Reviews
GMCD 7287
Love and Honour
Organists’ Review May
2005
Love & Honour
Choir of Queens'
College, Cambridge, James Southall (organ), directed by Samuel Hayes
A Garland for the Queen
(1953) secular Choral Works by Arthur Bliss, Arnold Bax, Michael Tippen, Vaughan
Williams, Lennox Berkeley, John Ireland, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, Alan
Rawsthorne, Edmund Rubbra; C H H Parry I was glad; Tarik O'Regan Tu Claustra
Regia (2003); Tarik O'Regan Cantate Domino (2002); Patrick Gowers Viri Galilcei
(1988); William Walton The Twelve (1956) Recorded June 2003; T I'7113.
To behold the sheer
range expressed in these two CDs - of composers, texts, periods, musical styles
and textures, nature of choirs, size of buildings, mix of the professional and
non-paid, organs large and modest, acoustics vast and intimate - is to allow
oneself a momentary glow of admiration that in the midst of all civilisation's
problems the remarkable tradition of composing and performing choral music still
flourishes in this land.
Yes, I know it has all
but vanished from the parish churches, but though that is of course a great
grief, it was, looked at historically, only a relatively brief period in which
the parishes had the resources and liturgical outlook to match the cathedrals
and collegiate chapels. The great tradition will survive and develop even from
its currently reduced base. That it still has a bright future is surely
evidenced by the steady rise in quality of music making in the non choir-school
Oxbridge college chapels, such as Queens', Cambridge, with their largely
undergraduate mixed choirs and their undergraduate organ scholars (or,
increasingly, a Director of Music to bring maturity and stability).
The ability and
commitment of such a choir as at Queens' is shown not only by their adventurous
and demanding programming (let's ignore I was glad, which scarcely fits
the programme or their otherwise scintillatingly high standard of blend and
perfor-mance) but by the very freshness of their sound, their lithe voices
fearlessly tackling some of this extremely challenging repertoire. Have you ever
wondered why we hear so little of the ten songs in the 1953 A Garland
for the Queen
collection,
composed for a concert the night before Her Majesty's Coronation? Well, it's not
because they are unworthy trifles. Far from it: each of Britain's leading choral
composers was inspired to
draw an their very best,
and the results were memorable. Commissioned by the Arts Council and first
performed an 1 June 1953 in the new Royal Festival Hall, with the Golden Age
Singers and the Cambridge University Madrigal Society conducted by Boris Ord,
the ten `songs for mixed voices' look both back to a pre-war golden age of
British Song, and forward to a hoped-for post-war golden age of prosperity and
artistic growth under a young new Queen. Heady days indeed. The Choir of Queens'
College is to be congratulated for reviving the Garland for performance
and recording an its fiftieth anniversary; rarely has such a collection been
more worthy of revival, and rarely can these pieces have been performed with
such conviction, blend and excellent intonation. They are well matched with new
works by the talented Tarik O'Regan (the next generation's Kenneth Leighton?),
by Patrick Gowers' popular Viri Galiloei (also rather Leightonesque) and
by a scintillating performance of Walton's ever-stirring The Twelve,
where the Organ is played fearlessly by James Southall. Samuel Hayes is to be
congratulated in bringing such disciplined excellence to the service of all this
memorable music. Something of a triumph all round.
St Paul's Cathedral is
of course a more familiar venue for Choral delights; in this eighth volume of
The English Anthem - presumably John Scott's last - its musicians do
not disappoint. From the splendour of their vast band of layclerks sounding off
at a cracking pace with Wesley's great tub-thumper Praise the Lord, my soul
(nearly twelve minutes of it), via the spectacular double-choir glories of
Parry's inspired Lord, let me know mine end (10'22"), to the delicate
strands of Middleton's Let my prayer be set forth or John Scott's
reflective, Howellsian Behold, O God our defender, there is nothing but
quality of voice, musicianship and music. To the end of his time there, John
Scott never allowed the acoustic to determine the tempi - resolute adherence to
a speed at which a work feels just right was always maintained, the 10 second
echo being somehow cowed into submission (mind you, hearing the spoken word in
that building is another matter entirely - a real nightmare). Each piece in this
collection - those considered first-rate, those considered perhaps less than
first-rate, and those scarcely considered at all - is given added quality
through the pedigree of the performers and performance; thus many find a stature
which would surprise the cynic. If this CD enables some standard works to
receive reference performances, and some lesser works to receive a fresh
popularity, then it will have done more than most such collections.
Warmly recommended.
Paul Hale
CMQ March 2006
LOVE AND HONOUR: A
Celebratbn of Brttaln's Sovereign and Music
Choir of Queens'
College, Cambridge/lames Southall (organ)/Samuel HagesThis is a splendid disc.
It features Parry's I was Glad, A Garland for the Queen (a compilation of pieces
by Bliss, Bax, Tippett, Vaughan Williams, Lennox Berkeley, Ireland, Howells,
Finzi, Rawsthorne, and Rubbra), two pieces by Tarik O'Regan (b. 1978), Viri
Galilei by Patrick Gowers, and Walton's The Tivelve.
I was Glad needs no
introduction; but A Garland for the Queen may not be so widely known these days.
It was commissioned by the Arts Council of Great Britain and performed at the
Royal Festival Hall an the eve of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth 11 in 1953.
It is both stylistically diverse (just Look at who the composers are), yet
remarkably successful as a whole and contains a number of real gems. The
freshness and lightness of the voices of the young Bingers of the choir of
Queens' Cambridge bring a lovely lissom breeziness to the music; and crystal
dear diction enables the listener to appreciate every nuance in the imaginative
Word and mood-painting that is a recurrent feature of the pieces. The
contemporary Works are also highly enjoyable. Tarik O'Regan's Tu Claustra Stirpe
Regia is beguilingly sensuous, with beautiful and well-judged employment of
dissonance. The Same composer's Cantate Domino (O sing unto the Lord a new Song)
is more energetic. If you do not already know Viri Galiloei by Patrick Gowers,
you are missing a treat: it is a very clever work with brilliantly contrasted
ideas and a fabulous organ accompaniment. The choir sings this anthem with real
verve and enthusiasm -just what is needed for a successful Performance. Finally,
Walton's The Twelve brings the disc to a rousing conclusion. James Southall, who
plays so well for all the accompanied items, proves his mettle in the wag he
handles this challenging organ part; and conductor Samuel Hayes holds together
the diverse structure most convincingly. All in all, a really enjoyable disc and
highly recommended.
International Record
Review March 2005, (full price, 1 hour 11 minutes)
English texts included.
Producer/Engineer
Jeffrey Ginn.
Dates
June 22nd-25th,
2003.
Love and Honour
New Various A Garland
for the Queen -Bax What is it like to be young and fair?; L. Berkeley Spring at
this hour; Bliss Aubade; Finzi White-flowering days; Howells Inheritance;
Ireland The Hills; Rawsthorne Canzonet; Rubbra Salutation; Tippett Dance,
Clarion Air; Vaughan Williams Silence and Music.
Gowers Viri Galilaeia.
O'Regan Tu Claustra Stirpe Regia.
Cantate Domino. Parry I
was Glad. Walton The Twelve.
Queens' College Choir,
Cambridge/Samuel Hayes with James Southall, Anna Smith (organs).
In various respects,
this new CD (actually recorded for the Queen's Jubilee in 2003) has some
attractions, but it is difficult to recommend it wholeheartedly. The main
attraction is the new release of `A Garland for the Queen', the ten
madrigal-style settings by British composers written expressly for the Queen's
Coronation festivities in 1953. These are excellently performed and recorded by
a choir of suitable (i.e., relatively small) strength, but Parry's I Was Glad
(originally written for the 1902 Coronation of Edward VII, and sung at every
succeeding Coronation) - without the incorporated 'Vivat's, of course - simply
does not work in this acoustic with a choir of just 20 voices and organ; the
multiple divisions it contains cry out (almost literally!) for muck larger vocal
forces. Here, the Power of the music is diminished thereby, although the initial
tempo in this Performance is admirably stately.
Walton's
The Twelve
is given an excellent
performance, in which the vocal strength and sound-image work well in this
underrated work. But the three pieces by Tarik O'Regan and Patrick Gowers have
no place here: as works of art, they are simply outclassed by the music of the
far greater British composers with which they are coupled. The choir's director,
Samuel Hayes, provides the booklet notes; these are quite good, but not
error-free: the widowed Ursula Wood did not become Vaughan Williams's second
wife after 1953: they married in 1952.
This remains, then, a
difficult disc about which to come to a decision: it is recommended for the Set
`A Garland for the Queen' and for Walton's
The Twelve,
but one could pass over
the other items in this collection, 20 minutes' worth of nothing special.
Robert
Matthew-Walker
Music Web Wednesday December 15 04
Youthful performances offering a different perspective on this repertoire. ...
MusicWeb International
Love
and Honour
Charles Hubert PARRY (1848-1918)
I was Glad (1902, rev. 1911)
A Garland for the Queen (1953)
Arthur BLISS (1891-1975)
Aubade
Arnold BAX (1883-1953)
What is it like to be young and fair
Michael TIPPETT (1905-1998)
Dance, Clarion Air
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
Silence and Music
Lennox BERKELEY (1903-1989)
Spring at this hour
John IRELAND (1879-1962)
The Hills
Herbert HOWELLS (1892-1983)
Inheritance
Gerald FINZI (1901-1956)
White-flowering days
Alan RAWSTHORNE (1905-1971)
Canzonet
Edmund RUBBRA (1901-1986)
Salutation
Tarik O’REGAN (b.1978)
Tu Claustra Stirpe Regia (2003)
Cantate Domino (2002)
Patrick GOWERS (b.1936)
Viri Galilai (1988)
William WALTON (1902-1983)
The Twelve (1956)
 The
Choir of Queens' College Cambridge
James Southall (Organ)
Samuel Hayes
(Director)
Recorded in the Chapel of Queens’ College, Cambridge – 22-25 June 2003
GUILD
GMCD 7287
[71.13]
The Choir
of Queen’s College, Cambridge is fresh voiced and lissom. Their clean-limbed
approach is complemented by Guild’s recording which is not at all echo laden or
dampened but catches a degree of acoustic immediacy. That’s important when one
considers that the burden of the disc is A Garland for the Queen in which
the poems of then living poets were set by ten of the leading composers of the
day. Walton and Britten were excluded since they had their own settings
elsewhere in the Coronation. Amongst the poets were Christopher Fry, Walter de
la Mare, Louis MacNeice and Edmund Blunden – but also Ursula Wood, James Kirkup
and Clifford Bax.
They start
with an earlier example of more forthright ceremonial, Parry’s I Was Glad,
with organ accompaniment. Here it’s gentle and quite reserved – the opposite
of, say, the old Philip Ledger recording. The Garland was once available
on Gamut sung by the Cambridge University Chamber Choir under Timothy Brown so
there’s certainly a discographic tradition here. I enjoyed the verdant Bax –
very little vibrato, a clear-as-spring water sound – and the shapely diminuendi
and crescendi in the Tippett (easy to exaggerate these). In the VW they catch
the melismas of silence well and those Tallis-like string choirs are
nicely evoked. The tonal blend is perhaps at its most impressive in the Ireland,
even though there are one of two moments of relative weakness in the lower men’s
voices; the Finzi is not subject to too much in the way of metrical shifts and
its simplicity emerges intact.
Tarik
O’Regan contributes two pieces of recent provenance. The organ-accompanied Tu
Claustra Stirpe Regia has a timeless feel and summons up a continuum of
musical feeling whilst Cantate Domino sports some intriguing registers
and organ colours – essentially slow moving but also ebullient and sensitive
alternately. We end with Walton’s The Twelve which he wrote in 1956;
punchy and jazzy in places and very well understood here.
The texts
are here with introductory notes. Youthful performances, then, offering a
different perspective on this repertoire.
Jonathan
Woolf
Page revised Friday November 24 2006
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