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DDD Total time = 65.06 - Recorded at the Church of St. Mary, Warwick 1998 Programme Notes:To claim that the selection of music recorded here is a typical cross-section of Anglican church music may at first seem odd to those hitherto unaccustomed to the idiosyncracies of English worship; yet it is undeniably true. The Anglican Church is nothing if not broad, and its musical tastes reflect a liberality and spirit of compromise that some abhor but most cherish. This is confirmed not least by the Anglican approach to language. While its church services are required to be in a tongue understood by the people, the singing of anthems or even of the mass in the original Latin or Greek is a regular occurrence (witness the Gloria attributed to Mozart that is recorded here). Many of the English texts sung every Sunday are in fact denoted by foreign titles - such as the Jubilate or the Te deum. There is, however, no consistency about what is translated into the English tongue, and what is not. Thus Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen by Johannes Brahms, originally a movement from his German Requiem for mixed chorus and orchestra and staple fodder in the German choral diet, has been extrapolated, arranged for church choir and organ and Englified as How lovely are thy dwellings. As such it has become one of the commonest anthems heard in the Anglican Church. All flesh is as grass thunders out the chorus in the meatiest movement of Brahms' Requiem; but the only grass here is the sweet smelling sward of England's pastures green. The Anglican penchant for saccharine is even better served by the Pie Jesu from another requiem, this time by Gabriel Fauré. It was written in 1887, after the death of the composer's father, and around the time of the decease of his mother. Nevertheless, Fauré claimed that his Requiem had nothing to do with either event, but was intended simply to be pleasurable to the ear. In this he succeeded admirably. The Pie Jesu in particular has become a firm favourite, both with boy sopranos and with those church-goers who prefer to think of death less in terms of fire and brimstone than of angelic trebles singing exquisite French melodies (the same congregations will incidentally be well served by Lallouette's O mysterium ineffable, whose melodies are no less exquisite for being two hundred years older than those of Fauré). This recording also features much that is best of home-grown Anglican music. Our choral tradition, while stretching back to the Renaissance and beyond - one thinks of William Byrd, Thomas Tallis et al - is largely a creation of the nineteenth century, when a handful of brave men dragged back the music of the Anglican church from the dreadful abyss into which it had by then fallen. One of the most important of those happy few was Thomas Attwood Walmisley, named after his godfather Thomas Attwood, the renowned English pupil of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Walmisley became professor of music at Cambridge in 1836 while still an undergraduate. He not only became organist of Trinity College and of St John's, but also deputized at King's College and at the University Church. This meant his playing at up to eight services on a single Sunday (and taking much of the choir with him as he rushed from chapel to chapel). It is not surprising that he suffered from depression and became an alcoholic. His choral music today belongs to the standard repertoire of church and cathedral choirs. Remember, O Lord was written around 1838, the year in which he took his Bachelor's degree at Cambridge. One of the major figures in church music from the close of the last century was Sir Alfred Herbert Brewer, whose Marche héroique has no doubt served as a rousing voluntary for many a cathedral organist. Brewer studied at the Royal College of Music and at Oxford, was appointed organist and choirmaster of Gloucester Cathedral in 1896, and directed the Three Choirs Festival for many years. That same festival played no small part in establishing the fame of Edward Elgar, many of whose choral works were performed there. Elgar is here represented by the anthem Give unto the Lord. He was himself no Anglican, but a Roman Catholic, which however has never bothered the choirs or congregations who enjoy his music. Elgar's piety was never in doubt; but it is a curious fact that some of the most significant English church music of our century has been composed neither by Anglicans nor even by Roman Catholics, but by atheists and agnostics such as Benjamin Britten, Vaughan Williams and Michael Tippett. Vaughan Williams is today best known for his magnificent canon of symphonies, though his music for the church is also regularly performed. O Taste and See is one of his briefest works, but also one of the most perfect. It was written to be sung during the Queen's Communion at the coronation service of Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953. The music of Benjamin Britten hardly needs an introduction. His operas are the most often performed of the past fifty years - probably only Strauss and Puccini surpass him for popularity among twentieth-century stage composers. While foreign audiences are well acquainted with his operas, they are however largely denied direct access to some of his finest small-scale pieces, for they were written specifically with the Anglican church in mind. The Te deum recorded here dates from 1934, and is one of his earliest works to have gained a firm place in the repertoire. The Jubilate was written in 1961, while Britten was working on his War Requiem. It is nevertheless just as joyful as its subject-matter demands. One of the most remarkable aspects of the Anglican Church is its openness to new music. There are few notable English composers who have written nothing for its services, and the churches and cathedrals throughout the country are one of the most important platforms for introducing new musical talent. This CD features a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis by Graystone Ives (a former member of the King's Singers) that was in fact commissioned by the Choir of St Mary's Warwick. It demonstrates admirably that contemporary music not only has a role to play in church worship, but that modern music can be serious without being incomprehensible, and approachable without condescension. John Rutter is perhaps the most popular composer of church music in Britain today. His music is tonal, its ambience neo-Romantic, and of a kind that would once have been utterly condemned by the would-be Modernists of the 1960s and '70s. However, his style has outlived them, still stranded as they are in those wastelands of radical chic where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. His music is beautifully crafted, blessed with a fine melodic gift, and has an appeal that must surely be universal. A description of the organ piece War March of the Ancient Martians is perhaps best left to Kevin Bowyers, organist of St Mary's Warwick and devotee and furtherer of its creator: 'Caractacus Ginger McGivor, possibly the most unorthodox of all organ composers, was a shepherd by profession. He received no formal musical training of any kind and played no instrument. His voice, however, was legendary among his pastoral comrades and stories of his vocal improvisations, resounding around the huge open spaces of the Grampians, are retold with awe to this day by those who knew him. McIvor was unable to read music and consequently all his works are written in a kind of graphic notation, in which symbols and diagrams take the place of notes. The present short work, composed for interpretation "on any instrument", reflects the composer's interest in astronomy and the lurid science fiction novels of the early twentieth century.' ©1998 Dr. Chris Walton Remember O Lord what is come upon us (Track 5): O Taste and See (Track 6): March Héroique (Track 7): Magnificat (Track 9): War March of the Ancient Martians (Track 10): Te deum in C (Track 13): Page revised 26.06.03 |
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