of Herbert Howells, whose work is also heard here in unfamiliar orchestrated versions– new arrangements of two of his Four Anthems by Howells scholars Howard Eckdahl and Jonathan Clinch, and the first recording of Howells’ original orchestration of The House of the Mind.

‘The fresh-voiced young singers of the Choir of Merton College sing quite gloriously with perfect balance, blend and intonation’

— MusicWeb International, October 2022, RECORDINGS OF THE YEAR

Gabriel Jackson: The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ

Emma Tring soprano, Guy Cutting tenor ; Choir of Merton College, Oxford; Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia; Benjamin Nicholas conductor

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Strikingly coloured and richly imaginative, Gabriel Jackson’s re-telling of the age-old story of Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion interweaves biblical narrative, English poetry and Latin hymns, culminating in a rare setting of poetry by T.S. Eliot – himself an alumnus of Merton College, Oxford, which commissioned the present work as part of its Merton Choirbook project. Shorter items from the Choirbook have featured on previous Delphian releases; now, The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is revealed as the project’s crowning glory. Under the direction of longtime Jackson collaborator Benjamin Nicholas, it receives here a performance to match the work’s own harrowing drama and dark ecstasy.

‘This outstanding recording bursts with energy’

— BBC Music Magazine, June 2019, CHORAL & SONG CHOICE

The Merton Collection: Merton College at 750 Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips

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In 2014, the University of Oxford’s Merton College celebrates its 750th year. Benjamin Nicholas and Peter Phillips’ specially conceived journey through seven centuries of choral repertoire provides a bird’s-eye view of some important moments in musical history, and features two composers personally associated with the College – John Dunstaple and Lennox Berkeley – as well as three new works commissioned for the anniversary celebrations. The choir, a relatively recent addition to this illustrious college’s complement of treasures, gives stylish and committed performances in the famous acoustic of Merton’s thirteenthcentury chapel.

‘fine musicianship, commitment and versatility’

— Choir & Organ, January/February 2014

O Holy Night: A Merton Christmas

Choir of Merton College, Oxford & Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra / Benjamin Nicholas

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A recording of director Benjamin Nicholas’s favourite carols: two of John Rutter’s most exquisite works are complemented by orchestral versions of well-loved traditional fare. From the ecstatic brass fanfares that introduce O come, all ye faithful and Hark! the herald-angels sing to the intimate performances of Elizabeth Poston’s Jesus Christ the apple tree and Morten Lauridsen’s O magnum mysterium, Christmas old and new is celebrated with a fresh sense of all its magic and glory. The choir and orchestra loved making this recording, and it shows.

‘Benjamin Nicholas and his superb choir are on top form’

— MusicWeb International, November 2017

Also available on Delphian

In the Beginning

Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips

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Established in 2008, Merton College’s new choral foundation is rapidly emerging as a major force in collegiate choral music. Its debut recording –bookended by Gabriel Jackson’s ravishing version of the rarely set Johannine Prologue and Copland’s glowing account of the first seven days of creation – makes inventive play with the theme of beginnings and endings, in a sequence of Renaissance and modern works that reflects the range and reach of the choir’s daily repertoire.

‘… will undoubtedly establish them as one of the UK’s finest choral ensembles. Listening to their superb performances and seamless blending of voices, it’s hard to believe that the choir is only four years old’

— Gramophone, December 2011, EDITOR’S CHOICE

Elgar: Organ Works

Benjamin Nicholas organ

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The first recording of Merton’s new Dobson organ, spanning repertoire from Bach and Stanley to Dupré and Messiaen, demonstrated the instrument’s considerable versatility. But behind the contemporary sophistication of its construction and design, this is essentially an English Romantic organ with a big, warm-hearted personality, and this second recording highlights those qualities in music by the composer who preeminently shares them. Benjamin Nicholas proves himself a fine Elgarian and an inventive programmer, coupling Elgar’s two original major works for the organ with three transcriptions – including a first outing on CD for the superb arrangement of the Prelude to The Kingdom made by Elgar’s contemporary, the Gloucester Cathedral organist Herbert Brewer.

‘Compelling readings … The recording is detailed with every nuance, every pianissimo and swell, warmly captured’

— MusicWeb International, June 2016

O How Glorious is the Kingdom: Favourite Anthems

Choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle / Timothy Byram-Wigfield

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The Choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle offers a sumptuous programme of jewels from the anthem tradition whose repertoire spans five centuries. The beautiful surroundings of St George’s Chapel provide an acoustic both immediate and luxurious, and the choir responds with a sound which is at once arresting and awe-inspiring.

‘There are many choral groups performing cathedral music on CD and in concert, but no matter how polished their singing nothing quite matches the experience of hearing our greatest church choirs singing their own repertoire on their own territory. So it is with this splendid CD: surely the next best thing to being present in the sumptuous surroundings of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle’ — Organists’ Review, August 2006

Holst: The Cloud Messenger

The Choir of King’s College London, The Strand Ensemble / Joseph Fort

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This crowning glory from the composer Gustav Holst’s Sanskrit period fell into obscurity following a disappointing premiere in 1913; it deserves to be much better known. Telling the powerful fifth-century story of an exiled yaksha who spies a passing cloud and sends upon it a message of love to his distant wife in the Himalayas, it is rich in its harmonic language and ingenious in its motivic construction, and points the way to Holst’s next major work, The Planets. This colourful chamber version by conductor Joseph Fort lends the more tender passages a new intimacy and clarity, while retaining much of the force of the original.

‘[Fort’s arrangement shows] sensitivity, skill and an evident love for Holst’s visionary, rapturously romantic score ... The singing, too, has a lovely sweetness and purity of tone’

— Gramophone, July 2020