GMCD 7174 You can order this CD in our E-Shop under Choral Music/Various Choirs Reviews *** Sound Clips***	Canzonetta sing Carter Canzonetta Director of Music Jeffrey Wynn Davies Matthew Owens Organ

Contents:

DDD Total Time = 65.32 / Recorded in All Saints Church, Stand, Manchester

I was delighted to be approached by Jeffrey Wynn Davies with the idea of recording some of my shorter titles. The present collection represents a good overview of my choral writing, from the youthful folksong arrangements to a very recent anthem. With one exception, my many carols have been excluded along with the larger works.

From my earliest years I sang in choirs and came to appreciate how the great writers of choral literature draw inspiration from the text and allow the meaning of the words to shine through the music. With listeners and performers in mind I have tried to do the same, using a straightforward harmonic idiom that erects no barriers between the poet and the 'ordinary' listener.

Lighting upon a suitable text is the first hurdle in tackling a new commission. Precious weeks can slip by with much stony ground covered before the best words leap out of the page at you. So it was with Rejoice in the lord alway (track 01) written recently for Ian Holiday's splendidly youthful choir at Epsom College. Just as Purcell used the dance rhythms of the time in his famous setting, I have drawn on our own lively syncopations for the ritornello.

Deep Peace (02), a simple two part setting for unaccompanied upper voices, was written for the girls at the Mount School, a Quaker foundation in York, and dedicated to their conductor at the time, Frances Harwood.

Holy Spirit, Truth divine (03) is one of three interpolations in Te Deum, one of my larger choral works with orchestra, commissioned by Trinity English Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In the first performance, directed by Robert Hobby, the children's choir and adult chorus sing alternate stanzas before combining in the final descant verse.

The double choir O praise God (04) comes from Three Psalms commissioned by Norman Morris and his Reading Phoenix Choir. Currently celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, this choir sang all its concerts from memory long before it dawned on the rest of us to try it. Their Hexagon performances are as legendary for the skilful staging as for fine singing, and have been the annual focus for many new commissions from English composers.

The Light of the world (05) was my very first American commission, requested by Steve Jobman for the installation of a new Presbyterian pastor in Galesburg, a railway town a few hundred miles drive west of Chicago in the cornfields of Illinois. The title, like the text, was inspired by an early morning pilgrimage to Holman Hunt's painting in the side chapel of Keble College, Oxford, at the foot of which are the words 'Behold I stand at the door and knock ...'. A larger version of the painting hangs in the south aisle of the nave of St Paul's Cathedral in London.

In 1984 my family and I spent a year in New Zealand on my appointment as guest conductor of the Auckland Dorian Choir. Impressed by their rich sonorities, handed on by my illustrious predecessor, Peter Godfrey, I was soon arranging Steal away (06), with the scent of lemons and grapefruit wafting in from the garden on the warm January air.

God be in my head (07), a little anthem/introit out of the same stable as May the mystery, was written at the request of my godmother Pat Caulder, to whose son Julian I was in turn godfather. There was a distinct implication that since I had failed markedly to discharge my duties during his upbringing I might at least write something for his wedding. The first phrase of the tenor line is a hidden tribute to Walford Davies' setting of the same words.

Love one another (08) was written for Maurice Casey and his choir at First United Methodist Church, Worthington, Ohio and combines biblical verses with eloquent lines from Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet'. The text seemed to lead naturally into the closing hymn, Come down, O love divine, where I make bold to supplant Vaughan Williams' tune with a new unison setting named 'Worthington'.

May the mystery of God (09) was commissioned for the little parish choir of St Barnabas in Christchurch, on New Zealand's South Island. Their conductor, Martin Setchell, suggested the very beautiful text by the South Island poet Joy Cowley.

My setting of the Londonderry Air to the words I would be true (10) was requested for another wedding. This is one of the most glorious melodies of all time and, wanting to let the tune speak for itself, I disciplined myself to simple diatonic harmony until the one accidental of the final phrase.

Easter Alleluia (11) was commissioned by June Nixon for her cathedral choir in Melbourne, Australia. Desperate after a fruitless search for some cheerful Eastertide words, I fell to writing my own with a liberal sprinkling of Alleluias. The organ part was played on the original keyboards of Huddersfield Town Hall, rescued from Yorkshire and incorporated in the Melbourne rebuild.

Mary's Magnificat (12) was written for Roy Massey and Hereford Cathedral Choir. I drove down from York to attend the carol service and joined a long queue at the north porch where the cathedral stewards were inspecting tickets. 'I'm sorry not to have a ticket, but Roy Massey is expecting me' I explained. 'We've heard that one before' retorted the steward. I tried again. 'I've written a carol specially for the service'. 'Sorry, we've had that one before as well'. In the end I did get in after grovelling to the head steward, and sat in the choir for a lovely service and first performance, accompanied beautifully by David Briggs.

On my first visit to Fort Wayne for the Te Deum premiere, I was invited to the nearby Methodist church by Irene Ator to hear the Frobenius organ. I was particularly smitten by the sesquialtera stop and the English horn, and on my return to England wrote the Aria for Organ (13) to feature these sounds in a sort of 'song without words'. On my next visit I had the great pleasure of sitting in the loft to hear 'Indiana Irene' play it. One of my Yorkshire pals tells me it is popular at funerals!

The unofficial national anthem of New Zealand is the lovely Pokarekare Ana (14) from the Maori people. My arrangement was born out of the necessity for an unaccompanied version at an official function.

The Three Folk Songs (15,16 17) date from my courting days over three decades ago, when soon after we met in York Sylvia took up the head of music post at Dame Allan's Girls' School in Newcastle. Not to be so easily put off, I spent the next year commuting and dedicated these arrangements, mostly written on the train, to my County Durham lass in the hope of clinching a deal. If O waly, waly and I will give my love an apple failed to impress, then Come you not from Newcastle? obviously did the trick.

Andrew Carter

Page revised 26.06.03