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Evensong

& Vespers Choir of King’s at King’s The College, Cambridge Stephen Cleobury, conductor

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EVENSONG & VESPERS

he change in the forms of worship of the English church consequent upon the Reformation occurred within ten years of the completion by Henry VIII of King’s College Chapel. The services or “offices” of the medieval church were reduced in the Anglican church to two: Morning and Evening Prayer. This recording features Evening Prayer -Evensong- as it might be sung today in the chapel, albeit without the spoken parts - lessons and prayers. By way of comparison, Vespers, still the evening office of the Roman Catholic church, is also included, again without the spoken parts, and with some of the psalms omitted through lack of space. The close relationship between the two services will readily be seen. An initial call to worship, “O Lord, open thou our lips” and “Deus in adjutorium”, leads into the psalmody. The use of the psalms dates back not only to early Christian liturgical tradition, but to Jewish patterns of worship also. Special psalms are set for particular seasons and days in the church’s year. In Psalm 50, the Advent theme of God as judge is presented. In Vespers for a feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the liturgical theme is carried mainly by the antiphons which are sung before and after each psalm. This theme continues through the Bible reading and Hymn, and into the antiphon to the canticle Magnificat. Evening Prayer is a conf lation of Vespers and the late evening office of Compline, and includes from the latter a second canticle, the Nunc Dimittis. A second lesson was introduced, so that both Old and New Testaments could be represented. These lessons were much longer than those in the old offices, demonstrating the increased emphasis laid on scripture in the reformed churches. After prayers, Vespers often ends with a Marian antiphon, while at Evensong an anthem follows, ref lecting, ideally, the theme of the day. Both services end with a “dismissal”. The services can be “recited without note”, that is, said. But in both the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions there exists a great body of music for them. Vespers can be sung entirely in plainsong. At the other extreme are elaborate settings, such as Monteverdi’s “Vespers of 1610”. In the music chosen here, there is a progression from the relative austerit y of the chant, through

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settings of the Hymn and Magnificat in which chant and polyphony alternate, to the wholly polyphonic Salve Regina. All the polyphony draws thematic material from the chant. The composers represented are, respectively, German, Spanish and Italian. The repertoire selected for Evensong draws principally on the work of two figures both born towards the end of the nineteenth century, who, as composers, performers and teachers, were part of the great renaissance in Englsih music in their day. Their richly chromatic harmonies, however, display their close familiarit y with Wagner and Brahms. The contrasted organ pieces which frame the sequence of choral music show something of the versatilit y of the chapel organ, which can provide the delicacy and clarit y needed for Byrd, the orchestral colour envisaged by Dyson and Bairstow, and an important ingredient in “painting” the words of the psalms, and the dynamic range required in Howells. The daily singing of Evensong is the raison d’etre of our many collegiate and cathedral choirs. The purpose and value of this activit y is summed up by John Drury, formerly Dean of King’s, as he describes what we need to do to enter into the spirit of the service: “First we have to be patient and relaxed enough to allow a long tradition to have its say. Then we should allow our own thoughts and feelings to become closer to us than life outside admits. These two things are not separate. In the tradition there are, along with what is strange, strong expressions of our basic feelings about ourselves and God. And it is precisely the cool and ancient order of services which gives a space and a frame, as well as cues, for the ref lections on our regrets and hopes and gratitudes. The best analogy of it is in a relation of love. There, as here, we find ourselves by attending to another. So we may learn a little of what we need and enjoy everywhere.” Stephen Cleobury

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2. Deus in adjutorium meum intende. Domine ad adjuvandum me festina. Gloria Patri, et Filio et Spiritui Sancto Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saeculorum Amen. Alleluia. 3. Antiphon Dum esset rex in accubitu suo, nardus mea dedit odorem suavitatis. 4. Psalm Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis. Donec ponam inimicos tuos: scabellum pedum tuorum. Virgam virtutis tuae emittet Dominus ex Sion: dominare in medio inimicorum tuorum. Tecum principium in die virtutis tuae in splendoribus sanctorum: ex utero ante luciferum genui te. Juravit Dominus, et non paenitebit eum: Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech. Dominus a dextris tuis: confregit in die irae suae reges Judicabit in nationibus, implebit ruinas: conquassabit capita in terra multorum. De torrente in via bibet: propterea exaltabit caput Gloria Patri, et Filio: et Spiritui Sancto Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper: et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

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