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Contents:
TE DEUM LAUDAMUS This was a commission in 1967 from the Collegiate Church of St. Mary, Warwick, where twenty years earlier I had been Assistant Organist for a short time. It is a mainly unison setting with some optional descant passages. I occasionally used it in Ely with Men’s voices when the Boys were not available, and it is obviously useful for School Chapel Services. I was reminded of its existence in 1992, when examining in Hong Kong: the sometime Director of Music at Gresham’s School, Holt, Norfolk told me of an occasion when he directed it at a Service during an Aldeburgh Festival period – ‘Both Britten and Pears were present and they commented favourably on the piece’. I was glad to hear this – Ben could be scathing about music he didn’t respect, and he was of course a pupil at Gresham’s 1928/30 before going on to the Royal College of Music. MISSA BREVIS In the course of my first concert tour of the Antipodes in July/August 1980, I met Neil Shroff, the Director of the Auckland Boys’ Choir. He was looking for new works for an Anniversary Celebration Concert to be held at the Church of Saint Matthew’s-in-the-City on November 2nd. Obviously there was no time to be lost when I arrived back in Ely at the beginning of September. A Missa (however Brevis!) with its six movements is a considerable undertaking, but it was ready in good time for the rehearsals required and took its place effectively with the other commissioned pieces. AVE VERUM CORPUS This motet, together with the contrasting ‘O quam gloriosum’ was commissioned by St. Margaret’s Church, King’s Lynn in 1960. It was the custom of Ely Cathedral at that time for the daily Eucharist at 8.00 am on Prayer Book Festivals to be sung by the Choristers alone, usually to plainchant, and the motet was sung at the Offertory. THE CAROL OF KING CANUTE Memorably nick-named by the Choristers – ‘The Carol of Kinky-Boots’ (it was the Sixties!) this was composed in 1967, and intended to be sung under the West Tower at the Blessing of the Crib at the Christmas Eve Carol Service and was so used until my retirement in 1990. Charles Stubbs (Dean 1894-1906) used a reference to Canute in the ‘Liber Eliensis’ as the first verse of a Carol of which I set five of Stubbs’ seven verses. For this recording the original SATB texture is arranged for Trebles in two/three-part textures with light piano accompaniment. The original SATB version may be heard on ‘A Choral Festival’ (Chandos 6603). ‘ELY’ (PARTSONG FOR TREBLE VOICES AND PIANO) Note on the author: As a teenager John Harold Jennings became an Organ pupil of Dr. Marmaduke Conway at Ely Cathedral in 1938, travelling regularly from his home in Swaffham, Norfolk for his lessons. Music and medicine were to become his main interests, and at the outset of the Second World War, at the age of 18 he was first posted to the R.A.F. Hospital in Ely, and subsequently to service in the Western Desert as a Medical Officer. In the heat and dust his thoughts frequently turned to Ely, and this passionately evocative poem was born. Raymond (Paddy) Bailey has supplied this note and my music, composed in 1984, is dedicated to his memory. MARCH: ‘CITY OF ELY’ (SYMPHONIC SUITE: ‘THE FENLANDS’) Intended as a tribute to the typical ‘English March’ – and especially in this recording as an ‘In Memoriam’ to Sir Edward Elgar in this his 150th anniversary year, this is the fourth and concluding movement of my commission from the Cambridge Brass Band in 1981 for a piece combining Band and Organ. In 1994 I arranged three movements for solo organ. THERE IS NO ROSE OF SUCH VIRTUE This Carol was composed in 1976 at the suggestion of Anne Marsden Thomas, when she was a B.Mus.student in my class at the Royal Academy of Music. She conducted the ‘John Grooms Crippleage’ Ladies Choir at that time, and now twentyfive years later programmes the piece on suitable occasions at St. Giles, Cripplegate, where she is a long-standing Director of Music. SING A NEW SONG TO THE LORD In 1964 the Rev. David Walser became Chaplain to the King’s School and introduced the Responsorial Psalmody concept to the Services. He produced versions of Psalms 98 and 130, and ‘Sing a new song to the Lord’ became something of a ‘hit’ on RSCM Chorister Courses – people do prefer to be cheerful! This performance includes the refrain, verses three and four and the Gloria. EVENING CANTICLES FOR TREBLES When the Choristers were in residence most Services would be sung by the full Choir but occasionally they were required to perform without the Lay-Clerks. This setting dates from 1968 and gives much scope for a soloist in the high register – appropriately for the Song of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was reviewed enthusiastically by the late lamented Michael Fleming in the RSCM magazine Church Music Quarterly, and he frequently featured it in Services with his Choristers. ‘CAEDMON’ A CHILDREN’S CANTATA James Tilly (sometime the Choristers’ Housemaster) produced this ‘somewhat free interpretation of the Venerable Bede’s account of St. Caedmon’s calling’ in 1985. His note on the text states: ‘Saint Caedmon is traditionally held to be the author of the earliest known and surviving poem in the English language. It is mentioned by the Venerable Bede in his ‘History of the English Church and People’ (A.D.731) and Bede is certainly the source for the legend of St. Caedmon’s miraculous gift of song. St. Caedmon died in 680 A.D. My setting of James Tilly’s ‘free interpretation of Bede’ attempts to match this in its overtly ‘popular’ musical idiom and should perhaps interest all children – whether Trebles or Sopranos. It was always an appealing item in the programme for ‘Friday Night’ visits to the Churches in the Ely Diocese. © Arthur Wills, 2007
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