Reviews

March 2012

FOCUS ON CHOIRS

***
IN THE BEGINNING
The Choir of Merton College, Oxford/Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips • Delphian DCD34072
In 2008, Peter Phillips (of Tallis Scholars fame) and Benjamin Nicholas (who also directs the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum) were appointed Directors of Music of a new choral foundation at Merton College. This is the choir’s debut disc. The singers make a ravishing sound in the excellent acoustic of Merton College chapel. The programme opens with a substantial work by Gabriel Jackson, In the Beginning was the Word. Three motets that tell of David’s lamentation over the death of Absalom follow: Lugebat David Absalon by Gombert, Weelkes’s moving When David Heard and a long setting of the same text by Eric Whitacre. Three similarly contrasting settings of the Nunc Dimittis by Palestrina, Holst and Lukazewski come next, and the disc ends with Copland’s famous In the Beginning – an exciting programme for an exciting debut.

**
RISE HEART
Worcester Cathedral Chamber Choir/Stephen Shellard • Regent REGCD369
There is much to stir the soul on this disc, from Elgar’s ‘Light out of darkness’ from The Light of Life and ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me’ from The Apostles to Parry’s Hear my words, ye people (the anthem that ends with the composer’s tune Laudate Dominum). Along the way come three early settings of O salutaris hostia by Elgar. Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs, Stanford’s The blue bird, Parry’s glorious My soul, there is a country, and one of Elgar’s lesser-known pieces, his Memorial Ode for Queen Alexandra. There are also two of Parry’s chorale preludes for organ. Worcester Cathedral Chamber Choir is a mixed adult ensemble of some thirty members who sing with skill and relish, with plenty of attention to articulation and dynamics and with good diction. They are ably accompanied by George Castle.

***
A YEAR AT YORK
The Choir of York Minster/David Pipe (organ)/Robert Sharpe • Regent REGCD368
This disc explores repertoire sung at York Minster from Advent (Vox dicentis – Naylor) to All Souls (Justorum animae – Gabriel Jackson), taking in local observances with Caedmon of Whitby’s First Hymn – Philip Moore, A Prayer of Alcuin of York – Humphrey Clucas and, marking St William of York, O Wilhelme pastor bone – Taverner. Several are recorded for the first time, including the Jackson, Moore and Clucas pieces, and also Audi coelum – Paul Comeau (Conception of the BVM), The Magi – Andrew Carter (Epiphany – this piece could really ‘catch on’), Nunc Dimittis (in memoriam Lionel Dakers) – Richard Shepherd (Candlemas), Lamentation (as sung in York Minster) – Bairstow (Passiontide) and O sacrum convivium – George Haynes (Corpus Christi). Several old favourites include Joubert’s There is no rose (Christmas), Blow’s Salvator mundi (Lent), Stanford’s Magnificat in G (Annunciation), Phillips’s Ascendit Deus (Ascension), Tallis’s If ye love me (Pentecost), Stainer’s I saw the Lord (Trinity), Dering’s Factum est silentium (Michaelmas) and Bullock’s Give us the wings of faith (All Saints). An enjoyable disc with popular appeal and with plenty that is refreshingly new – and well sung, too.

*
SONGBOOK
The trebles of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum/Helen Porter (piano)/Carleton Etherington (organ)/Benjamin Nicholas • Delphian DCD34097
This disc showcases the boys of the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, and in particular Laurence Kilsby who, in 2009, won the BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year award. The repertoire is a mixture of sacred and secular, with composers as diverse as Percy Grainger, Arvo Pärt, Roger Quilter, Purcell and Bernstein. The boys negotiate many a challenging line with aplomb. Laurence Kilsby’s solos are impressive, and, while his vibrato will not be to some listeners’ taste, his singing is a credit to his own abilities and application and also to the training of Benjamin Nicholas. Helen Porter’s sensitive and deftly executed piano accompaniments deserve special mention.
Christopher Maxim

SINGLE-COMPOSER PORTRAITS

**
LADY OF THE LAKE
Music by Thomas Hewitt Jones • Voces8/Chamber Orchestra of London • Vivum Records 37603
**
A SONG OF THE LIGHT
Choral and organ works by Marcus Huxley • The Choir of Birmingham Cathedral/Timothy Harper (organ) • Regent Records REGCD361
**
JUDITH WEIR CHORAL MUSIC
Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge/Geoffrey Webber • Delphian DCD34095
These three composer portraits are very different from each other. Thomas Hewitt Jones’s name is increasingly heard in choir vestries, as his anthems and carols (many published by the RSCM) are performed more widely. Much of this CD consists of instrumental music, but Voces8 (a vocal octet with a pedigree rooted in the RSCM Millennium Youth Choir) sing four items including Lead me O Lord and What child is this. The centrepiece is a suite based on Welsh folklore called The Lady of the Lake. This single CD could form a radio station’s mood music library in itself, with a refreshing variety of instrumental blends and moods, from bouncy to icy, and tender to passionate. By contrast, A Song of the Light is devoted to the choral and organ music of Marcus Huxley, director of music since 1986 at Birmingham Cathedral whose choir of girls, boys and men sings here. All the music is for services in one form or another, notably the Shirley Service, a setting of Common Worship evening prayer. There is also an effective setting of the Passion according to Luke where the action is cleverly interspersed with meditative verses from hymns such as ‘Go to dark Gethsemane’ and ‘My Song is Love unknown’. The Mass of St Henry and St Philip, with its arresting opening of the Gloria, could well have begun this CD sequence. The singing is an excellent portrayal of Huxley’s lyricism and his ability to write effectively for the liturgy. Judith Weir’s distinctive style has become well known, for many through broadcasts down the years of Illuminare, Jerusalem, commissioned in the mid 80s by Stephen Cleobury for the King’s College, Cambridge carol service. This excellent CD from further along St John’s Street is devoted to Weir’s choral output from 1983 to 2008, along with two organ pieces. The notes tell us that Weir studied with Messiaen; listening to this CD shows how she has gone on to cultivate her own subtle palate of harmonic colours and devices including parallel chord sequences, use of diminished and augmented intervals, and a penchant for the pentatonic. The use of marimba with upper voices in now is a ship (an e.e.cummings setting) deserves special mention. There is excellent singing from Geoffrey Webber’s Gonville and Caius choir: this is indeed a choral force to be reckoned with.
Stuart Robinson

BELLS, MUSIC AND WORDS

RINGING VOICES
A journey through the year in words, music and the sound of bells • The Campana Consort/Trevor Brearley (organ)/Simon Mold/the bells of All Saints, Maidstone • Hearsay Charitable Trust HS001
Review to follow.

December 2011

CHORAL MUSIC FOR CHRISTMAS

***
CHRISTMAS FROM WINCHESTER
Winchester Cathedral Choirs/Simon Bell (organ)/Andrew Lumsden · Regent REGCD350
This compilation includes two recent compositions of distinction: Bob Chilcott’s delightful The Shepherd’s Carol and Morten Lauridsen’s atmospheric O magnum mysterium, in addition to such traditional favourites as the Sussex Carol, The holly and the ivy, God rest ye merry, Gentlemen, The angel Gabriel, Ding dong! merrily on high, O come, all ye faithful and more. The disc features both the boys’ and the girls’ choirs, as well as the men. The boys and girls generally sing separately, but join together for two of the ‘congregational’ carols and for the central work in the programme: Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols. Their excellent voices blend effectively in an expressive performance. Two organ pieces provide further variety: a gentle and melodious Christmas Cradle Song by Hollins and Garth Edmundson’s mighty Toccata-Prelude on ‘Vom Himmel Hoch’, played with panache by Simon Bell. This disc will appeal principally to listeners looking for a recording of some favourite carols, but the inclusion of other works will also make it attractive to a more specialist audience.

**
A SPOTLESS ROSE
Crypt Choir of the King’s School, Canterbury/John Robinson/Howard Ionascu
Herald HAVPCD 353
The programme, very well sung by the young mixed voices of the Crypt Choir of The King’s School, Canterbury, ranges from Willcocks’s arrangement of Angelus ad Virginem to Allwood’s version of Jingle Bells, via Victoria (O magnum mysterium), Stanford (Magnificat in A), Ord (Adam lay ybounden), Darke (In the bleak mid-winter), Richard Rodney Bennett (I saw three ships) and Judith Weir (Illuminare Jerusalem). Some lesser-known pieces, including Jonathan Willcocks’s A spotless rose, Simon Whalley’s There is no rose and Sandstrom’s arrangement of Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen, add further interest to the nicely balanced choice of pieces.

*
CAROLS FROM CAMBRIDGE
Choir of Clare College, Cambridge/Timothy Brown · Regis RRC1347
This is a re-release which may have been issued to mark conductor Timothy Brown’s retirement. No information is given as to when the recordings were made, but the inclusion of a lyrical, highly polished ‘school of Rutter’ setting of How far is it to Bethlehem by Nicholas White (organ scholar 1986–9) may provide a clue. The programme is a mixture of traditional ‘congregational’ carols, familiar choral pieces by such as Howells, Holst, Darke, Leighton and Rutter, and some interesting, probably less well known items by Elizabeth Maconchy, Philip Radcliffe, Paul Drayton and Andrew Carter. The singing is of a very high standard and distinctive in style, though some may find it mannered.

*
TRADITIONAL & MODERN CAROLS
Choir of New College Oxford/Edward Higginbottom · Regis RRC1330
Like the Clare College disc from Regis, this is a re-release of recordings for which no date is given. Both programme and performances are very enjoyable. As the title suggests, the repertoire is varied, including ‘congregational’ carols; ‘traditional’ carols (e.g. Ding dong! merrily on high, Sussex Carol, The holly and the ivy, etc.), and choral items by composers who include Byrd (O magnum mysterium), Holst (several pieces), Howells (Long, long ago and A spotless rose – erroneously attributed to ‘Trad.’), Richard Rodney Bennett (Out of your sleep, What sweeter music), Leighton (Lully, lulla thou little tiny child), Joubert (Torches, There is no rose) and Darke (In the bleak midwinter). The choir makes a fine sound with good blend and diction, clear articulation and sensitive shading.
Christopher Maxim

CONTEMPORARY ORGAN MUSIC

*
HEAVY PEDAL – WORKS FOR ORGAN
Music by Tadd Russo, Curt Cacioppo, Ron Nagorcka, Wilhelm Middelschulte, Michael Summers · played by Michael Kraft, Robert Gallagher, David Scott Hamnes, Brink Bush, Karel Martinek with Yhasman Valenzuela (clarinet), Ole Jorgen Melhus (trombone) and Ron Nagoreka (didjeridu) · Navona Records NV5853
This new CD is overwhelming, fascinating and baffling in equal measure. It features works by four living composers and also by Wilhelm Middelschulte, whose music is enjoying something of a revival thanks to the ongoing publication by Bärenreiter of his complete works. His best-known work, the grand Passacaglia, receives a fine reading by Brink Bush, who also plays Middelschulte’s virtuosic pedal solo Perpetuum Mobile on a theme of Bach with great aplomb. The less familiar music of the other composers is varyingly successful – I particularly enjoyed the opening track, Tadd Russo’s Salzburg Prelude. Ron Nagorcka’s To Be A Pilgrim for trombone, organ and didjeridu is certainly ear-catching, but some of the other offerings are musically a little unfocused.
Unfocused is, ultimately, the right word for the project as a whole: five composers played by five different organists on at least five organs in Norway, Czech Republic and the USA leads to a programme with too much variation in style and recorded sound and no continuity for the listener to grasp. There is a fun, interactive booklet on the disc (you can follow scores as you listen for example) – however to use this and listen, you are confined to the playback limitations of your computer, something of a flaw as there is no printed booklet.
Huw Morgan

20TH-CENTURY MARY

**
MUSIC FOR OUR LADY
Choirs of St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Warwick/Fine Arts Brass,/Ruaraidh Sutherland (organ)/Thomas Corns · REGENT REGCD345
This is a very creditable CD from St Mary, Warwick, described as a ‘survey of music from the twentieth century [which] tells of an ongoing Marian devotion within the church’. Górecki’s Totus Tuus, with its arresting opening sung by the combined choirs of boys, girls and men, makes for an excellent first track. Not surprisingly perhaps this survey includes Marian hits such as Hadley’s I sing of a maiden and Duruflé’s Tota pulchra es, Maria (both exquisitely sung by the girls), Biebl’s Ave Maria which is a firm men’s voices favourite, and Britten’s Hymn to the Virgin. But this sweep of modern Marian offerings reaches parts that other surveys do not; Judith Bingham’s colourful Ancient Sunlight for solo organ will, I suspect, be challenging for some. With Missa Salve Regina by Jean Langlais, redolent of film score music depicting Henry V at Agincourt, and accompanied by Fine Arts Brass, this CD is most enjoyable. 
Stuart Robinson

WE RECOMMEND .  .  .
***
THE HEAVEN IN ORDINARIE
Choral and Organ Music by Philip Wilby · The Exon Singers/Jeffrey Makinson (organ)/Matthew Owens · Regent REGCD338
If you enjoy hearing the Exon Singers’ vespers service broadcast each summer from Buckfast Abbey, you will not be disappointed with this CD. Philip Wilby’s music is placed within the context of the Anglican evening service, with canticles written for St Paul’s Cathedral, responses, a psalm setting and anthems. That apart, four other anthems are included, two of them for weddings, and two organ voluntaries including a Recessional on the hymn tune Michael of Herbert Howells, who encouraged Wilby to take up composition. Thank God that he did, because Wilby knows how to fill large stone spaces with splashes of sonic colour from singers and organ alike. Both the tender and the exciting are here, expertly performed and well recorded in Wells Cathedral. This is a wonderful celebration from an excellent choir, recorded (unlike their annual summer fixture) in deepest winter! 
Stuart Robinson

September 2011

PURCELL AND BRITTEN
***
O SING UNTO THE LORD: SACRED MUSIC OF HENRY PURCELL
The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys/Concert Royal/John Scott • St Thomas Recordings, www.SaintThomasChurch.org
Under John Scott’s expert direction, the choir of St Thomas, Fifth Avenue, NY sounds like a cathedral choir of the highest rank. The polish, discipline, diction and ensemble are superb – and so too is the music: sublime Purcell. The pieces include O sing unto the Lord; Remember not, Lord; Jehova quam multi sunt hostes; O God, thou art my God; I was glad; Hear my prayer, O Lord and the Te Deum in D. The other items are the Morning Hymn and Evening Hymn, and the Voluntary in G played by John Scott himself. These refined performances are a joy.

**
BENJAMIN BRITTEN: CHORAL AND ORGAN MUSIC
Truro Cathedral Choir/Luke Bond (organ)/Christopher Gray • Regent REGCD349
There is an excellent choice of pieces, including some of Britten’s ‘greatest hits’: Te Deum in C; Jubilate in E flat; Corpus Christi Carol; The sycamore tree; A hymn to the Virgin; Hymn to St Cecilia; Prelude and Fugue on a theme of Vittoria; Missa Brevis; Antiphon; Rejoice in the Lamb; and Advance democracy. The choir sings with warmth and brings an expressive sweetness to music that, if not performed well, can sound rather detached (especially true in the Te Deum in C). The second movement of the Hymn to St Cecilia (‘I cannot grow’) is executed with soufflé-light agility. The soloists are to be commended in Rejoice in the Lamb, likewise Luke Bond’s able accompaniment. It is good to hear him and the glorious organ of Truro Cathedral in a musically cogent performance of the Prelude and Fugue on a theme of Vittoria. This disc is a ‘must’ for fans of Britten’s music.
Christopher Maxim

LEIGHTON AND MACMILLAN

***
INVOCATION: CHORAL MUSIC BY KENNETH LEIGHTON AND JAMES MACMILLAN
Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir/David Saint (organ)/Paul Spicer • Regent REGCD348
In short, this is an excellent CD, with outstanding singing and direction. Leighton’s setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s God’s grandeur opens a sequence interspersing works from Scottish teacher and Scottish pupil. Leighton is also represented by his Missa Sancti Thomae which possesses all the hallmarks of his distinctive style. The main work from James MacMillan is Cantos Sagrados, a powerful and intense work reflecting his interest in liberation theology. There may be those who find some of this work tough to listen to, but there is no denying the skill and hard work that has gone into the recording of all the pieces with outstanding, sonorous singing, vocal control (the sopranos soaring to a top A for eleven bars in MacMillan’s Song of the Lamb) and a finely honed balance in the choir.
Stuart Robinson

MCDOWALL AND PANUFNIK

**
CECILIA MCDOWALL: LAUDATE, RADNOOR SONGS, CANTERBURY MASS, FIVE SEASONS
City of Canterbury Chamber Choir/Orchestra Nova/Rachel Allen (soprano)/Katherine Allen (mezzo-soprano)/George Vass • Dutton Epoch CDLX7230
**
SPIRIT OF THE SAINTS: THE MUSIC OF ROXANNA PANUFNIK
London Oratory School Schola/David Terry (organ)/Lee Ward • Regent REGCD293
These CDs offer a generous overview of the recent scores of McDowall and of pieces written over a longer period by Panufnik. Although the largest pieces on the McDowall CD are secular, included are her Canterbury Mass, an anthem and a carol. The performers emphasize the lyricism in the music of this composer who is now receiving considerable critical and popular acclaim. Roxanna Panufnik’s music, better known among church musicians since her 1998 Westminster Mass, is presented here slightly oddly with each movement of the Westminster Mass interspersed with other pieces including four pieces from a set of carols – also separated from each other! The performances by singers from the London Oratory School are splendid.
Judith Markwith

NORTHAMPTON COMMISSIONS

**
OMNES SANCTI: NEW MUSIC FROM NORTHAMPTON
The choirs of All Saints, Northampton/Richard Pinel (organ)/Stephen Meakins (organ)/Lee Dunleavy • Regent ASNCD001
It was thanks to the Revd Walter Hussey, a former vicar of St Matthew, Northampton and later Dean of Chichester, that some truly great anthems were commissioned (such as Rejoice in the Lamb and Lo, the full final sacrifice) during the forties. Six decades later it is All Saints Church in that city that has the commissioning bug. Some of the results are on this excellent CD, including a delightful Latin Mass setting written for the boys’ choir by Adrian Self, a set of evening canticles from Barry Ferguson and a setting of the Ave Maria by James MacMillan. Malcolm Archer’s Missa Omnes Sancti, redolent of French double-organ settings, provides a splendid grand finale. Recorded in the more spacious and quieter St Mary, Wellingborough, and sung by a large choir of 23 boys, 23 girls, choral scholars and lay clerks expertly directed by Lee Dunleavy, here is a very enjoyable disc with a whiff of incense about it!
Stuart Robinson

ORGAN MUSIC

WE RECOMMEND...
GRAND ORGAN PROM
Thomas Trotter plays the organ of the Royal Albert Hall, London • Regent REGCD322
This is an extraordinarily fine disc of transcriptions and original organ music. The artistry of Thomas Trotter is characterized by fluency in even the most finger-knotting passages. The Albert Hall organ sounds stupendous, with a vast array of colours from the delicate to the powerful – and what power!
The music ranges from gently melodious to swaggeringly grand and includes three arrangements by W. T. Best, plus an original Introduction, Variations and Finale on ‘God save the Queen’ that ends with a rather fine fugue. Morandi’s Bell Rondo is a jolly bit of fluff that calls for drums and bells. Many readers will have played War March of the Priests, but few of us will have had such dazzling reed stops at our disposal. Ireland’s The Holy Boy and his Capriccio are delightful, but the crowning glories are the William Tell and 1812 overtures. These might not be ‘organ music’ but they are astounding examples of what phenomenal music can be made on the organ by a great organist.

**
ORGAN DUETS
Charles Harrison and David Leigh play the organ of Lincoln Cathedral • Guild GMCD7368
This is an entertaining disc, played with panache on one of the best organs in Great Britain. It opens with Mozart’s great Fantasia K608 in a performance that achieves more by way of colour than can be managed by two hands and two feet. Two fugues by Mendelssohn are well worth hearing; and three Fantasies by Langlais are full of colour; while pieces by Thomas Tomkins and Nicholas Carleton remind us that keyboard duets date back several centuries. Shack-up and Feud by Andrew Johnstone (b. 1967) is a whacky prelude (chaconne) and fugue. If you play organ duets, I strongly recommend you try to obtain a copy of this piece: it deserves a place in the repertoire. The programme ends with a thrilling rendition of Leighton’s mighty Martyrs.
Christopher Maxim

CORRECTION
Carl Rütti’s St Peter and St Paul, described as ‘a new anthem’ in our June review of Sheffield Cathedral’s ‘Tu es Petrus’ CD, was written in 1997 for a Norwich Festival of Contemporary Church Music and first performed by the cathedral choir and David Dunnett with Neil Taylor, organ. It was subsequently recorded on Guild GMCD7238 (‘Sermon on the Mount: choral and organ works by Carl Rütti’) by Christopher Duarte and Escorial Choir with the composer playing the organ.

June 2011

WE RECOMMEND . . .

***
LISTEN
St Mary’s Cathedral Choir, Glasgow/Peter Yardley-Jones & Geoffrey Wollatt (organ)/Frikki Walker • OxRecs Digital OSCD-109
Gentle melodies abound on this recording: if you love a good tune, this is a disc for you! Composers include Malcolm Archer (two arrangements), John Bell, June Collin, Richard Lloyd, Howard Goodall and Frikki Walker himself. Bob Chilcott’s Be thou my vision is so beguiling sung by Mary Walker and accompanied on the piano with such sensitivity by Frikki Walker that you might forget that you have sung the words a million times to Slane! Wood’s O thou the central orb, Tallis’s If ye love me and Batten’s O sing joyfully are likely to be among the more familiar pieces on the disc. James MacMillan’s hauntingly beautiful A new song is well worth discovering. St Mary’s Cathedral Choir is voluntary and mixed. They sing to an impressively high standard and interpret convincingly music composed in a range of styles.
Christopher Maxim

ORGAN IMPROVISATIONS

***
FREEDOM OF SPIRIT
The passion of improvisation • David Briggs improvises on world-class organs in France, the United States and Italy • Chestnut Music CD 006
David Briggs’s imagination runs riot on this disc and, supported by his phenomenal technique, his improvisations are stunning. The first track, lasting nearly a quarter of an hour, is a set of variations on ‘Alouette, gentille Alouette’ made to mark the 25th anniversary of the death of Briggs’s musical hero, Pierre Cochereau. Briggs revels in the timbres of the organ of the Église St Vincent, Roquevaire, Provence, which is partly made from Cochereau’s own house organ. Four concert improvisations follow, made in Iowa and in the style of Bach, Mendelssohn, Ravel and Briggs himself! The location of the baroque-style organ of Danville Presbyterian Church inspired an improvisation on ‘My Old Kentucky Home’, but Hommage à Jean Langlais was made in Bergamo, Italy. Three Liturgical Improvisations from the great Parisian church of St Sulpice are given additional atmosphere by the background noises. There is no doubt that these pieces were recorded live! The Offertoire, which Briggs describes as ‘overtly Ravelian’, wafts like incense. The disc ends with a mighty improvisation on the Lourdes Hymn (‘Ave Maria’) from St Sernin, Toulouse.

**
ORGEL-IMPROVISATIONEN ÜBER TOCCATA UND FUGE D-MOLL BWV 565 VON J.S. BACH – VOL. 2
Lionel Rogg/Barbara Dennerlein/Theo Fury & Brass Power Schweiz/Frédéric Blanc/Holm Vogel/Johannes Mayr/Vincent Thévenaz/David Franke • ORGANpromotion OP 8007
I reviewed the first volume of this series in 2009 and noted that the improvisations were remarkably wide-ranging in style and mood. The same is true of the pieces of Volume 2, which was recorded on organs in Switzerland, Germany and France. Lionel Rogg kicks off with what is essentially a re-working of the material. You can tell what the piece is: he just doesn’t play the ‘right’ notes. Barbara Dennerlein’s New York Impressions are a jazz extravaganza. Theo Flury and Brass Power Schweiz mix sections of the original piece with improvised material that is sometimes harshly dissonant. Frédéric Blanc’s Souvenir-Toccata, performed on the Cavaillé-Coll organ of Notre-Dame d’Auteuil, Paris, is appropriately impressionistic in style. The shortest and most exquisite improvisation is that of blind organist Holm Vogel. His Sonatina à la Joseph Haydn is an ingenious transformation of the original material. The master of musical jokes would surely have approved. This is perhaps the only item in the programme that would stand transcription into notation and repeated performances. Johannes Mayr’s Toccata is a high-energy creation, while Vincent Thévenaz’s Toccata démolie, played on the largest organ in Switzerland and the second longest track on the disc, combines the nightmarish and the sublime. Finally, David Franke’s Nächtliches Intermezzo imagines ghostly goings-on at midnight in St Wenzel, Naumburg. All in all, another extraordinary disc.
Christopher Maxim

CHORAL MUSIC

***
THE WINCHESTER TRADITION
Winchester College Chapel Choir/Paul Provost (organ)/Malcolm Archer • Regent REGCD331
This disc is brimming with attractive music by composers associated with Winchester College. S.S. Wesley’s Ascribe unto the Lord opens the programme in stirring style and is followed by Weelkes’s glorious Hosanna to the Son of David. Wesley’s lovely Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace is also included. George Dyson is represented by several settings; and there are pieces by Raymond Humphrey (a former organist and director of chapel music), Malcolm Archer, Paul Provost (including an arrangement of a tune by Jeremiah Clarke) and William Cole (b.1990: a former scholar). The longest work on the disc is Archer’s Missa Omnes Sancti, which is very much in the French tradition, recalling the Masses of Widor and Vierne. There is much to enjoy here. The choir makes a very fine sound and the young tenors and basses are particularly to be commended for their smooth, well-blended tone.

***
SONGS OF SUNSHINE
Wells Cathedral Choir/Wells Cathedral School Chamber Orchestra/Jonathan Vaughn (organ)/Matthew Owens • Regent REGCD343
Joy radiates from the performances on this CD, which is full of the kind of music that is sure to attract a wide audience. Some pieces are accompanied by the excellent Wells Cathedral School Chamber Orchestra: the first movement of Vivaldi’s Gloria, which makes a splendid opening track, and two movements from Handel’s Messiah: the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ and ‘Worthy is the Lamb’. Two facets of Rutter’s musical personality are exhibited: the ‘popular’ in All things bright and beautiful and A Gaelic Blessing, and the ‘English cathedral tradition’ in his Wells Jubilate, which is reviewed in the current edition of Sunday by Sunday. The theme tune to the The Vicar of Dibley (Howard Goodall’s setting of the 23rd Psalm) is presented in its complete version. Matthew Owens’s arrangement of Lord of the Dance presents the tune in unison until near the end, the spicy organ accompaniment enhancing the text. Traditional repertoire comes in the form of Dyson’s Magnificat in D and Stanford’s Te Deum in B flat. The singing is of a very high order and so, too, the organ playing. Hollins’s joyous A Song of Sunshine skips nimbly, while the mighty Wells tuba sounds glorious in Cocker’s unforgettable Tuba Tune. Sold in aid of St Margaret’s Hospice, this disc is performed with great skill and supports a very worthy cause.

***
SING ALLELUIA
Rochester Cathedral Choir/Roger Sayer (organ)/Scott Farrell & Dan Soper • Regent, REGCD329
Sub-titled ‘Favourite anthems from Rochester’, this disc includes such classics as Parry’s I was glad, Purcell’s O God, thou art my God (the anthem that ends with what is now the hymn tune Westminster Abbey), Brahms’s How lovely are thy dwellings fair, Goss’s O Saviour of the world, Handel’s Zadok the priest, Mendelssohn’s Hear my prayer, Byrd’s Sing joyfully, and Stainer’s God so loved the world. On this recording, Bob Chilcott’s Be thou my vision is heard in a different version from that on the Glasgow disc: here it is performed by boys and men, accompanied on the organ. There are also some ‘home-grown’ pieces: It was in that train by Barry Ferguson and The fair chivalry by Robert Ashfield, both former organists and Masters of the Choristers at Rochester. Another piece with a Rochester connection is Gibbons’s brilliant See, see the Word is incarnate, the text of which was written by Godfrey Goodman, Dean from 1620 to 1624. The pieces are variously sung by boys’ and men’s voices, girls’ and men’s voices, and the whole choir together. The choir has a distinctively fulsome tone that exploits the lovely acoustic of the cathedral.
Christopher Maxim

***
TU ES PETRUS
The Choir of Sheffield Cathedral/Anthony Gowing (organ)/Neil Taylor • Regent REGCD360
Although the theme is ‘Petrine’ with a smattering of appropriate works (Tu es Petrus settings from Widor and Duruflé, Britten’s Hymn to St Peter, and a new anthem from Carl Rütti), three mass settings really provide the backbone of this very engaging CD. Two of them ‘originate’ from St-Étienne-du-Mont on the south bank of the Seine: Duruflé’s Messe cum jubilo is sung here by the well-blended mens’ voices, along with a contemporary and arresting setting (sung in French) from Thierry Escaich, the present-day organist. The performance of Jonathan Dove’s Missa Brevis is particularly outstanding; this was commissioned by the Cathedral Organists Association for their conference in Wells two years ago. The girls’ voices provide strong soaring treble lines, including a wonderful short solo from Ella Taylor (one of this year’s BBC Young Choristers of the Year) in the Britten. This is a well-recorded CD with fine musicianship bursting from the loudspeakers.

***
ONE THING HAVE I DESIRED
Choral Music from Exeter College, Oxford/Alistair Read • Regent RECCD332
To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the fine college chapel (take a look on their website!), this CD was recorded in 2009 by a choir comprising choral scholars and resident students who are the recipients of bursaries. The title comes from a little-known setting of Psalm 27 by Herbert Howells. What follows is an interesting modern and contemporary mix with works ranging from Harris (Behold the Tabernacle and, as a finale, Bring us O Lord God) and Stanford (canticles for double choir) to Gardner and three works from Jonathan Dove. The singers capture well the spirit of Dove’s writings in Ecce beatam lucem but really take full ownership of his I will lift up mine eyes commissioned as part of the anniversary celebrations. Directed by Alistair Reid, then senior organ scholar, this CD is an outstanding audio portrait of a fine student team in action. Such investment by the college is well worth it: some other institutions should take note!
Stuart Robinson

March 2012

METHODIST HYMN BOOK

SINGING THE FAITH
Methodist Publishing • Full Music Edition H/B 9781848250673
This new authorized hymnal for British Methodists represents quite a departure from its predecessor, Hymns and Psalms (1983), in the range of material included. The compilers were asked to reflect the diversity of musical styles used by congregations today, as well as the varied theological views within Methodism. Since Methodist readers will already have heard much about Singing the Faith, this brief review concentrates on how the music edition might serve church musicians more generally.
Among the 790 musical items (plus a section of psalms and canticles set out for responsorial reading) are plenty of strong hymn texts and tunes, old and new. Some will regret altered words in favourites such as ‘Angel voices’, but there is not a consistent policy of updating archaisms. It is good to see seven hymns by Martin Leckebusch (b.1962) among work by younger writers.
Many churches will appreciate material for children – despite disconcerting juxtapositions, such as a song with ‘bop, bop, showaddy dowah’ refrain next to ‘Abide with me’ – and the inclusion of versatile short songs from the world church, Taizé and elsewhere. The useful ‘Liturgical Settings’ section includes simple music by James MacMillan – but why some short songs (e.g. John Bell’s ‘Take, oh take me as I am’) are placed here is baffling. Certain contemporary songs appear better suited to solo voices than congregational singing, by virtue of their range (F below middle C in one case) or rhythmic complexity, but several singable hymns by Townend and Getty are included: annoyingly, no. 156 repeats the words of verse 1 where verse 3 should be.
Sometimes the presentation looks very crowded – no doubt the desire was to fit in as much material as possible without making the book too heavy. For rapid reference, I would have liked more specific index headings.
Anne Harrison

NONCONFORMIST MUSIC

DISSENTING PRAISE
ed. I. Rivers & D. L. Wykes • Oxford University Press 320pp. H/B • 9780199545247
For four centuries the writing and singing of hymns has enabled an outward, communal expression of religious thought. Some authors have chosen to express mainstream theological ideas but others have used their poetry to express dissent or discontent with those who think differently. Religious fervour was no less prevalent in times past than it is today. This anthology of essays is about hymnody within the dissenting denominations that separated from the established Church of England, and its eminent authors are mainly church history and literature scholars. The only printed musical examples are in the chapter by Nicholas Temperley. It is a book primarily about text, covering topics such as style, language, theology, publication, reception and also word substitution for doctrinal and stylistic reasons.
Hymn enthusiasts and scholars will want this book and those of us who are Anglican will learn from it a great deal about Nonconformist hymnody. Highlights for me were chapters on the evolution of Welsh hymnody by E. Wyn James and Temperley’s ‘The Music of Dissent’ in which he discusses the matching of tunes to texts and the arrival of denominational hymn books.

MUSIC AND THE WESLEYS
ed. N. Temperley & S. Banfield • University of Illinois Press 296pp. P/B • 9780252077678
This fine book, at a modest paperback price, is a set of 16 essays by distinguished authors. It is divided into two sections: ‘Music and Methodism’ and ‘The Wesley Musicians’.
It is almost impossible to imagine a Western World without the influence of the Wesley dynasty, especially the founders of Methodism, John and Charles. The latter’s sons, Samuel and Charles, and grandson Samuel Sebastian also contributed much to the musical life of England. Music was an important part of the Methodist movement and genes of creativity and controversy seem to have been present in all these persons. Perhaps the least known is Charles the younger, organist of Marylebone Parish church for many years: so little is written about him that this volume also includes a catalogue of his works.
There are too many topics covered to list here, but this book’s appeal will be wide indeed. Whether you are interested in the musical life of Bristol, the Wesley family dynamics, the anthems and legacy of Samuel Sebastian, the hymnody of John and Charles, Methodist anthems or music in American Methodism, there is something here for you. There is also a hardback edition (9780252035814).

ANGLICAN WORSHIP

GOD’S TRANSFORMING WORK
Celebrating ten years of Common Worship • Nicholas Papadopulos • SPCK 176pp. P/B • 9780281063901
Is it really ten years since the Alternative Service Book was replaced by Common Worship in the Church of England? It was a time when musicians, clergy and others concerned with the changes often felt threatened, challenged, excited or just unprepared. How has it all worked out so far? This collection of essays, with a substantial introduction by Archbishop Rowan, features contributions by clergy (several of whom are musicians) and is divided into three parts – effectively past, present and future. The first considers the liturgy itself and gives insight into how these liturgical revisions were made, especially the Eucharistic prayers. The second part looks at how the resources are being used today and the third considers ways in which its users might be trained.
Perhaps this book should be read by all PCCs. Whilst not fully comprehensive, it provides background as to how (and why) liturgy has reached where it is and how we might use it to invigorate our worship and faith. The writing is not clouded in theological technicalities and is mostly written in language comprehensible to the churchgoing equivalent of ‘the man on the Clapham Omnibus’.
Although a few parishes have used Common Worship resources to create for themselves an unchanging weekly liturgy which is virtually identical to what they were using before 2000, it is clear that a great many are using the new choices to create a variety of liturgies for parish worship, which engage, uplift and challenge congregations. Our liturgical future looks both stable and bright.
John Henderson

FEATURED TITLE

WIDOR: A LIFE BEYOND THE TOCCATA
John R. Near • University of Rochester Press 612pp. H/B • 9781580463690
It is curious how the life and work of one of France’s most influential organists and teachers has been neglected by authors, not least in France itself. Dr John Near’s 1985 DMA dissertation on Widor’s life and work was the foundation of this recent study. His published editions of Widor’s organ symphonies with their many variants and revisions have become the benchmark for performers and scholars. I recall someone once quipped that Near knows more about Widor than the man himself did.
Widor was a refined and educated man who moved in the highest social and musical circles as well as being wedded to his organ loft in St-Sulpice for 69 years. A friend of Franz Liszt, Cosima Wagner, Albert Schweitzer and Sir Henry Wood, the list of his eminent pupils extends to Olivier Messiaen: virtually every page of the book has mention of some prominent musician.
Whilst he will never be counted amongst the greatest composers, it is a shame that he is regarded as a ‘one work’ phenomenon (hence the title of the book). Many church musicians will be familiar with his Mass for two choirs and two organs but he also composed instrumental and orchestral music. His treatise on orchestration was widely used and his expertise in this shows in his 3rd orchestral symphony (with organ of course!) and his (recently recorded) two piano concertos.
The book contains a work-list, bibliography and copious notes, but musical Francophiles will be mainly caught up in the 400 page biographical section which paints a portrait of La Belle Époque in Paris through the eyes of Widor and his contemporaries. There are relatively few photographs for a book of its size, but nonetheless this is a book to treasure.
John Henderson

AN ORGAN BUILDER IN CONTEXT

A PROVINCIAL ORGAN BUILDER IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND
William Sweetland of Bath • Gordon D. W. Curtis • Ashgate Publishing 328pp. H/B • 781409417521
Review to follow shortly.

December 2011

THE PSALMS OF DAVID

PSALM-SHAPED PRAYERFULNESS
A Guide to the Christian Reception of the Psalms · Margaret M. Daly-Denton · The Columba Press 224pp. P/B · 9781856077156
There are great riches here for anyone seriously interested in understanding how the Book of Psalms took the form in which we know it, and how different worshipping communities have interpreted the psalter’s major themes. Recent scholarship has led to new insights into the significance of the order in which the 150 psalms are presented – this is just one example of an area covered in depth, and those who teach others about the psalms and wish to update their knowledge will find much to help them.
It is a pity there is no index since it would be useful, after reading the whole book, to be able to refer back to what the author (an academic and church musician) says about specific psalms. Readers are encouraged to engage in detail with different translations, and some of the connections made between psalms and other parts of the Bible are particularly interesting. Further reading is suggested, and some of the questions which punctuate the text could inspire those leading quiet days for worship leaders as well as biblical study groups.
Anne Harrison

HYMN ANTHOLOGIES

NEVER LET THE SONGS END
Martin Leckebusch · Kevin Mayhew 168pp. P/B · 9781848673267
BEYOND ALL WORDS
Hymn texts 2003–2011 · Alan Gaunt · Stainer & Bell 128pp. P/B · 9780852499238
Neither of the authors of these two hymn collections will need much introduction to most CMQreaders. Alan Gaunt (b.1935) began writing hymns in 1960 and his texts are in many standard hymn books and Martin Leckebusch (b. 1962) has written around 400 hymns since 1987.
Never let the songs end offers 124 texts, some new and some reworking of earlier texts. Some are hard hitting and powerful and no-one will feel comfortable singing ‘O West Bank town of Bethlehem’, with its violent imagery, to the tune Forest Green. But for this author, hymn singing is not just a comfortable offering to God and difficult areas of life are to be vocalized by the whole congregation. All moods and emotions are covered in this collection and most do fulfil the book’s subtitle ‘to inspire and uplift’. Recommendations of (mostly familiar) tunes from standard hymn books are given and an excellent set of scriptural and thematic indexes will assist those choosing texts.
Beyond All Words is Alan Gaunt’s fourth collection of hymns. For most of the 89 texts the author gives a note on the genesis of the text and specific tunes are recommended. Nineteen new tunes by contemporary composers are also printed for the first time, mostly in a traditional style, but one is in ‘worship song’ style. Gaunt is also a poet as well as a hymn writer and, whilst some of the texts deal with contemporary issues, there is a more traditional poetic feel to Gaunt’s texts compared with Leckebusch. Several would serve as prayers, as stand-alone poetry or as texts for anthems. There is a subject index but no scriptural index.
These are both useful anthologies. How lucky we are to have such resources for our worship! In the 1960s we talked of the ‘hymn explosion’, but this really continues unabated today, thank God.

CHRISTMAS STOCKING FILLER

YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD TUNE DOWN
Reginald Frary · Canterbury Press 144pp. P/B · 9781848250840
Reg Frary died earlier this year and so this will be the final collection of his stories about visiting friends and singing in their church choirs around the country. The stories are full of eccentric, politically incorrect musicians and clergy, often with gross prejudices against anything non-traditional. Mr Frary never lost his knack of making us smile and many will miss his gentle humour. As usual, the publication of his book is timed just right for it to be snapped up as a stocking filler.

CHRISTIAN MUSIC

CHRISTIAN MUSIC: A GLOBAL HISTORY
Tim Dowley · Lion Publishing 256pp. H/B · 9780745953243
For some years one of the most informative and recommendable books charting the history of Christian music was The Story of Christian Music by Andrew Wilson-Dickson published by the same publisher as this new book, which has replaced the older one in their catalogue. Whilst the earlier book was the work of just one author, this recent volume draws upon the expertise of several scholars in addition to the main author, Tim Dowley. With its glossy demeanour and lavish illustrations it is clearly intended for the popular market, and is none the poorer for that: the author has a pleasantly readable style. The remit is slightly broader than the earlier book, being, as the title suggests, more global in outlook and also it extends the history back to biblical times.
The earlier chapters, those on the development of hymnody and those relating to worldwide music, seemed the most satisfactory. The chapters on repertoire seemed to skate in a superficial way over too many composers and pieces to do anyone justice. Also, whilst accepting that this is a book about ‘Christian music’ as opposed to ‘church music’, Verdi has three quarters of a page and a portrait, but, in contrast, the English cathedral tradition receives rather short shrift and the RSCM no mention at all.
I will recommend this book for those wanting to get an overview of Christian music but, on balance, I will stick with my old book written by a musicologist, rather than this new one written by a historian.
John Henderson

September 2011

USING HYMNS IN PREACHING

WONDER REBORN
Thomas H. Troeger • OUP H/B • 9780195398885 £15.99
In this short book, Thomas Troeger takes the reader on a journey which reinstates beauty as a way of seeing the wonder of God. His writing comes with a depth of understanding of the Christian Fathers from Augustine to Aquinas and to writers of the present day. With academic rigour he argues the place of beauty in preaching, beauty as a way of discerning God’s creative spirit, and beauty as a way of seeing things anew. Though the does not cite Rudolph Otto’s ‘numinous’ category as way of understanding God, he leads his reader in a direction which allows beauty to be a category which reveals God rather than being a substitute for religion.
This is above all a book about preaching. Troeger uses the idea of the Hebrew ‘midrash’ to inform his methodology of preaching: interpreting Scriptural text so that it is meaningful for the present day. He argues that sermons must relate to the feelings that people have and use hymns as well as scripture to reveal the nature of God.
I doubt that there is a preacher who has not sat with a blank piece of paper or computer screen and with an equally blank mind. By bringing hymns, music and poetry into the realm of preaching, he opens whole areas of possibility which many may not have explored. He also opens the possibility of engaging all the senses of the congregation. Troeger puts himself on the line by including sermons and ideas that he has used in the course of his ministry. I was particularly taken by his exploration of the Passion through the last verse of ‘When I survey the wondrous cross’ and the slave song ‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord’. The examples of hymns he uses are well known on both sides of the Atlantic, including ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’, ‘All glory, laud and honour’ and ‘Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle’.
The use of music in preaching is another idea which he illustrates in his book: his exploration of Fauré’s Requiem and Romans 8.31–39 is a particular tour de force, while his section on poetry and prayer uses, amongst others, George Herbert’s ‘Let all the world in every corner sing’ which he links with John 14.6.
It is all about bringing the beauty of our heritage of hymnody, music and poetry into the present moment and pointing beyond itself to God: ‘The beauty of the gospel lies in the beauty of the God it reveals’, he writes in the final chapter. If you believe that is worth thinking about, this book will give you plenty of food for thought – and if you are a preacher, a sermon or two as well.
The Revd Canon Michael Johnson

MUSIC AND THEOLOGY

RESONANT WITNESS
Conversations between Music and Theology • ed. Jeremy Begbie and Steven Guthrie • Eerdmans P/B • 9780802862778 £22.99
The area of overlap between a love of God and a love of music has been explored by theologians ever since Augustine and Aquinas, and in our present time by such figures as Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and Rowan Williams, now Archbishop of Canterbury. This fascinating volume, with 18 different authors, surveys a range of current issues. Of particular interest to CMQ are those collected under the sub-heading ‘Music and Worship’, starting with Jeremy Begbie discussing how musical sounds become emotionally significant and what we can learn from this about music in worship. Other contributors in this section include Michael Hawn and Michael O’Connor, both familiar names in CMQ. Hildegard of Bingen, J. S. Bach, Luther, Barth, Messiaen, jazz and improvisation, African freedom songs – all make their contribution. In an ‘Afterword’, John Witvliet ties together the various strands.
Julian Elloway

June 2011

A LIFE IN CHORAL SINGING
Robert C. Morris • BM Publishing: 77 pp. P/B • 9780956200822
To order, send a cheque for £5, payable to R.C. Morris, to R.C. Morris, The Duchy Barn, Churchfoot Lane, Hazelbury Bryan, Sturminster Newton, Dorset, DT10 2DS, providing details of where the copy should be sent.
Because of his career in the telecommunications industry (about which he has also written a book), the author has spent an itinerant life and has sung with around a dozen church choirs and choral societies, some of which he also served in an administrative capacity. This is an autobiographical tale of people met and concerts sung. There are some nice anecdotes and descriptive scenarios of rehearsal and concert chaos which many of us will recognize. The book includes a fair number of photographs of both people and places, but sadly the quality of reproduction of these is poor in what is otherwise a professionally produced and readable book at a modest price.

DEATH IN THE VESTRY
and other stories • Humphrey Clucas • Lewin Press: 96 pp. P/B • 9780955047039
Here we have another anthology of varied short writings from Humphrey Clucas. There are three slightly sombre ‘Elegies’, three short ‘Fables’ each with a nice twist at the end and two further Westminster Abbey stories to supplement those in his previous anthology Royal and Peculiar. One of these is humorous about an owl in the Abbey, and another wistful, about hidden treasure and love. Finally there are five short Christmas poems. Nothing is very long, so this is an easy book to dip into, ideal for the coffee table.

MENDELSSOHN AND THE ORGAN
Wm. A. Little • Oxford University Press: 504 pp. H/B • 9780195394382
Occasionally one picks up a book and knows that that this is going to be ‘book of the year’ in some area of musicology. This is one such gem. William Little, Professor of German and Music at the University of Virginia, is well known to organists for his ground-breaking five-volume 1988 Urtext edition of Mendelssohn’s organ works, not only the Op. 37 Preludes and Fugues and Op. 65 Sonatas but also selected juvenilia and lesser known pieces which he brought back to the attention of performers. Now, after a lifetime of research, he has assembled a comprehensive account of Mendelssohn’s lifelong love affair with the instrument. Although Mendelssohn never held an organist’s post and never gave organ lessons, he travelled worldwide and invariably tried out organs in wherever he was staying (he was a skilled improviser). Even on his honeymoon he went to a local church for a demonstration of the organ there. Roughly one third of the book considers his interest in and his performance style on the organ, another third looks at all his organ compositions in detail and the final third consists of appendices, including a list of organs on which he played, major editions of his music and a listing of his own organ music library, which contained a great deal of Bach. Unless there is a major new discovery of Mendelssohn manuscripts, I cannot see how this book will ever be supplanted as the treatise on Mendelssohn and the organ. I often complain in these pages about the cost of musicological books, but this volume is worth every penny. My only slight gripe is that, for a book which is going to be so very well thumbed, a white cover is impractical!

JUAN ESQUIVEL
A Master of Sacred Music during the Spanish Golden Age • Clive Walkley • Boydell Press: 504 pp. H/B • 9781843835875
Ever since the ancient Greek poets coined the phrase ‘golden age’, we have become used to looking back through rose-tinted spectacles at an area of endeavour which seems to be significant and have named it thus. The golden age of Spanish Church Music is one of hundreds of such snapshots. Coined in the early 1960’s, it refers to the period 1530–1611, the latter date being the death of Tomás Luis de Victoria whose 400th anniversary falls this year. Some 39 composers are now included in this era and one of the most intriguing is Juan Esquivel. He was a chorister and later choirmaster in the small town of Ciudad Rodrigo near Salamanca but relatively little is known of his life, including his exact dates (c.1560 to c.1623). His three published collections of choral music (Masses and Motets in 1608 and Music for the Office in 1613) were however highly regarded throughout Spain. He is not exactly a household name now and there are only a few pieces by him currently in print (from Mapa Mundi, Chester and a few free on CPDL). This study by Clive Walkley, former Lecturer at Lancaster University, examines his work in scholarly detail and begins with an excellent chapter about the state of cathedral music and the changing religious life in Spanish cathedrals at the time, starting from the Council of Trent. There are many musical examples comparing Esquivel’s compositional techniques with those of his contemporaries; those who love the music of this era will find much to enjoy here. Exploration of his music is hampered however, not only from a lack of available scores, but by a lack of recordings of his work.
John Henderson

MASS SETTINGS

MASS OF ST PETER [E]
Malcolm Archer
Congregation, organ, optional SATB
RSCM C0867
THE DOMINICAN MASS [E]
Philip Ledger
Congregation, organ, optional descant line
RSCM C0870
ST ANNE’S MASS [E/M]
James MacMillan
Congregation, organ, optional SATB
Boosey and Hawkes 979-0-060-12356-6
Here are three further settings of the new English translation of the Roman Missal (see Sunday by Sunday Issue 58 for reviews of two earlier publications). All are simple settings that a congregation could be taught quickly and easily, especially those by Archer and Ledger. All have Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Benedictus, Communion Acclamations, Great Amen and Agnus Dei, while Ledger adds a Gospel Acclamation. Archer and Ledger both set the Kyries with Cantor and Response and are similar in many ways in their approaches to the subsequent texts. The most obvious difference is that Archer’s Mass of St Peter provides an SATB choir option, whilst Ledger’s Dominican Mass offers an optional descant line that may be sung or played on an instrument. Both settings can be seen and heard on the RSCM website; the published scores themselves are produced to a very high quality with full-colour, laminated card covers that not only look attractive but will also stand up well to many years of use.
The St Anne’s Mass comes from a composer established as a major figure in the concert hall – which does not always guarantee success at writing congregational music. But MacMillan has proven capabilities, not least in his St Anne’s Mass in its original 1985 version. The composer has made adaptations to accommodate the new translation, and has added a Gloria in a chant-like style, quite different from the other movements. The distinctive Scotch snap in the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei remains, as do the briefly divisi altos, and the optional help of a downwardly-transposed organ part for the Sanctus and Benedictus.
James L Montgomery

SPIRITUALS

64 SPIRITUALS A CAPPELLA [M]
arr. Graham Buckland
mostly SATBB
Bärenreiter BA7574
IN THE NEED OF PRAYER [E-M]
20 favourite spirituals
arr. Christopher Norton
SATB with and without piano
Boosey & Hawkes 979-0-12254-5
SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT [M-D]
Tarik O’Regan
SSAATTBB
Novello NOV200871
Spirituals, the result of a meeting of African improvisation and European hymnody, may often have been thinly-veiled protest songs, but at their heart they are affirmations of Christian faith and fully worthy of a place in worship. This is seen most clearly in the contents list of the Bärenreiter volume where the 64 spirituals are arranged under four main headings: ‘Old Testament Stories’ (with four subsections), ‘New Testament Stories’ (subsections Birth of Christ, the Crucifixion, the first Easter, the Last Judgement), ‘Christian Life’ (with four subsections) and ‘Death and Salvation’ (with seven subsections). The arrangements here are all unaccompanied and mostly in five parts (divided basses); frequently the tune is in the tenor although there is plenty of variety of treatment. With 136 large pages, this collection of 64 arrangements by Graham Buckland is excellent value.
Christopher Norton’s collection of 20, arranged in alphabetical order, includes 14 titles also in Buckland’s volume. But the arrangements sound very different. Norton allows the use of piano in the majority of them, and a richer harmonic language. Norton is a skilled arranger and his treatments are always effective – they sound more contemporary whilst Buckland’s feel more within the twentieth-century tradition of close-harmony spiritual arrangements.
Tarik O’Regan is shown as composer rather than arranger of Swing low, sweet chariot, and quite rightly, for although the tune is as expected, if very slow, the surrounding choral texture is a wonderfully atmospheric composition with harmonic clusters within which the melody is just apparent – the sound of heaven perhaps, and the ‘home’ to which the singer asks to be carried.
Stephen Patterson

MORNING CANTICLES

TE DEUM IN E [M]
JUBILATE IN E [M]
S.S. Wesley ed. Peter Horton
SSATB with divisi and organ
Church Music Society CMS R120 and R121
MORNING SERVICE IN C Op. 115 [E/M]
C.V. Stanford ed. Jeremy Dibble
SATB and organ
RSCM C0803
These are splendid new practical editions by experts on the music of each composer. Horton’s Wesley editions were produced for the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Wesley’s ‘Cathedral Service’ is written on a grand scale with eight-part verse sections and full sections, a major organ part, and what in 1845 were unashamedly advanced harmonies. The two canticles are well worth performing as individual pieces by choirs which do not have the opportunity to sing Morning Prayer – as indeed are the separate parts of the Stanford Morning Service for which RSCM has included Te Deum, Benedictus and Jubilate Deo all within the one volume. Editorial notes for the Wesley items are supposed to be found on the CMS website, although I have been unable to find them there. Jeremy Dibble’s editorial notes for the three Stanford pieces are printed in the score and cover sources, editorial method and a most helpful paragraph of performance suggestions.
James L Montgomery

AUTHORIZED VERSION

KING JAMES BIBLE ANTHEMS [M–D]
Four anthems from the King James Bible
Christopher Totney, Owain Park, Andrew-John Bethke, Thomas Hewitt Jones
SATB with solos or semichorus and piano/organ
RSCM B0355 £4.95
These four anthems, strikingly different and all with much to commend them, are the prize winner and runners-up in the parish and schools section of the 2011 King James Bible Competition. Choirs who invest in a set of copies will have four attractive pieces for use on all sorts of occasions, since none is ‘season-specific’.
The youngest composer is Owain Park, junior organ scholar at Wells Cathedral. In Let thine heart keep my commandments he sets twelve verses (slightly pruned) from the book of Proverbs. There are a lot of words, especially with the opening repeated, but the music always has a sense of direction, and is especially successful in the four-part choral writing: he is a composer who knows how to handle a choir. Christopher Totney, the prizewinner, also took a big chunk of text for his The Mystery of Christ, largely the combination of verses used by Richard Shephard in The Secret of Christ. Totney acknowledges the inspiration of Peter Aston’s So they gave their bodies, to which might be added Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, whose music for ‘For at that time malignity ceases and the devils themselves are at peace’ appears to provide the motivation for the opening ‘I have long time holden my piece’. It is a striking and memorable start, all the more effective at its return after the climax of the piece, 80 bars later.
South African Andrew-John Bethke provides the one lively piece. Sing, O heavens resists the temptation to cram in too many words and is a high-spirited, rhythmic, two-part setting (unspecified upper voices and lower voices) of two verses from Isaiah 49. I expect to be hearing this piece on lots of celebratory occasions. Thomas Hewitt Jones provides the only piece with organ accompaniment, Thou art worthy, O Lord. The music moves from D major (‘Thou art worthy’) to B major for ‘And for thy pleasure [all things] are and were created.’ Choosing just a single verse from Revelation 4 enables this experienced and imaginative composer to explore the words musically, so that one feels at the end that the text has had extra meaning from being sung.
Stephen Patterson

CHORAL MUSIC FOR WEDDINGS

UBI CARITAS [D]
Paul Mealor
SATB with divisi
University of York Music Press M-57036-279-0
THIS MARRIAGE [M]
Ed Rex
SATB with divisi
Novello NOV720082
LOVE COMES QUIETLY [E/M]
Alexander L’Estrange
SAATB
Faber Music 978-0-571-53620-7
AS A LILY AMONG THORNS [M]
Thomas Hyde
SATB
Novello NOV292215
Of these four ‘wedding anthems’ for unaccompanied mixed choir, Paul Mealor’s Ubi caritas stands out by virtue of its difficulty and for using a text suitable for singing on other occasions, not least on Maundy Thursday. It sounded splendid in Westminster Abbey performed by the combined choirs of the Abbey and Chapel Royal, but be warned if you are thinking of offering it for this year’s wedding season that tenors and basses between them divide into up to five parts, and first and second sopranos need to be able to hold an interval of a semitone comfortably between them on several occasions.
This Marriage by Ed Rex sets a poem translated from the 12th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic known as Rumi – the words, starting ‘May these vows and this marriage be blessed’, make no reference to the detail of any specific religion and may be found useful for that reason. The homophonic music, with no dynamic indication, gently allows the words to sound. Alexander L’Estrange’s Love comes quietly, however, does have dynamics at a level one would anticipate from the title, although building to a mezzo-forte climax before immediately dropping to a piano repeat of the opening. The text is secular, which technically is not the case with Thomas Hyde’s As a lily among thorns with words from the Bible, although its three verses from the Song of Songs contain nothing to which the Sufi mystic or indeed a total non-believer could not assent. The music is unexpectedly dramatic and arresting: sung during the signing of the registers it would certainly stop the chatter.

THIS IS THE DAY [E/M]
John Rutter
SATB and organ
Oxford X530
THE LORD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU [E]
David Barton
SA and piano
Fagusmusic.com
TWO HYMNS FROM THE ROYAL WEDDING [E]
arr. James O’Donnell
SATB and organ
Encore Publications
We return to that wedding with John Rutter’s commission for the occasion, a setting of various psalm verses that could be useful on many occasions if sung as if addressed to the congregation rather than to any particular couple. The music, comparatively simple to learn, is more varied than many anthems, with an unexpected and thoughtful conclusion. Any composer who now sets The Lord bless you and keep you is brave, but David Barton is successful by writing an engaging tune presented with the utmost simplicity. Intended for the reception of a couple into membership of the Methodist Church, it should have a wider use wherever a sung blessing is appropriate. And finally, for anyone who wants to be able to offer the whole royal wedding experience, James O’Donnell’s arrangements of Cwm Rhondda (SATB arrangement of verse 3) and of Blaenwern (descant for verse 3) are available in a single publication graced by a full-colour, royal photograph on the front.
James L Montgomery

December 2011

CHORAL RESOURCE

SONGS, PSALMS & SPIRITUALS
Compiled and edited by John Barnard and David Iliff
RSCM B0346
Many will be familiar with the RSCM’s The Carol Book and Season by Season: this is the next in this series of resources that can be photocopied legally (CCL licence required). Although the initial cost seems high, it is a cost-effective way to buy music for your choir. Unlike the earlier publications, this one is of use all year round. Most of the contents are relatively easy for an average choir and could probably be sight read by an experienced one; a number are also suitable for choir and congregation.
The accompaniments are generally good, though some work better on piano and some on organ. There are four-part arrangements of many of the songs which may tempt more traditional choirs into trying something new. I particularly liked the range of spirituals which can bring more variety into a service. Some items are well known, others less so. I was particularly taken with John Dankworth’s Light of the World and the four-part arrangement of Graham Kendrick’s Such Love.
The accompanying CD-ROM is extremely useful, with alternative versions of the scores – unison and SA Men arrangements, accompaniment only, voices only, etc. It also contains the text of all the items and recordings of ten of them. Few choirs will use everything in this volume but it will be a useful and valuable resource for a wide variety – and at a very reasonable cost.
Steve Goodwin

FEATURED REVIEW

CAROLS FOR CHOIRS 5
Mostly SATB, unacc. and with keyboard
ed. and arr. Bob Chilcott and David Blackwell
Oxford 978 0 19 337356 3
or wire bound 978 0 19 337712 7
The number of choral directors who can remember Christmas before Carols for Choirs is dwindling fast. The series was born in 1961, and fifty years on the fifth volume has appeared. Its pedigree is impeccable, and it fully maintains the high standards of its predecessors.
The preface speaks of 10 existing favourites and 40 new carols, but in fact 17 of the familiar congregational tunes can be found. Some have received more of a ‘makeover’ than others. It is very welcome to have a simple and dignified setting of O come, O come, Emmanuel, and fresh descants for other favourites. God rest you merry is enlivened with a charming medieval dance for the shepherds, and Good King Wenceslas sounds particularly crusty at first with Bob Chilcott’s rhythmic accompaniment. In We three kings the magi arrive at a canter in an energetic 6/8 metre: a small sacrifice of dignity perhaps, but the tempo which I always hoped, and never dared, to use as a teenage organist. Away in a manger and It came upon the midnight clear have two settings each, one traditional on each side of the Atlantic. The splendidly hearty accompaniment to Joy to the world could move seamlessly into Rule Britannia.
The new carols – some entirely fresh and some recently published – provide for sacred and secular tastes and for choirs of all abilities. There is a graceful tribute to previous editors in the inclusion of settings by David Willcocks (Lullay, my liking) and John Rutter (Candlelight Carol and New Year). Other names speak for themselves – Gabriel Jackson, Alan Bullard, Cecilia McDowall, Howard Skempton. Pilgrim Jesus (Chilcott), A little child (Malcolm Archer) and A Patre Unigenitus (Carl Rütti) remind us to celebrate with a dance. In My Lord has come (Will Todd), I sing of a maiden (Matthew Martin) and There is no rose (Alan Smith) we are drawn into the contemplation of a thoughtful text, in each case set by a composer who was not born when this series began.
This treasure chest of new and old carols should be in every choir library. If you need any further persuasion, turn to the end and play Thomas Hewitt Jones’s haunting setting of What child is this? The carol is alive and well.
Rosemary Broadbent

NEW CHRISTMAS CAROLS

JESUS, SPRINGING [E]
Bob Chilcott
SSATB and organ or piano          
Oxford BC135
AS JOSEPH WAS A-WALKING [M/D]
Francis Pott
SATB Oxford NH77

IN THE BEGINNING [E]
Alan Smith
SATB and organ or piano 
Oxford X525
Commissioned for Harrow School Chapel Choir, Jesus Springing is typical of Chilcott’s lyrical and accessible style, suited to parish and school choirs that can sing in four parts and manage divided sopranos. The accompaniment is pianistic in some respects, but actually better suited to the organ and none too difficult. The setting of Kevin Crossley-Holland’s poem is strophic, though each verse is scored differently. The music remains in E major: there is not a single accidental, giving a sense of gentle intensity.
Francis Pott’s finely crafted setting of the traditional words ‘As Joseph was a-walking’ has a neo-medieval flavour. Each vocal line has independent melodic shape; dissonance and chromaticism are deftly employed to exquisitely expressive ends. This is a splendid piece, within the capabilities of many parish choirs and strongly recommended to cathedral choirs.
In the Beginning by Alan Smith was first published in the Oxford Book of Flexible Carols and may be accompanied by orchestra. The music is akin to the style of Rutter’s What sweeter music. What sets Alan Smith apart from many composers who attempt this idiom is that he writes with genuine finesse and security of technique. His command of harmony and modulation means that music that is eminently singable is also expressive and colourful. Parish and school choirs, and their congregations/audiences, will love this carol.

BORN IN A STABLE [E]

Dominic Chivers & John Bertalot
SATB
Encore Publications
THERE IS NO ROSE OF SUCH VIRTUE [M/D]
Bryan Kelly
SATB (with divisions)
Encore Publications
A LITTLE CHILD THERE IS YBORN [E]
Philip Ledger          
SATB and organ
Encore Publications
BETHLEHEM [E]
Philip Ledger          
SATB and organ
Encore Publications
JOYS SEVEN [M]
John Morehen
SATB (with divisions) and organ
Encore Publications
Dominic Chivers was just eight years old in 2007 when Born in a stable was premiered by the choir of Blackburn Cathedral. His pentatonic melody (setting his own words) has been arranged by John Bertalot. The older composer’s contribution is sympathetic to the simplicity of the melody, but imaginative too. There are subtle contrapuntal touches and the first two verses end unexpectedly on subdominant and submediant respectively. The final verse, though coming to rest on the tonic, avoids a conventional perfect cadence. A gentle piece, suited to parish choirs.
There is no rose of such virtue comes from Bryan Kelly’s A cradle of carols. The music makes a feature of triads falling in thirds, simple but effective. Anyone who knows Kelly’s Latin American canticles will not be surprised that this music frequently switches time signature. The result is a rhythmical, supple piece with a lightness of touch, and well worth performing if your sopranos and tenors can sing high A flats.
Sir Philip Ledger’s A little child there is yborn, composed for Brian Kay and the Burford Singers, is in some respects akin to his well-known arrangement of the Sussex Carol, with its perky organ interludes and mostly unaccompanied choral writing; but there is also something of R.R. Terry’s Myn lyking (‘I saw a fair maiden’) about it. The music is solidly tonal, with flattened leading notes suggesting music of the Tudor age. It is a pretty setting, polished and straightforward.
Bethlehem, from the same composer, was first published in 2005. This new arrangement could be sung by congregation as well as choir. In the first verse, the voices sing in unison, accompanied by organ; in the second, the choir sings in harmony, and in the last the sopranos have a descant while the other voices sing the melody and the organ provides a varied accompaniment. This is essentially a Christmas hymn and as such would work well.
John Morehen composed Joys seven when he was 21 and a student at Addington Palace. His jolly melody bounces along in 6/8 time and, since it avoids the leading note and touches the fourth degree of the scale but once, is almost pentatonic and could be mistaken for an old English folksong. The organ provides the most delicate of accompaniments. Perhaps taking his cue from Haydn, the youthful composer telescoped the text so that, rather than trudging through all seven of Our Lady’s joys one by one, the third and fourth come together: the first sopranos sing of the third joy and the second sopranos sing of the fourth in canon. The fifth, sixth and seventh joys are dispatched even more efficiently in a three-in-one canon. Clever stuff from a composer of any age and great fun to perform.

WHAT SWEETER MUSIC CAN WE BRING
Tim Knight  
SATB and organ or piano 
www.spartanpress.co.uk TKM317
Tim Knight’s setting of Herrick’s famous poem was composed for the Southwold Singers in 2010 in a style fairly close to that of Rutter’s version. The cover states that the accompaniment may be played on organ or piano, but the score itself states piano, and it is to that instrument that the keyboard writing is better suited. The vocal lines are none too difficult and there is much that is attractive in this piece. It has the unusual feature of beginning in G major and ending in F.
Christopher Maxim

CAROL ARRANGEMENTS

O COME, DIVINE MESSIAH! [E]
arr. Howard Helvey
SATB and organ
OUP X521
GABRIEL’S MESSAGE [E]
arr. Craig Phillips
SATB and organ
Paraclete Press PPMO1143
THE ANNUNCIATION [E]
arr. John Bertalot
SATB and organ
Encore Publications
TOMORROW SHALL BE MY DANCING DAY [E]
arr. June Nixon
SATB and organ
Encore Publications
ROCKING [E]
arr. William Whitehead
SATB and piano or organ
Encore Publications
All these carols are arrangements of traditional tunes, in accessible arrangements for four-part SATB choirs with straightforward organ accompaniments. The first four are lively settings, arranged with sparkling and crisp organ accompaniments; the fifth is more introspective.
The French traditional carol translated as O Come Divine Messiah appears to be well known in America. The words are suitable for an Advent service, or at a carol service linked to a prophecy of the coming of Christ. With straightforward vocal lines and a sparkling organ accompaniment, choirs will enjoy this lively setting.
Another American, Craig Phillips, has arranged Gabriel’s Message, the well-known Basque carol ‘The angel Gabriel from heaven came’. There are rhythmic differences from the melody in Pettman’s usual version, and each verse is set in a different key. This effective and enjoyable arrangement requires a competent organist.
John Bertalot has set his own words about the Annunciation to a traditional, lively Suffolk melody. Again, four-part choirs will enjoy singing this and organists relish the sparkling accompaniment and extrovert ending. Amongst requests for ‘bright registration’ there is a specific instruction to draw a 32 foot pedal stop – a rarity on most parish church organs. This carol would provide a good alternative to Gabriel’s Message. It is also available from Encore Publications with the Easter text ‘On Easter Day our Lord Arose’.
A sense of fun pervades June Nixon’s arrangement of Tomorrow shall be my Dancing Day, in waltz time with a chirpy organ accompaniment, and straightforward vocal parts. Two verses relate to the Christmas story, but the third (and final verse set here) is for Ascensiontide, so this carol has life after Christmas.
William Whitehead’s arrangement of the traditional Czech carol Rocking, marked ‘Lento, dreamily’ is set simply against a two-bar ostinato accompaniment with only slight variations. Vocal and keyboard parts are easy, despite occasional dissonance. In the only 15 bars of SATB harmony, tenors hold an E flat while altos and basses have just four different notes. The bass line here is so high that this section could be sung effectively by four-part treble voices. This arrangement would be useful in encouraging independent part-singing in a children’s choir. Gordon Appleton

UPPER VOICE CAROLS

THE COLOURS OF CHRISTMAS [E]
John Rutter
SA and piano
OUP W170
The composer’s own text starts with the secular imagery of ‘Green for the ivy’ and ‘White for the mistletoe’ followed by what in early carols would have been a reference to Christ’s passion with ‘Red for the berries that shine in the snow’. Verse 2 moves to the nativity with ‘Blue for the robe of his mother so mild, Gold for the precious gifts they brought to the child’. It all finishes with an all-purpose ‘And a rainbow for all the sweet dreams you will keep’ – to which you will either say ‘Ah!’ or ‘Ugh!’. The music has a matching feel-good quality, exploring the borders between sentiment and sentimentality. An SATB version is also available (X529) and an orchestration on hire.
James L Montgomery

THE VIRGIN’S NAME WAS MARY [M/D]
Howard Skempton
Four-part equal voices
OUP X502
Three canons set three verses from Luke’s account of the Annunciation, starting with the words of the title and ending ‘Be it unto me according to thy word’. The canons are strict, so all four parts can be learnt by voices in unison, with a range from A flat below middle C up to the F an octave and a sixth above. Or an octave lower for men, since singers can be upper or lower voices, or mixed, or different combinations of voices on different parts. So far, so flexible. What isn’t flexible are the notes and rhythms themselves, where there is a delightful rhythmic fluidity. With a 15/8 time signature, each canon starts as if in lilting compound time, alternating quavers and crotchets, but after a bar or so, passages of quavers beamed in pairs gently cut across the dotted crotchet beat. As the four parts overlap, what seems comparatively straightforward to learn sounds fascinatingly complex in performance.
James L Montgomery

O HEILIGE NACHT [E]
Franz Liszt ed. David Heyes
T or S solo, SA and organ
Recital Music RM107
Liszt’s ‘Christmas Carol after an old melody’ is based on the second of his organ or piano Weihnachtsbaum ‘Christmas Tree’ pieces. A tenor solo describes the ‘holy night’ with angels singing Alleluia, joined by an angelic upper voice choir – with music that is easy and attractive. Despite the repeated ‘Halleluja’ being understandable in German and English, it is a pity that the opportunity was not taken to provide an optional singing English translation of the rest of the words, which would have encouraged wider use of this atmospheric carol.
James L Montgomery

WILLIAM BLAKE

BLAKE’S CRADLE SONG [M]
Christopher Maxim
SATB
Recital Music RM233
From Sting to Benjamin Britten, Blake’s elusive words have inspired many composers in different genres, and this new setting is certainly worthy of a place among them. The idiom is a sort of Tavener-meets-Howells; an apparent simplicity covers a subtle responsiveness to the words and a beguiling fluidity of musical effect. There are a few tricky harmonic corners but the piece is written with an evident delight in musically shaped phrases that are rewarding to sing.
James L. Montgomery

FOR EPIPHANY

THE LIGHT OF GOD’S GLORY
An Epiphany Carol Service and Resources
Compiled by Peter Moger
RSCM SO136.
‘Three wonders mark this holy day . . . a star leads the wise men . . . water is made wine at the wedding feast . . . Jesus is revealed as the Christ in the waters of baptism.’ These words, spoken at the start, outline the themes for this Epiphany service. But there are not just words and music. Like the Advent Sequence and The Word Revealed, the liturgical element is strong, with processions to the crib, the holy table and font (or usual place of baptism). Musically, there are hymns and songs, singable anthems from Shephard, Archer, Ives, How and Hewitt Jones and also plenty of plainsong if you wish. Peter Moger can devise powerful and moving services and this latest one is no exception. The flexibility of this service will appeal to most denominations; after Christmas the music can be quickly learnt, and it is appropriate any time up to Candlemas (The Presentation of Christ in the Temple). 
Stuart Robinson

THE MAGI [E/M]
Andrew Carter
SATB
Banks Music Publications ECS 543
This is a superb Epiphany anthem, written for York Minster last year, but easily learnable and singable by any SATB choir, with brief treble, tenor and bass solos which take words given to each of the Magi. The words, by the composer, form a meditation on the significance of the visit of these mysterious personages. The four G minor verses start the same, but the first three end differently leading into related D major solos. The fourth builds to a climax as it turns from the Magi to ourselves: ‘May we with the Magi kneeling . . . find in faith your love and healing, Christ the Morning Star.’
James L. Montgomery

September 2011

UPPER VOICES

SPIRITUALS FOR UPPER VOICES [E–M/D]
ed. Rosephanye and William C. Powell
Upper voices unacc. and with piano
Oxford 9780193805194
Popular with school choirs and church choirs, concert audiences and congregations, spirituals have been arranged in many ways since they first appeared on the concert hall platform (in 1871 according to the preface to this volume). Most published arrangements reflect as much the style of the arranger as of the original material, but here the editors have commissioned settings from distinguished spiritual arrangers in the United States that feel authentically part of the tradition. Deep River and Lit’l David play on yo’ harp are perhaps the best known of the 12 titles. Arrangements are in two, three and four parts and many include a ‘lead voice’ part. The wide range of difficulty partly reflects the arrangements themselves but also how the editors have offered alternatives that can lessen the demands of the more difficult ones. The preface and performance note, covering the history, meaning of the texts and performance practice, deserve to be read widely.
Stephen Patterson

CHRISTMAS CAROLS

THE HOLLY AND THE IVY [E/M]
WHENCE IS THAT GOODLY FRAGRANCE FLOWING? [E]
arr. June Nixon
SATB and organ
Encore Publications
DORMI, JESU! or THE VIRGIN’S CRADLE HYMN [E]
June Nixon
SATB
Encore Publications
June Nixon’s surprising arrangement of The Holly and the Ivy, performed in last year’s King’s College Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols and broadcast around the world on radio and television, will have been heard by many readers. If you are not among them, do check out one of the YouTube uploads of the King’s televised broadcast – an excellent way of deciding whether to adopt a new piece for your choir. The surprise is the tune, which is not the traditional English one but that of a French carol.
Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing? has English and French (‘Quelle est cette odeur agréable’) texts and the expected tune – and a similar feel to the Willcocks setting but achieved with different harmonies and textures, including a partially contrapuntal setting of verse 3. Dormi, Jesu! is a single-page miniature delight, which after 12 bars appears to be about to repeat itself but in every bar turns in new directions. On the reverse of the page is the same music with the English ‘Sleep, sweet babe!’ text.

ONCE IN ROYAL DAVID’S CITY [E]
HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING [E]
arr. Kenneth Hesketh
SATB and organ or orchestra
Novello NOV050413, 050402
O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL [E]
arr. Kenneth Hesketh
SATB and organ or orchestra
Novello NOV050424
These three exuberant arrangements sound splendid with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. Whether they are what you need in church with organ accompaniment depends on whether or not you have a Christmas service or concert where the arguably over-the-top treatments would sound appropriate. The arranger’s website www.kennethhesketh.co.uk gives you the opportunity to hear the complete orchestral versions and look at several pages of the choir and organ scores – so you can decide whether you need a more reverential approach or that a ‘vivo, leggiero’ dancing introduction to Once in royal is just what you have been waiting for.

REJOICE AND BE MERRY [M]
ANGELS, FROM THE REALMS OF GLORY [M]
Malcolm Archer
SATB and organ
Oxford X512, X510
WHEN RIGHTEOUS JOSEPH [E/M]
Malcolm Archer
SATB and organ
RSCM A2635
CHILD OF MARY, SOFTLY SLEEPING [E/M]
Malcolm Archer
SATB
Oxford X507
These four carols all have original music by Malcolm Archer. The first two are lively and rhythmic, rejoicingly and merrily bouncing along – Rejoice and be merry itself mostly in 6/8 and Angels, from the realms of glory mostly in 7/8. Both will make an audience happy, especially if with clean, crisp and well-articulated singing and playing.
When righteous Joseph is one of the ‘doubting Joseph’ carols, like the Cherry Tree Carol, but one that has never caught on with a popular tune. Let us hope that Archer’s new setting will change that: the melody is catchy, the harmonies appealing, the refrain has the character of a folk carol refrain, and the three verses build up to a splendid final climax that just feels right.
Child of Mary, softly sleeping sets a text that Timothy Dudley-Smith wrote for his 2008 Christmas card. Four verses are addressed to the infant Jesus as ‘Child of Mary’, ‘Child of wonder’, ‘Child of promise’ and ‘Child of sorrow’ in which the melody is gently passed from voice to voice, leading to a final verse for ourselves today: ‘Child of glory now proclaim him . . . risen Lord and Saviour name him’. It is a thoughtful and satisfying carol where words and music enhance each other.
James L Montgomery

ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT [E]
Bob Chilcott
Upper voices, SATB, organ or chamber ensemble
Oxford BC136
These eight carols, all with traditional texts, can be performed individually or as a liturgical or concert work with optional suggested Bible readings. The music is original, but in several of the carols the upper voices introduce a different carol with its well-known melody. So, in the middle of the opening and closing This is the truth, the upper voices sing Once in royal David’s city to the expected tune. Similarly SATB A spotless rose incorporates upper-voice Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming, and SATB Rejoice and be merry an upper-voice On Christmas night all Christians sing. This upper-voice part is ideal for children’s choirs although the composer also suggests it could be sung by congregation or audience. At one magical moment the tables are turned and under a soprano solo (or ad lib. upper voices) Sweet was the song the SATB choir sings Silent night. Any choir with upper voices and SATB would find many different ways of using this imaginative Christmas sequence.
Stephen Patterson

YOUNG VOICES FESTIVAL

WATER OF LIFE [E]
Upper, equal or mixed voices with keyboard
Score with CD and CD-ROM
RSCM S0137
The basic format of the RSCM’s festival services for young voices is well-established, and an inspiration for worship in school or church. The latest celebrates water as a physical and spiritual gift of God – cleansing, overpowering, life-giving. Hymns, readings and songs include John Bell’s arrangement of ‘Come all you people’ and John Barnard’s of ‘As water to the thirsty’. A suggested anthem is John Rutter’s Gaelic blessing, starting ‘Deep peace of the running wave to you’. The charity WaterAid is supported. The CD includes demonstration and backing tracks and the CD-ROM has also a music book for singers, order of service for congregation, alternative arrangements for upper and mixed voices, and training notes. Separate copies of the book will be needed for director and accompanist, but all singers’ material is included along with permission to copy.
Stephen Patterson

MASS SETTINGS

TRINITY MASS [E]
David Thorne
Unison voices, optional SATB, organ
Culver Music
A SETTING FOR STILLNESS [E]
Paul Fisher
Unison voices and/or SATB, optional organ
www.paulfishermusic.co.uk
These are both congregational settings of the Church of England Common Worship Order 1 text – although Fisher describes the text as ‘wordy and busy’ and shortens the Gloria to just 12 words as he avoids ‘any false jollity’. He asks each sung text to begin and end with a brief time of silence and ensures that Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei all start and end quietly. He certainly invokes his intended ‘stillness’ as the congregational line explores sections of a D major scale; in the context the excursion to G major in the Agnus Dei provides welcome contrast. The complete music is presented three times: unison voices and organ, then choir and optional organ, then a congregational part.
In contrast, Thorne’s Trinity Mass is presented with an SATB and organ score and separately a congregational part, and sets the complete texts. Those who already enjoy Thorne’s Mass of St Thomas will not be disappointed. The Gloria in particular is full of rejoicing, with a repeated refrain that will help introduce the work to congregations for the first time. The music of the Kyrie, imaginatively transformed in the Gloria, provides material for all the remaining sections (including all four communion acclamations). This is musically satisfying and liturgically effective.

MASS OF SAINT BENEDICT [E]
Margaret Rizza
Unison voices, optional SATB, keyboard, optional instruments
RSCM C0836
MASS OF BLESSED JOHN HENRY NEWMAN [E]
James MacMillan
Unison voices, optional SATB, organ
Boosey & Hawkes 19151
Two early settings of the new Roman Missal English text (MacMillan’s was written for the Pope’s visit to Glasgow last year) are an encouraging musical start to the life of the translation. Both have strong and easily learnt congregational lines with optional SATB choir. MacMillan specifies organ accompaniment, although some of the writing looks more like a keyboard reduction of the original brass and timpani parts (available on hire if required). Rizza gives a keyboard part, with optional and flexible instrumental lines, parts for which are printed at the end of the score with a congregational part for photocopying (MacMillan’s congregation part is for separate purchase in packs of 10).
Rizza Rizza has aimed for a Benedictine-inspired simplicity whilst MacMillan was writing for a grand occasion, but the contrasts are not as one might anticipate. Both have a call-and-response Kyrie but MacMillan’s is the simpler, with a single note on the words ‘Lord’ and ‘Christ’ instead of Rizza’s seven-note melisma. Rizza’s Gloria is 40 bars longer than MacMillan’s, partly because she interpolates tuneful instrumental phrases between the sung sentences. Throughout, there is much to recommend in the two approaches, and worship leaders could confidently offer a choice of both settings to introduce the new texts.
James L Montgomery

MISSA DUNELMI [D]
James MacMillan
SSAATTBB
Boosey & Hawkes 9790060123450
As its name suggests, Missa Dunelmi was written for Durham Cathedral, and it must have made a thrilling contribution to the Sung Eucharist there at its premiere earlier this year or more recently at the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music. MacMillan is always concerned about the role of music in a God-centred liturgy, whether setting vernacular texts for congregation and cantor, or here Greek and Latin texts for eight-part unaccompanied choir.A lyrical Kyrie features pairs of voices alternating and overlapping, pleading gently but confidently for God’s mercy. The Gloria, starting on a basis of plainchant with Scottish inflexions, is full of invention and drama, with a thrilling Amen climax. The spacious Sanctus and Agnus Dei can be sampled on a rather rough recording at www.dailymotion.com/video/xjim4u_macmillan-missa-dunelmi_music – the music is sympathetically written for voices, and is careful to double pitches or pass them from one voice to another, so that it is not as difficult as it looks at first glance on the page.
James L Montgomery

MASS OF ST BARNABAS [M/D]
Antony le Fleming
SATB with divisi and solos
Roberton 85357
This is rhythmic music, even at the start marked ‘distant, remote’, and more obviously so in the excitingly athletic Gloria which ends in a blaze of E flat major. The Sanctus is tellingly marked ‘With (initially) suppressed rhythmic energy’. The Benedictus is a separate movement, either ending ‘in nomine Domini’ or with a ‘Hosanna in excelsis’ using the musical material of the Sanctus ‘Pleni sunt coeli’. The Agnus Dei is less driven, more reflectively intense, with a marking ‘De profundis’ and indeed an unexpected anguish. The whole score can be inspected online at www.goodmusicpublishing.co.uk/info/default.aspx?id=85357#
James L Montgomery

MISSA BREVIS EXONIENSIS [M/D]
Brian Chapple
SATB
Chester CH76120
Written for Exeter Cathedral and already in the repertoire of other cathedral choirs, this straightforwardly melodic, tonal setting does not divide the voices and could be learnt and sung enjoyably by any church choir with, for example, the Byrd Mass for Four Voices in its repertoire. Although there are no soloists, the composer frequently uses individual choir sections for brief quasi-solo passages, contrasting with full SATB. The Osannas at the end of Sanctus and Benedictus will sound breathtaking in a resonant acoustic.
James L Montgomery

June 2011

FEATURED REVIEW
TUDOR ANTHEMS: Fifty Motets and Anthems for Mixed-Voice Choir
ed. Lionel Pike
SATB with divisi
Novello NOV881000
For many choirs and choral societies the Oxford Book of Tudor Anthems has been a standard source for this wonderful repertoire since it was first published in 1978. This new edition from Novello is now a serious competitor (why have we had to wait so long!). At almost the same price as the OUP volume and with 50 anthems (OUP had 34), this anthology is remarkable value for money. Before considering the contents, it is worth mentioning its weight. My choir complains at holding the New Church Anthem Book and this is the same weight as the NCAB paperback (i.e. over a kilogram) and almost A4 in size. Lionel Pike, former Professor of Music at the Royal Holloway in London, provides an eclectic mix of the well known and the more obscure, but all the music here, from 29 composers in total, merits inclusion. Even if you have some of the better-known works in your choir library there is sufficient unfamiliar repertoire to recommend investing in a copy. There are 13 pieces in four parts (10 of these SATB), 21 in five parts, 14 in six parts and one each in seven and eight parts. All have a keyboard reduction except John Dowland’s An heart that’s broken and contrite which has a lute part. At two pages, this is the shortest piece in the book (O clap your hands by Gibbons is the longest at 32 pages). A small point, but it would have been useful to have an indication of the voicing of each piece in the index or at the head of each work. This is an edition made by a fine scholar. The editorial notes describe in detail each source used, but do not provide a commentary of differences between these and other sources. Notes indicate for which season or occasion in the church year each anthem might be suitable, and from Issue 55 we have listed some of them in Sunday by Sunday (using the abbreviation TAN). The editor has modernized the spelling of English texts. Generations have sung Rejoice in the Lord alway and so I wonder if his version ‘always’ is an editorial change or is in his original source? This is one of the most exciting anthologies to have come my way for some time.
John Henderson

YOUNG VOICES

HOSANNA! FOR HANDS & FEET & VOICES [D]
Brendan Ashe
SATB
Faber 9780571521449
This rhythmic piece provides an enjoyable challenge for skilled singers, who are required to coordinate claps, stamps, singing and vocal percussion. Based on the Latin text of the Sanctus, catchy syncopated phrases are dotted between the voice parts, forming interesting textures and patterns. This piece is certainly not for the faint-hearted: to perform it as written you would have to learn it by heart. And if the body percussion wasn’t enough to contend with, there are vocal slides in each part, taking the sopranos up to a high C at several points! That said, it would certainly be worth the effort to learn it and would offer a memorable and exciting contribution to any concert or act of worship. It is particularly recommended for able youth choirs and the young at heart!

ON EAGLES’ WINGS [M]
Alexander L’Estrange
SS & organ (or piano & electric bass)
Faber CMD 82
L’Estrange’s music is always tuneful and accessible, and although this anthem is more challenging than some of his others, On Eagles’ Wings has much to recommend it. Commissioned by St Davids Cathedral Festival it was written with cathedral choristers in mind, and long, sustained phrases, plus a vocal range which is fairly high throughout for the first sopranos, would prove demanding for inexperienced singers. The organ part, on three staves, can be given to a pianist (playing the manual part) with an electric bass playing the pedal line – a reminder of the composer’s jazz roots which permeate his musical style. Overall this would make an uplifting anthem for confident trebles or upper voices.
Esther Jones

THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT

THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT [M/D]
Dan Locklair
SSAATTBB
Subito Music 91480580
THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT [D]
Alan Bullard
SSAATTBB
Oxford NH73
THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT [D]
Philip Moore
SATB (with divisi) & organ
Banks Music Publications ECS 509
The wonderful poetry of the hymn ‘The spacious firmament on high’ has inspired very different and effective settings by three prolific church music composers. Dan Locklair and Alan Bullard have written unaccompanied settings for double choir requiring experienced singers and secure intonation. The easier is by the American, Dan Locklair who uses conservative tonality with each verse treated effectively in a different key. With a wide range of dynamics and an fff ending for ‘the hand that made us is divine’, this would be an exciting piece for a competent choir.
By contrast, these words end Bullard’s arrangement ppp al niente. Commissioned in 1989 for the BBC Northern Singers in Manchester, this highly effective setting is more difficult than Locklair’s. Although rooted in traditional harmonic language, the music divides words (and sometimes parts of words) between voice parts and uses note clusters. It is a very worthwhile piece, exploiting musically the contrasts between exuberant and gentle within the text.
Commissioned by the Friends of Cathedral Music to mark the retirement of the composer after 25 years at York Minster, Philip Moore’s setting is for SATB accompanied by organ, although each voice part includes divisi. The text is sensitively treated – a hallmark of the composer – and the music well-crafted. Cathedral choirs (or equivalent) with good organists will welcome this splendid new addition to the repertoire.
All these anthems are worth exploring individually, but could also form an interesting section within a concert programme.
Gordon Appleton

CHILCOTT ANTHEMS

BOB CHILCOTT ANTHEMS 2 [E–M/D]
Mixed voices with and without accompaniment
Oxford 9780193364936
The eight anthems by Bob Chilcott in this new collection were written over the past four years. Two that had previously been published (This Day and The Lord’s my Shepherd) have been arranged for SATB for this volume. Choirs which find it difficult to muster the double choir (with divisi within each) for the setting of the prayer of St Richard of Chichester, called A Thanksgiving and written for the King’s Singers, will be pleased by the composer’s note that it may be performed effectively with one choir only, accompanied by organ. Chilcott has a gift for melodic invention and often uses interesting textures in accompaniments for organ, piano, or, in Queen of the May, ‘any appropriate percussion instrument’. This rhythmic anthem for the Blessed Virgin Mary was written, like many of the pieces in the book, for a wedding. Love Divine and The Lord’s my Shepherd naturally belong in this context, but like most of the texts are suitable for ‘general’ use in worship. Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, written for Repton School, has a particularly attractive new tune. However, in verse four the congregation joins in, singing Parry’s tune Repton cleverly superimposed over Chilcott’s tune. Repton also provides inspiration for a descant at the end. Charles Wesley’s text for Love Divine receives a delicate and expressive treatment – the cantabile melody is set against a gently moving semiquaver accompaniment. Let the earth acclaim him has a text by Timothy Dudley-Smith set unaccompanied for SSAATB: short, rhythmically lively and with the instruction ‘like a fanfare’.
The Lord’s Prayer uses traditional words set to a melody marked ‘with a gentle fervour’. Chilcott also includes his own adaptation of a Jewish text for an anthem This day will you strength us (with the noun irritatingly used as a verb).
As these anthems are currently unavailable separately, church choir directors with a limited budget will need to consider whether to pay £8.75 for one book of eight anthems – attractive as they are – by the same composer.
Gordon Appleton

SETTINGS OF THE JUBILATE

JUBILATE DEO [M/D]
Gordon Lawson
SATB (with divisi) & organ
fagus-music.com
JUBILATE DEO [D]
Tarik O’Regan
SATB (with divisions) & organ
Novello NOV958463
WELLS JUBILATE [M/D]
John Rutter
SATB (with divisi) & organ
Oxford 9780193366466
JUBILATE DEO [D]
Nigel Hess
SATB & organ
Faber 9780571521432
The first three Jubilates reviewed here are settings of Psalm 100 and end with the ‘Gloria Patri’, suitable for use at morning prayer or as psalm settings/anthems in other liturgical contexts. They require choirs of a very good standard who can cope with divisions of the lines, syncopation and some high writing, particularly for the sopranos. They also demand very competent organists.
Gordon Lawson sets the BCP words, though he omits the phrase ‘For the Lord is gracious’. It opens with an organ ostinato, over which sopranos sing a shapely melody. The choral writing is a satisfying mix of homophonic and contrapuntal textures. The tonic key is E major, but a considerable portion of the piece is in F sharp major. The music of the Gloria is a recycling of the material found at the opening. A tuneful piece, well crafted, with a good sense of onward movement.
Tarik O’Regan’s setting in Latin was composed for the Cathedral of St John, Albuquerque, New Mexico. After a hushed, unaccompanied opening that builds to a climax, much of the choral writing is unison or homophonic, supported by energetic, syncopated organ accompaniment. This setting is the most contemporary sounding of those reviewed here, but still very singable.
John Rutter’s Wells Jubilate was composed as a companion piece to his Winchester Te Deum. It may be accompanied by organ alone, or by organ and brass, with or without timpani and cymbals. It may be heard in the organ-only version on the Wells CD Songs of Sunshine, reviewed in the June 2011 edition of CMQ. It is a superbly executed setting, capturing the mood of the text and expressing it economically. It is unmistakably the work of its creator: a masterpiece of its kind and a welcome addition to the repertoire.
Nigel Hess’s Jubilate Deo was originally composed for a production of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII and may be performed with optional brass. The text (in Latin) is a hotchpotch of material, including bits of the hymn ‘Ave maris stella’. It sets only a small part of Psalm 100. It is an exciting work requiring a good choir and a very competent organist, but its text leads one to question its appropriate liturgical use.
Christopher Maxim

FESTIVAL SERVICE

THE WORD REVEALED
Compiled by Peter Moger and Charles Taylor
RSCM RS40
This festival service, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, will provide a useful repertoire of music long after this year’s festival use. Philip Wilby’s Vox Christi setting of the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel is magnificent. It is good to have any anthem using these words, and here is one so powerfully expressive as to be well worth the purchase of the book in itself. Thomas Hewitt Jones has written a useful SA Men setting of Lead me, O Lord, and David Ogden a four-part Teach us, good Lord, the only one of the seven anthems with a non-biblical text. There are imaginative pairings of hymn texts and tunes, descants, chants and arrangements, with readings and prayers for a Service of the Word.
James L Montgomery

ERIC WHITACRE COLLECTION
SATB with divisi
Chester CH73975
Whitacre’s music came to the attention of many choral enthusiasts after Polyphony released their ‘Cloudburst’ CD in 2008, and his YouTube ‘Virtual Choir’ has brought his music to a new generation for whom much conventional choral music is a foreign world. So many choral directors will be tempted by this compilation of seven works for unaccompanied mixed choir, especially as it includes the most popular Lux Aurumque and Sleep. But be aware that these are all settings of secular texts, if with a ‘spiritual feel’. That said, This Marriage could certainly be effectively sung at a church wedding (and asks that ‘these vows and this marriage be blessed’), and all would be effective in concert; each piece ends quietly and gently. James L Montgomery

ETERNAL LIGHT: A Requiem
Howard Goodall
Soloists, chorus, keyboards, strings
Faber 9780571532308
LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT
Howard Goodall
SATB and piano
Faber 9780571533237
After Mozart, Verdi, Brahms, Fauré, Duruflé and Britten, how does a sensitive and thoughtful composer approach the text of the Requiem? John Rutter notably took Fauré as a model, and kept his music spare and unadorned, showing how profoundly moving such simplicity can be. Howard Goodall looks to Brahms (in intention rather than musical idiom), in Goodall’s words ‘a Requiem for the living, addressing their suffering and endurance, a Requiem focusing on the consequences of interrupted lives’. If his music feels like Lloyd Webber meets Vicar of Dibley, one can hardly object to the latter given that Goodall wrote the Psalm 23 ‘Vicar of Dibley’ theme. The music is certainly tuneful and catchy when it is trying to be peaceful and comforting. Less convincing are the more dramatic moments, and especially movement 6, ‘Dies irae: In Flanders fields’, juxtaposing the Latin liturgical text with John McCrae’s 1915 poem ‘In Flanders fields’ – a combination which cannot help reminding one of the genius of Britten’s War Requiem. But a juxtaposition of texts provides a striking feature of this Requiem setting. Instead of interpolating other texts between the movements of the Requiem, almost all of Goodall’s Requiem movements have a combination within the same movement, culminating in an ‘In Paradisum: Lux aeterna’ which incorporates a range of quotations from earlier movements.
Eternal light: A Requiem is not church music in its setting of the Requiem text, but church choirs may find useful the separate publication of Newman’s poem ‘Lead, kindly light’, long popular as a hymn, and in Goodall’s Requiem forming a stand-alone movement as well as returning at the climax of the ‘In Paradisum’. If you already enjoy singing the composer’s Love Divine, or indeed The Lord is my Shepherd, you will certainly enjoy this affirmation that God’s power ‘still will lead me on’.
James L Montgomery

ORGAN TUTOR

THE COMPLETE CHURCH ORGANIST, LEVEL TWO
Selected and edited by Daniel Moult
RSCM N0802 £19.50 (affiliates £14.63)
This excellent publication includes hymns, worship songs, accompanying Anglican chant, anthems and solo repertoire. The preface and introductory sections cover fingering and pedalling, how to practise, and technical exercises which extend the range of manual scales and have useful work on legatissimo playing and finger substitution. There are two studies from Stainer, a good selection of pedal exercises (toes only), and a section on coordination.
15 well-known hymns include Slane, Living Lord and Bunessan. Each is given in two versions, one with detailed recommendations for aspects of performance such as play-over, tempo, gap between verses and registration for each verse, and a second with detailed fingering and the full text. Several have simple pedal parts. Users could augment this section by referring to Anne Marsden Thomas’s The Organist’s Hymn Book (Cramer).
Worship songs can be the bane of an organist’s life. Daniel Moult has a pertinent comment: ‘You may . . . need to simplify or rearrange what you see on the printed page. Initially you may prefer to write out your own arrangements in advance, but over time you should aim to be able make the necessary alterations to the score at sight.’ There are only four songs, ‘Be still, for the presence of the Lord’, ‘Lord, I lift your name on high’, ‘Make me a channel of your peace’ and ‘Meekness and majesty’, all made playable on the organ.
The innovation is a section on accompanying Anglican chant, a difficult art that is in danger of being forgotten. Psalms 114, 121, 125, 141 and verses from Psalm 25 are covered, with the sort of suggestions as earlier for hymns. Some verses with particular problems are picked out and presented with the words printed beneath the music. The chants are fingered.
There are four anthems, by Attwood (Turn thy face from my sins), Saint-Saëns (Ave verum corpus), Tallis (If ye love me) and Ogden (Christ has no body now but yours). After an informative page on preparation, each is given with fingering and pedalling, suggestions for performance and registration.
The final part on repertoire has eleven pieces ranging from Bach to Langlais. Most are for manuals only; where there are pedal parts they are very simple. As with the rest of the music in this book there are detailed suggestions for fingering, pedalling, registration, and performance techniques. I particularly liked Daniel Moult’s advice for organists on congregations that ‘talk during and/or ignore their solo playing’. The book ends with ideas for further reading, including something for dealing with nerves. Complete Church Organist, Level Two is an important publication, one which could well be studied by experienced players.
Trevor Webb

MOSTLY MANUALS

TEN PIECES FOR THE ORGAN [E/M]
Philo Armonica
Fitzjohn Music Publications £11.00
I first became intrigued by this set of pieces (published in London c.1785) when researching organ music for my own book. Despite an extensive search in contemporary newspapers, there was no hint as to the identity of ‘Philo Armonica’ and the editors of this excellent (and first) edition have not named a composer. They write, ‘They may be by one of several amateur composers of the time who were not relying on music for a living.’ On re-examining the pieces, I am more inclined to suspect that there is more than one composer at work here.
All two-stave, though occasionally benefiting from judicious use of the pedal, they are mostly multi-sectional works. Nos. 1 and 9 are after the style of Stanley and Walond with a diapason movement followed by an Allegro on the Cornet or Trumpet with echoes. Others are reminiscent of the galant style of organ music prevalent in Italy at the time. The subtitle of the collection, ‘adapted for the use of the church’, and the material of some pieces perhaps suggest a harpsichord original. There is enough interest to provide both recital and voluntary material – highly recommended.
John Henderson

CAPRICCIOS AND PRELUDES [D]
Gottlieb Muffat
ed. Erich Benedikt
Doblinger DM1417
This collection contains 12 Capriccios, 6 Caprices and 7 Preludes by the younger Muffat (1690–1770). Most of the Capriccios open, and several close, with extended bars of chords marked to be arpeggiated, before continuing with toccata-like or sequential figuration; they range from 10 to 70 bars. The Caprices are generally more homophonic in structure, only nos. 3 and 6 being freer; variant versions of two are included. The Preludes range from 8 to 20 bars, and are mostly freer in form.
The introduction includes source details and a table of ornaments, but suggestions of ways of arpeggiating the many chords so indicated would have helped this complex problem. The majority of these pieces being short, they will be probably be most useful as introductions or interludes in the appropriate key; several require an advanced technique to play the runs well and incorporate the plethora of ornaments.
John Collins

ANDREW CARTER

FANFARE AND PROCESSIONAL [M]
PASSACAGLIA [D]
THREE PIECES FOR THREE STOPS [E]
Andrew Carter
Banks Music Publications 14056 ; 14061 ; 14057
These are three very disparate compositions. The first couples a stirring ‘Fanfare’, short enough to be a good recessional, with a more conventional ‘Processional’, in effect a contemporary version of a typical trumpet tune. Passacaglia is completely different. It was written for Francis Jackson’s ninetieth birthday in 2008, and published originally in the album Fanfare for Francis. This is a monumental work, twenty-two variations on a theme which begins with the three initials of Dr Jackson’s name. Andrew Carter further explains that ‘the key of C minor also acknowledges the incomparable example of Bach whose famous Neapolitan interruption on D flat is recalled in the theme’s last bar’. Other references to music by Bairstow, Bossi, Mendelsssohn, Franck and Willan are explained as coming from the composer’s time as a songman in the Minster choir.
The style changes again in Three Pieces for Three Stops, written for manuals only. Their nature is summed up by the photograph on the cover of the organ in St Martin-le-Grand in York, the instrument being in a glass box perched on four black legs with a single-manual console below. Regrettably the maker’s name is not given, neither are the three stops named.
The first piece is ‘A Cipher’, based on an A–C figure; the second, ‘Tuning Slides’, is a meander through all the notes of the manual compass. The last, ‘Gremlins on the Great’, is a wonderfully cacophonous journey with most of the writing in parallel seconds, gorgeously discordant and guaranteed to set the children’s teeth on edge. However, although the first which ends on a ciphering middle C, the last two end with peaceful chords, one F major and the last C major. This book is well worth trying: it will tickle the player’s fancy whatever the reaction.
Trevor Webb

EASTER ORGAN MUSIC

QUIET VOLUNTARIES FOR EASTER [mostly M]
fagus-music.com
This collection of 27 pieces provides quieter pieces for use as opening voluntaries during the Easter season, specifically composed so that the results ‘should be capable of being played by players of modest ability, or quickly prepared by those who are more skilled’. The book succeeds in these aims, with a collection in a wide variety of styles. Chorale and hymn tunes form the basis; Noël Nouvelet appears four times, each with a very different approach. Some pieces are quite conventional in their harmonic approach, others more adventurous, but the standard is universally good. There is something for everyone, and the use of these pieces need not be confined to the Easter period. The only non-contemporary composer included is Pachelbel, represented by a Partita on Salzburg and a chorale prelude on ‘Christ lag in Todesbanden’. This is a highly useful collection.

FULBERT’S GROUND [M]
Nigel Gaze
fagus-music.com £5.00
The ground of the title is St Fulbert, H.J.Gauntlet’s hymn tune usually sung to the words ‘Ye choirs of new Jerusalem’. The piece follows the customary pattern of starting simply and quietly, increasing in strength and complexity as it develops. The tune is mostly in the pedals in minims. The average parish organ will suffice, though the bigger the better.
Trevor Webb

CONTEMPORARY IDIOMS

ESPERANZA (2011) [D]

John McCabe
Novello NOV620048 £9.95
Esperanza was commissioned for the 2011 St Albans International Organ Festival. Named after Camp Esperanza (Hope), the site of the mission to rescue the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 70 days, it is a substantial work of around eight minutes. McCabe confesses to having been deeply moved and inspired by the rescue and planned the piece as a journey ‘from darkness to light’. The thick, meditative texture of the opening gives way to tremors of optimism flowering briefly in a fanfare section for solo reed, reigned in, then released in a final ecstatic toccata. Though most of McCabe’s organ music dates from the 1960s, many of his trademarks (complex polyphony, jagged chains of parallel chords, sharp harmonies) are instantly recognizable: he remains one of this country’s most thoughtful, consistent and excellent composers in any medium. Highly recommended.

MADRIGALI (2011) [D]
Michael Radulescu (b.1943)
Doblinger 02-478 £17.95
The latest offering by the German-Romanian composer Radulescu (b. 1943) is a thoughtful work of substantial duration, lasting over 20 minutes. It is divided into nine sections (‘strophes’ using the composer’s term) characterized by changes in tempo and registration, and organized harmonically through modes of Radulescu’s invention; texturally, much is made of the contrast between sustained clusters and delicate rapid figuration. Though written for a modest two-manual, mechanical action organ, a wider tonal palette would add to the music provided that clarity is maintained at all times. An excellent recital piece for experienced organists and audiences.
Huw Morgan

FULL ORGAN

SOLILOQUY [E/M]
Robert Cockroft
Banks Music Publications 14063 £2.50
This interesting piece is built over a four-part ostinato, manual chords above a simple pedal figure made up of a triad minus its third. The pattern runs throughout the 62 bars, passing through various keys. Only a small instrument is needed and it would be an ideal introductory voluntary.

INTRADA [M/D]
Thomas Hewitt Jones
Banks Music Publications 14065 £3.50
This is a lively piece full of exciting rhythms and clashing chords, which will be fun to learn and, one hopes, just as much fun to listen to. The chords may present a few problems, since the metronome mark is crotchet = 150; most of the movement is in quavers. However, once this hurdle is overcome, the result will be well worth the work.

IM FRIEDEN DEIN, O HERRE MEIN [M/D]
Walter Gleissner
Edition Dohr 11313 £3.95
The tune on which this ‘meditation for organ’ is based is probably unfamiliar, but its simplicity provides a useful peg for an attractive piece. The writing tends toward the solid, with plenty of sometimes dense chords, especially as the work comes to its climax with its full statement of the chorale melody. The Vorwort and Zum Komponisten provide plenty of information about both the music and the composer; the words of the chorale are included. Unfortunately for those of us blessed with only musicians’ German there is no English translation.

POSTLUDIUM [M/D]
Hermann Bendix
ed. Guido Joerg
Editon Dohr 1025 £4.95
This is a comparatively short piece of only 66 bars, but, like the Meditation by Gleissner, packs a lot into a short space. An impressive maestoso introduction leads to a fugue whose subject will give you good pedal exercise, and the whole adds up to a grand final voluntary or conclusion to a recital. There are eight pages of closely-printed commentary; unfortunately there is no English translation to shed light on a composer who clearly wrote a wide variety of music.

PRELUDE AND INTERLUDES ON WELSH FOLK SONGS [M]
George Towers
fagus-music.com £8.00
The introduction to this volume gives much information about George Towers (1914–2008), an active amateur musician in Loughborough. Full editorial notes are provided, as well as a note on the folk sources. A fine Prelude on ‘David of the White Rock’ stands well against the setting by Vaughan Williams. The second Prelude is based on ‘The Gentle Dove’, a less familiar tune, but one which lends itself to an appropriately gentle setting. An Interlude on a Welsh lullaby follows and the book ends with an Interlude on ‘Watching the White Wheat’, another unfamiliar tune (to the English at least) but a setting as charming as all the others.

IN CONTEMPLATION [M]
Gordon Lawson
fagus-music.com £8.00
This is a handy collection of six quiet pieces, ideal for pre-service use or during the communion. Lasting between three and four minutes, none is technically difficult and all could be sight-read in an emergency and on an organ of limited resources. All in all, this is a good volume to have by the console.

MEDITATION [M]
Frederick Cook Atkinson
fagus-music.com £3.00
The composer lived from 1841 to1896, and after time as a chorister at Norwich Cathedral served as organist in Bradford, Norwich Cathedral, and finally St Mary, Lewisham. This is his only known organ work. The publisher describes it as ‘a good example of an introductory voluntary in the late Victorian style which, with its grace and fluency, may still be found useful as introductory material for a church service’.

JIG [M/D]
Stephen Burtonwood
fagus-music.com £4.00
With a bit of luck this two and a half minutes of lively entertainment will get both player and listeners jigging around. A good, sprightly manual technique is needed, with preferably a light key action; there are also a few slightly tricky pedal passages involving descending scales. A tuba is specified, but could well be replaced by another strong reed or even, if necessary, by a bold Great chorus.

CADFAEL [M–D]
Philip Underwood
fagus-music.com £12.00
‘Cadfael’ is in five movements, based on titles of books by Ellis Peters, and uses original tunes of the 12th and 13th centuries. Philip Underwood explains that these are ‘reworked in a contemporary music idiom. A persistent feature is the use of an idée fixe based on the letters CADFAEL.’ These are recital pieces, and familiarity with the books would undoubtedly be an advantage, though ‘The Virgin in the Ice’ would stand well as a quiet voluntary. The final ‘Saint Peter’s Fair’ has a hair-raising pedal ostinato which, at the composer’s mark of quaver = 300, provides plenty of exercise (though he does add ‘if possible!’)

AGES OF MAN [M–M/D]
Nigel Gaze
fagus-music.com £10.00
The four pieces are derived from sculptures in St Mary, Studley Royal near Fountains Abbey, representing ‘Infantia’, ‘Adolescentia’, Virilitas’ and ‘Senectas’. The first is called ‘Cradle Song’, a gentle swaying 6/8 with a right hand largely made up of parallel fifths. ‘Scherzoso’, representing adolescence, is a 12/8 jig with the occasional appropriate wayward change of mood, whilst the ‘Rondo Marziale (Virilitas)’ is a stirring march. A suitably gloomy ‘Epilogue (Senectas)’ brings this interesting suite to a close.
Trevor Webb

HATTO STÄNDER and
ORGAN PLUS ONE
Review to follow shortly.

December 2011

FOR RECITAL OR VOLUNTARY

CAPRICCIO Op. 103 [M/D]
Francis Jackson
Banks Music Publications 14014
The evergreen Francis Jackson, Organist Emeritus of York Minster, is now in his 94th year and continues to perform and compose to our delight. This five minute work dates from 1994 but is given a handsome new print by Banks Music. As ever with Dr Jackson’s compositions, the music is literate, structurally sound, inventive and written with sympathy for the performer. Despite being in 6/8 throughout, there is much rhythmic wit and drive, with a levity that never approaches frivolity: the work concludes strongly and with dignity. Recommended for recitals and for voluntaries.
Huw Morgan

SUITE DU DEUXIEME TON [E–E/M]
Denis Bédard
RSCM CH53
Fans of Denis Bédard’s tuneful and accessible style will welcome this new suite based on 17th-century French classical models of Clérambault and his contemporaries. It is technically much easier than some of Bédard’s other music, and with several movements using minimal or no pedal. Composed for the tenth International Organ Festival in Arbois (France) in 2010, it is a delight, either when played as a whole or using the individual movements as voluntaries (Plein Jeu, Gavotte, Récit, Écho, and Fugue sur les Grands Jeux). Although many of us do not have a Tierce, Crumhorn or Vox Humana, this music will work on almost any organ. My congregation’s feedback was A+; do try it.
John Henderson

FOUR PIECES [M]
Alphonse Mailly
ed. David Patrick  Fitzjohn Music Publications
Mailly (1833–1918) was a pupil of Lemmens, and among other appointments was First Organist to the King of the Belgians. A noted virtuoso, he appeared at the Royal Albert Hall during the 1871 opening season of the International Exhibition. Pâques fleuries, for Palm Sunday, is a pleasant andantino; Musette-Christmas is rather mundane, but March Solennelle more interesting. Be warned that it calls for some octave pedalling. Toccata in D minor is built on a simple right-hand semiquaver figure, with the obligatory big tune in the left hand rather than in the pedals (which makes it a lot easier). The right hand figure tends to pall after a while, with only the briefest relief afforded by two 6-bar chorale-like passages. However, there is plenty of noise and show without demanding too much effort in preparation.

VARIATIONS ON ST COLUMBA [M]
Bruce Campbell  
Paraclete Press PPMO 1131
The composer is Associate Professor in the School of Music at Michigan University. There are four very playable variations. After a presentation of the well-known tune comes a simple two-part version, with a left-hand tune accompanied by quavers. The tune then migrates to the left hand, an octave lower, with a two-part accompaniment, then falls to the pedals, and finally becomes a robust four-part finale, with a quiet ending. This is definitely worth a try.

A TRIBUTE TO JEREMIAH CLARKE [M]
Robert Lind 
Paraclete Press PPMO 1117
This ‘tribute’ begins with a suitably elegant, two-part manuals-only ‘Voluntary in G’, followed by ‘Voluntary on a Morning Hymn’ and ‘Variations on King’s Norton’, one of Clarke’s best tunes. The variations gradually increase in complexity, culminating in a grand fugue in which the tune is given to the pedals. The last item is ‘Trumpet Voluntary in D’, a lively pastiche complete with dotted rhythms but only a few trills; the enterprising player will doubtless want to add more. This is a publication which will be very useful for services.
Trevor Webb

COMPOSER ANTHOLOGIES

A BLISS ORGAN ALBUM [M/D]
compiled and edited by Robert Gower
Banks Music Publications ORG36
This welcome composer anthology collects eight previously published arrangements of orchestral extracts from Arthur Bliss’s extensive output, including opera and music for film. This brings instant comparison with organ arrangements of music by William Walton which could fruitfully be paired in concert with items from this volume: Walton’s Spitfire Prelude alongside the uncompromising dissonance of Bliss’s ‘March’ from Seven Waves Away would be a particularly good coupling.
The works offer a good portrait of the range of Bliss’s expressive language, from the ceremonial (Fanfare for the Lord Mayor of London and ‘Bridal Ceremony’from Adam Zero), through the tender (‘Intermezzo’ from Miracle in the Gorbals) to the youthful irreverence of The Rout Trot. Robert Gower’s practical and effective arrangements make this album a must for organists interested in twentieth-century British music.

THE ORGAN WORKS OF GRAYSTON IVES [M/D]
RSCM N0871
Grayston Ives remains a popular figure amongst church musicians, and this welcome publication collects all of his organ music in one, handsomely produced volume. The earliest piece, Intrada,written in 1977 for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations at St Paul’s Cathedral, is well known through a previous Banks Music anthology, and well worth revisiting. Trademark rhythmic resilience and glittering scales make a strong and characterful work. Processional was written twenty years later but maintains and develops those techniques – this taut and exciting work is an excellent voluntary.
The gentle Lullaby from 2006, published for the first time, this is a lovely, simple piece that would go well before a service. The final work is the most recent: Partita is an eight-movement collection of baroque dance movements (Prelude, Allemande, etc.) of great character: the Sarabande and Toccata are particularly fine.
Huw Morgan

ANTONIO DE CABEZÓN

SELECTED KEYBOARD WORKS
Antonio de Cabezón
ed. Gerhard Doderer and Miguel Bernal Ripoll
Vol. 1 Hymns, Tientos and Versets BA9261
Vol. 2 Hymns, Tientos and Versets BA9262
Vol. 3 Glosas BA9263
Vol. 4 Glosas and Diferencias BA9264
Bärenreiter
The leading Spanish composer for keyboard of the 16th century, Antonio de Cabezón (1510–66) travelled widely around Europe in his capacity as court organist, visiting England in 1554. The editors present a broad selection, with 67 pieces drawn from the two surviving printed sources.
Volume 1 contains 20 pieces including four simple Hymn settings, a short Sequence Dic nobis Maria and five multi-thematic Tientos (or ricercars). Nos. 11–20 include six pieces in just two parts intended ‘for beginners’, excellent for learning to incorporate ornaments and divisions, followed by four-part Versos and Fabordones in each of which the chant appears in a different voice. Volume 2 offers 14 pieces including two Hymn settings and four sets of Versos that show considerable compositional and technical advance on the settings in Volume 1. Eight Tientos follow: outstanding in their varied treatment of the subjects are those on the first and the sixth tone. Volumes 3 and 4 contain 24 settings of sacred and secular vocal pieces and nine sets of variations.
Each volume includes a brief biography, description of the printed and manuscript tradition, information on the Spanish number tablature, and full critical reports. There are comprehensive notes on the complexities of metre and proportional notation, and on fingering as given in the two printed sources. The notes on how to play the ornaments, taken from contemporary sources, could have been expanded, as well, perhaps, as hints on adding glosses between long value notes which, along with rhythmic inequality, is essential to bring the score to life.
These volumes are highly recommended as a starting point for exploring the Iberian Renaissance repertoire. The Tientos still offer freshness almost 500 years down the line and will perhaps be the most useful for today’s organist.
John Collins

CHARLES-MARIE WIDOR

BACH’S MEMENTO [M–M/D]
Charles-Marie Widor
ed. Otto Depenheuer 
Butz Musikverlag BM2160
The important foreword explains Widor’s admiration, almost veneration, of J.S. Bach. Widor said, ‘For me, Bach is the greatest preacher. His cantatas and passions move the soul.’ In these pieces which Widor called orchestrations, in Dr Depenheuer’s words ‘he reshapes the original concept into a work of art of his own by creating an extended paraphrase of the original.’
There are six pieces, beginning with the third movement of the Pastorale, BWV 590. The right hand is unaltered except for bars 57 and 58, with extra bars added at the end. The left hand is a free adaptation, with an equally free pedal part. The key has been changed to E flat.
           Miserere mei Domine and Aria are versions of the sixth and tenth Preludes from the ‘48’, also in different keys. In the first, the two-part texture is amplified to four or five parts and the original 27 bars grow into 40. In Aria, the right hand is developed after bar 10 and the texture amplified, especially by the re-interpretation of the bass.
           Marche du Veilleur de Nuit is a paraphrase of ‘Wachet auf’. The texture is made denser by doubling the number of parts; the first entry of the chorale melody becomes a four-part harmonization and there is a new bass. After a change of key to G flat major it is almost a new composition – a striking re-working of the original.
It is almost a relief to move from this richness to the simplicity of Sicilienne, the well-known second movement of the Flute Sonata, BWV 1031, and then the last movement of the St Matthew Passion. This is an unusual and interesting volume containing music which is important in its own right. In fact these ‘orchestrations’ are remarkable.

SIX PIECES [M–M/D]
Charles-Marie Widor 
transcribed Otto Depenheuer 
Butz Musikverlag  2102
These pieces were published in 1867 as duos for piano and harmonium and subsequently arranged for other instruments, including Westbrook’s 1890s version of four of them for organ. After a suitably light-hearted Humoresque comes a long Allegro cantabile with a passage at the end which calls for either a third hand or the quick insertion of a small weight to hold down a sustained note, a vital instruction which, despite a foreword in German, French and English, only appears in German.
Marche Nuptiale is a splendid piece, and a fine alternative to the ubiquitous Toccata, if only the bride could be persuaded. Perhaps one could it play it by mistake if just asked for ‘the Widor’. Nocturne is attractive, but the winner is Sérénade, a pleasantly melodious piece, simple in style. The Duos end with Variations on an original theme. This book has plenty of interesting music and enough technical challenges to keep the player busy.

ADAGIO FOR ORGAN [E]
David Barton
Lighthouse Music Publications LMP P1001
www.lighthousemusicpublications.com 
Best described as ‘quite innocuous’, the Adagio is given in two versions, one extended by 13 bars. It is nicely constructed and would happily fill a gap of a couple of minutes, or less if the shortened version is used. Curiously both end on a second inversion of F major, which somewhat offended my academic susceptibilities, as well as leaving me wondering if the piece was really over.

FANFARE AND RECESSIONAL FOR ST LUKE’S [E]
David Barton
Adoro Music Publishing AMP-63
www.adoromusicpub.com
This has rather more to it than the Adagio reviewed above; it is quite conventional and gives the player no particular technical problems. At a mere $3.00 it is good value. The composer is very much an English musician, with a wide performing experience in the USA, Ireland, and the UK. Neither of these pieces needs a large instrument.

INVOCATION [E/M]
Raymond Weidner 
Paraclete Press PPMO 1146
Don’t be put off by the use of four staves after the first four bars: they merely make it easier to read. This is a rewarding piece, and not at all difficult. It will work well on a small instrument, though two manuals and pedal are needed. The pedal part is very simple, and the ‘slow and serene’ marking allows plenty of time to get to grips with the four staves.
Trevor Webb

September 2011

MANUALS ONLY

SIX SONATAS Op. 2 [E]
John Garth
ed. Simon Fleming
Fitzjohn Music Publications
John Garth was one of a group of composers active in the north-east England and a close friend of Charles Avison. He published five sets of keyboard sonatas accompanied by two violins and a cello; the pieces in the first set from 1768 are offered here as keyboard solos.
Each two-movement sonata comprises an Allegro or Moderato followed by a Rondeau, Tempo de Minuetto or Presto. The neatly varied texture includes melodic writing over repeated chords, broken chord figures and much two-part writing. Lively, bright and thoughtful, with typically galant rhythmic changes and nice chromatic touches, they pose few technical challenges apart from some extended arpeggios in semiquaver triplets which need careful fingering. They are clearly printed with a brief introduction to the composer and amendments to the original text made by the editor.

PASTORELLAS [E]
Gottlieb Muffat
ed. Erich Benedikt
Doblinger DM1438
The younger Muffat (1690–1770), organist to the Vienna court, left many keyboard works. This volume includes ten stylized pastoral pieces, popular in Italy and southern Germany, taken from various sources. The first six, from his published collection of toccatas and versets, have compound time signatures; the next is the final Canzona from a MS collection of 19, followed by two multi-movement works that conclude with tuneful arias, the one in D being in a vigorous dotted rhythm. The edition includes Muffat’s printed ornament table, essential for accurate performance of his complex graphics. These are delightful pieces, not over difficult, and could serve as an introduction to the composer’s larger-scale works.

SELECTED FUGUES [E–M]
Johann Georg Albrechtsberger
ed. Erich Benedikt
Doblinger DM1413
Albrechtsberger (1736–1809), Kapellmeister of Vienna cathedral, published many sets of fugues for keyboard, from which Erich Benedikt has selected 16, also including two from a manuscript collection. There are examples of the more academic (e.g. the chromatically dark B minor Op. 17/3) and in some cases archaic, as well as his lighter style and the volume gives an excellent introduction for those unacquainted with this fine composer. Several passages marked for pedals could not have been played on the pedalboard of his day. Some pieces are less demanding, but most are not easy to bring off well and will repay time spent ensuring that parts pass cleanly between the hands. There is much material in this clearly printed edition that would serve as voluntaries and recital use; it is a pity that there are also several misprints.
John Collins

SIXTEEN VOLUNTARIES BOOK 1 (Nos. 1–8) [M–M/D]
George Guest
ed. David Patrick & John Collins
Fitzjohn Music Publications
Guest (1771–1831) was a chorister at the Chapel Royal under Nares and then became organist at Eye and Wisbech. His compositions were highly thought of: both Crotch and Beckwith were subscribers to these two-movement voluntaries. In fact it is hard to find a dull piece in them; I particularly enjoyed the Andante movements.
The pieces present challenges covered in the illuminating introduction by John Collins. Among these are questions of registration, particularly if only a two-manual instrument is available. For example, the second movement of Voluntary IV has Swell Diapason over a Flute Bass which alternates over a few bars with Great Diapason Bass. Later the right hand Flute alternates with the Trumpet, often every two or four bars. There are also problems with the elaborate ornamentation. Although there are no indications for beats or mordents there are plenty of others, some of which are peculiar to George Guest. All in all this is a fascinating collection; I hope that the second set appears soon.
Trevor Webb

THE OPENING OF AN ORGAN – A Choice Set of Voluntaries [M]
Matthias Hawdon
ed. David Patrick
Fitzjohn Music Publications

A DUETTE FOR TWO PERFOMERS ON ONE ORGAN [M]
William Howgill
ed. Simon Fleming
Fitzjohn Music Publications

WITH PEDALS

TOCCATA IN G MINOR Op.10 [E/M]
Christiaan Frederik Hendriks
ed. David Patrick
Fitzjohn Music Publications
Hendriks was organist of the Oude Kerke in Amsterdam. The Toccata was published by Leduc in 1898, and this edition has transferred the original from two to three staves and has added registration. The activity is confined to a relatively easy, right hand semiquaver figure over a quite straightforward pedal part. There are two breaks in the pattern made by a chorale-like passage, which also concludes the work.
This is a good concluding voluntary or recital piece, which will not require a great deal of preparation but sounds much harder than it is. What more could an organist wish for?

THREE PIECES FOR ORGAN [M–M/D]
Joseph Callaerts
ed. David Patrick
Fitzjohn Music Publications
Joseph Callaerts (1830–1901) was city carilloneur of Antwerp and a teacher at the Royal Flemish Conservatory. As David Patrick says, the influence of Guilmant and Henry Smart is apparent, the latter particularly in the Marche Triomphale. This is literally quite a handful, with some full chords in both hands. The trio section is reminiscent of Smart in similar pieces, an attractive tune over a simple harmonic foundation. The piece is fairly long, but should send a congregation on its way rejoicing.
Intermezzo is a pleasant, quiet allegretto in B flat minor, almost a moto perpetuo in style with continuous right hand semiquavers. Don’t be fooled by the maestoso marking of the Toccata in E minor. The tempo and a relatively easy-looking pedal part are deceptive. The obligatory right hand semiquavers are there, with the ‘big tune’ down below, all adding up to an exciting finale, but definitely not as easy as one might anticipate.

SIX PIECES FOR ORGAN [Book 1]
John Stainer ed David Patrick Fitzjohn Music Publications [M-M/D]
It is a shame that Stainer is known best for a handful of hymn tunes, the Organ Primer and the unrepresentative Crucifixion; as a composer of church music few of his contemporaries could equal him. The organ music likewise has suffered much neglect. The Six Pieces for Organ, Book 1 were published in 1897, and David Patrick has given them minimal editing, dealing with phrasing and errors in notation, whilst retaining Stainer’s suggestions for registration, tempi, and metronome markings.
There is plenty of variety, from the opening gentle Andante, via a splendid Prelude and Fughetta and an attractive Impromptu, to the peaceful Reverie which concludes the set. I hope that David Patrick will now publish the second set of Six Pieces, to my mind musically stronger and ending with a superb Finale alla Marcia.

THREE HYMN PRELUDES: Little Cornard, Dominus regit me; Sine Nomine [M]
Ian Hare
Banks Music Publications 14062
Hymn preludes are one of the staples of a church organist’s life, and these three are a useful addition to the genre. Little Cornard is a robust setting of the tune, probably a little short for a concluding voluntary – play it twice? Dominus regit me has appeared previously in an animus publication of 2002, and Sine Nomine is a strong allegro moderato setting of a strong tune.

CHRISTMAS ORGAN MUSIC

DANCE VARIATIONS ON RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER [M]
Clifton Hughes
Banks Music Publications
'You’re fired!' Long before those words became a catch phrase they were said to me for playing a piece by Jean Langlais after matins. Now I wonder if I will hear them again if I play this splendidly entertaining composition after a Carol Service.
These variations had me laughing out loud. After the theme has been announced we are plunged into a tango, then a ‘hurdy-gurdy’ waltz followed by a Viennese waltz. Then comes a surprise: a Hornpipe, which proves to combine brilliantly with the main theme. The piece ends with Rock ’n Roll, starting with ‘Rock around the Clock’. This is tremendous fun, and should be reasonably easy to learn. Risk your reputation and play it, at least in private!

SLEIGH BELLS ACROSS THE SNOW [E]
Malcolm Archer
Stainer & Bell H466
Not as career-threatening as ‘Rudolph’ but nonetheless a cheerful, light-hearted romp ideal for a Christmas wedding. Coming from Malcolm Archer we can be assured of a good tune and, in this case, a simple harmonization. The composer explains that ‘it was composed with the theatre organ in mind . . . but works well on any organ with at least two manuals and pedals, and the sleigh bells are purely optional . . . The piece should be performed with lots of verve, in the true theatre-organ spirit, so please feel free to add your own embellishments, glissandi or whatever else takes your fancy!’ That sums it up: let your hair down and have fun.

ORGAN PLUS ONE – Advent and Christmas [M]
Carsten Klomp
Barenreiter BA8501
This is part of a series of ‘free and chorale-oriented works for organ and solo instrument’ covering the church year. Of the chorale preludes, the arranger says that ‘the solo instrument represents an additional ad libitum voice. The setting can therefore also be used without the solo instrument for the accompaniment of the congregation.’ These preludes have been transposed where necessary to fit the keys of the German Evangelisches Gesangbuch, and cover works by composers such as Bach, Böhm, and Kauffmann. Other items are arrangements of Tallis, Lefébure-Wely and Guilmant, plus several pieces by the editor. Four sets of parts are included for solo instruments in C, B flat, E flat and F. It is a book which has a wide practical use.
Trevor Webb

COME, THOU REDEEMER – Music for the Christmas season [M]
Antony Baldwin, Hazel Hudson, Theo Saunders
animus
Five of the seven pieces are by Theo Saunders, somewhat severe but quite varied in style. Antony Baldwin's Prelude on 'L'o, a Rose e'er blooming' is pleasantly simple, unassuming and cleanly written with a right hand melody over crotchet chords and an easy pedal part. The best of the bunch is Hazel Hudson's A Christmas Quodlibet based on 'Silent Night' and 'The First Nowell', two tunes which combine remarkably well in the middle section. This will be a useful collection for Christmas services, with the added merit of not demanding too much preparation.
Trevor Webb

THE OPENING OF AN ORGAN – A Choice Set of Voluntaries [M]
Matthias Hawdon
ed. David Patrick
Fitzjohn Music Publications
Hawdon (1732–89) was organist at Beverley Minster and at what is now Newcastle Cathedral, where he is buried beneath the organ. Although called a set of voluntaries the collection is in fact ten separate movements of varying lengths; one Allegro runs to 155 bars whilst the shortest is only 16 bars. They seem very conventional and, whilst charming enough, lacking in substance, though they may make useful voluntaries. There is plenty of scope for registration to exploit the possibilities of the instrument being used, as the title implies.
Trevor Webb

A DUETTE FOR TWO PERFOMERS ON ONE ORGAN [M]
William Howgill
ed. Simon Fleming
Fitzjohn Music Publications
Whatever the merits of digital versus pipes, one thing the former can do is enable the organist to play duets without having to comb the streets for another player.
Howgill (1768/9–1824) was organist at Whitehaven, which was evidently something of a family concern. He published 32 works between 1791 and 1824, the earliest known being a duet from 1784 but now lost. The present duet was published in 1807 and was well received: the Monthly Magazine for February 1810 says ‘it offers proof of ingenuity, and a tolerably intimate acquaintance with the character and power of the instrument.’
There are two movements, a Largo introduction to an Allegro moderato, and then a Con Brio. This is a splendid piece but, apart from the problems of getting two organists together, is hindered from anything other than a recital performance by its length, 433 bars. However, if these obstacles can be overcome, pleasure is guaranteed.
Trevor Webb

June 2011

MANUALS ONLY

OXFORD SERVICE MUSIC FOR ORGAN – Manuals only, Books 1, 2 and 3
Compiled and ed. Anne Marsden Thomas
Oxford 9780193372634, 9780193372641, 9780193372658
See also the review below of the anthologies for manuals and pedals
This series is an invaluable addition to the repertoire of music for church organists and students. The 154 pieces follow approximately the ABRSM grades, Book 1 covering grades 1–4, Book 2 grades 5–6, and Book 3 grades 7–8. The stated intention, ‘to provide a wide range of pieces for the church organist’, is met most admirably. Each book is divided into preludes, interludes, processionals and postludes, thus providing something suitable for almost every likely occasion. The range is very wide, covering different countries, periods, and styles. Frescobaldi and Gibbons rub shoulders with Bach and Couperin, Karg-Elert and Mathias. In addition there are several items written specially by Alan Bullard, David Blackwell and Brian Solomons. The pieces also offer excellent opportunities for sight reading and transposition.
There are a few items which are widely known, such as the original manuals-only version of Wesley’s Choral Song (without the Fugue), and an interesting arrangement for manuals only of Mathias’s Processional, but these are far outnumbered by unfamiliar pieces. For something most curious try the Chromatic Toccata for the elevation by Frescobaldi (Book 3) and for sheer cheerfulness the Fantasia by Telemann in Book 2. The editing is meticulous. The composers’ registrations are given, with clarification if necessary. There is a useful introduction explaining the principles behind the editorial method. These books should not be confined only to service or teaching use. As with Anne Marsden Thomas’s earlier anthologies, there is a wealth of unfamiliar music for any organist of any level of ability to explore.

HYMN-TUNE MINIATURES – Ten short pieces for organ [E/M]
Philip Spratley
animus
The composer describes these pieces as ‘designed to fill gaps in services such as Gospel processions. They are set out for manuals only with an occasional pedal part ad libitum.’ All are therefore short, only two slightly exceeding a page in length; they normally take the tune and lightly embellish it, sometimes presenting it in a minor key rather than the original major. All are well written and will serve their intended purpose as well as providing useful models for one’s own attempts at improvising on a hymn tune.

COLDRIDGE CHORALES FOR ORGAN [E]
Humphrey Clucas
animus
Written for the same organ as the previous Coldridge books, these are ideal for the smallest instrument. There are four pieces based on familiar chorale melodies: Jesu, meine Freude, Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir, Ein’ feste Burg and Komm, süsser Tod. Each consists of a straightforward elaboration of the chorale melody, the most substantial being the last one; all will be useful as voluntaries.

SUITE FOR ORGAN on the Gaelic Song ‘Mo Chùbhrachan’ [M]
Ian Major
animus
There are six movements in this Suite, based on the cradle song whose title, ‘My little fragrant one’, is a term of endearment for a small child. Of the many tunes to this song, Ian Major has taken three, all of which are used in Versets (Bicinium), whilst the fourth movement, Binneas (2), uses another tune altogether. The style is distinctive, interesting and attractive. Danns Beag , the fifth movement, is slightly harder than the others with right hand stretches of up to an eleventh at quaver = 152. The last movement, Fuga, has a disturbing feel to the tonality and also demands neat agility.

MINIATURE SUITE FOR SMALL ORGAN [E/M]
Charles Paterson
fagus-music.com
The movements in this tuneful Suite would be a good collection for a wedding. The Processional is just a page, but could be extended by judicious repeats if the aisle is a little too long. Plaint might provide a brief time for reflection (especially if one of the hymns is that old faithful, ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’). Rondo is the best of the bunch, a lively 6/8 dance; the right hand calls for good playing in thirds. Slow Dance leads into a Trumpet Tune which, marked ‘sprightly’, is a good recessional.
Trevor Webb

WITH EASY PEDALS

FOUR WHIMS FOR ORGAN [M–M/D]
Ian W Seeley
animus
Quality is associated with Ian Seeley’s work and this book does not disappoint. A gentle Romance is followed by an invigorating Tarantella. Barcarolle is another quiet piece, ideal as an incoming voluntary, and the concluding Cortège is a dignified funeral procession. In all the pieces the pedal part is easy, consisting mostly of long notes with no awkward leaps.

FIVE MINIATURES [E/M]
Douglas Bell
animus
These five movements make no great technical demands but are pleasant to play and useful as voluntaries. The opening Fantasia circa Holt Nevill (to be found in Leicestershire) sets the tone with a distinctly modal flavour continued throughout the ensuing movements. Rhapsody on a theme by Widor is based on the melody from the second movement of the Gothic Symphony and carries a footnote, doubtless for copyright reasons, that it is for ‘circulation and performance in the UK only’. Other movements fortunately have no such restriction. A soothing Cantilena and a solemn Phrygian Chorale continue the modal style, and the book ends with a set of nine variations, The Bower, written for a one manual and pedal organ of four stops by Richard Bower.
Trevor Webb

BLEWITT AND CHIPP

TEN VOLUNTARIES OR PIECES FOR THE ORGAN OP. 5 [E]
Jonas Blewitt
ed. David Patrick
Fitzjohn Music Publications
INTRODUCTION AND VARIATIONS on Handel’s ‘The Harmonious Blacksmith’ and INTRODUCTION AND FUGUE IN C MAJOR [D]
Edmund Thomas Chipp
ed. David Patrick
Fitzjohn Music Publications
David Patrick has already published Blewitt’s important treatise on the organ with his Op. 4 voluntaries, and here he presents the composer’s set of ten voluntaries of Op. 5. While the musical content includes the usual voluntaries for Trumpet, Cornet, Flute, Vox humana and Horns, the original preface contains much valuable material on adapting these pieces for small instruments which are not furnished with the specified stops, and the recommended alternative registrations will be of great value today. The movements for solo stops are of greater interest than those for full organ, and since the pieces were written with young performers in mind, they pose no great technical challenges. An awareness of contemporary performance practice is essential for successful interpretation.
The two works by Chipp, whose enthusiasm for Mendelssohn is readily apparent, present a far sterner test for the player, especially in the pedal part. An introduction with carefully marked tempo changes leads to a statement of Handel’s well-known melody, followed by six variations which become progressively more virtuosic with plenty of semiquaver passages in thirds, some highly chromatic writing and, in the final 6/8 variation, thick chords over a moto perpetuo pedal. The prescribed registration implies performance on just two manuals if a Krummhorn is available on the Great. The Introduction and Fugue in C also includes some demanding writing for manuals and pedals, especially in the fugue built on scale runs, but will reward the perseverance required.
David Patrick has provided his usual concise introduction to each well-printed and prepared volume from original sources; very different in style and requirements, each adds to our knowledge of our native repertoire in its own way, for which he deserves our thanks.
John Collins

MANUALS AND PEDALS

SONATA NO. 1 IN G MAJOR [M/D–D]
Alan Gray
ed. David Patrick
Fitzjohn Music Publications
A pleasure of reviewing is that in most parcels there is at least one work that asks to have time spent learning it, and this is one such piece. Alan Gray (1855–1935) is a composer of whom unfortunately little is now heard. Trained as a lawyer he turned to music, becoming the first director of music at Wellington College and then organist of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was well known in his day for his church and organ music, including Four Superior Sonatas published by Novello in 1890, of which this is the first, and dedicated to his predecessor at Cambridge, Sir Charles Stanford.
The first movement, an impressive Fantasia, is probably the best, with opulent writing very much in the late Victorian style and certainly deserving the description ‘superior’. The second movement, ‘Intermezzo’, is a quiet elegiac piece of considerable beauty. The Sonata ends with a lively Finale which is perhaps not quite up to the standard set by the preceding movements. But overall this is a magnificent work which deserves to be brought back into the repertoire.

TOCCATA ON PSALM 117 [M]
Stephen Burtonwood
fagus-music.com
This is one of those pieces that looks and sounds harder than it really is. Whilst the style is quite traditional, with a busy quaver manual part over a more stately pedal tune, there is no lack of invention in the writing. The rhythm is continuous throughout the piece’s 149 bars: an exhilarating piece, making a good end to a recital or service.

OXFORD SERVICE MUSIC FOR ORGAN – Manuals and Pedals, Books 1, 2 and 3
Compiled and ed. Anne Marsden Thomas
Oxford 9780193372665, 9780193372672, 9780193372689
See also review above of the anthologies for manuals only
£27.85 buys 104 pieces, which is good value, especially when the vast range of music is taken into account. The format and the grading are the same as for the manuals-only books, with pieces ranging from a page or less to more substantial items. There is a good mixture of familiar and unfamiliar music, for example the third movement of Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 4 (Book 3), Bach’s Prelude on Liebster Jesu (BWV 731), or Whitlock’s ‘Andante Tranquillo’ from Five Short Pieces and ‘Dolcezza’ from Reflections, as well as a lot of much rarer music. Examples of the latter are the Allegro from Walther’s Concerto del Signor Meck (Book 3) and the charming Fantasia by Krebs (Book 2). Some pieces, for example Salomé’s Grand Choeur, have been shortened, though this is not always made clear.
The original pieces are all interesting. Brian Solomons’s October is a one-page interlude (Book 3), and a piece that really caught my fancy is Ian Hunt’s Toccata Giocosa in Book 2, a marvellous 10/8 romp that will surely set feet tapping.
As with the other books in the series, these are a must for the organist’s library. There is something for every conceivable occasion, and a great amount of music to please and to be well worth learning, whatever the player’s level.
Trevor Webb

TWO PIECES FOR ORGAN: Toccata Capricorn, Launch for Life [M]
J Michael Kidd
animus
If you enjoyed previous publications by Michael Kidd you will like these two pieces. The Toccata is quite conventional, with the usual semiquaver manual figure over a slow pedal. The chord structure is not very adventurousand becomes a touch tedious after a while – the piece is seven pages long – but would certainly fit in well at a wedding. As toccatas go this one is quite easy, a good one with which to impress your friends.
Launch for Life began as Away Lifeboat, written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the RNLI, and performed in an organ arrangement at St Paul’s Cathedral, after which the Queen Mother expressed her interest in the composer. The piece, published by Boosey and Hawkes, was also arranged for brass and military band and used on Border Television.
With such impeccable credentials behind it the composer has produced an arrangement described as ‘an improved version for organ, slightly easier to play’, with the new title. Tuneful and undemanding, it presents no technical problems. Rather like the Toccata, the use of a repetitive rhythmic figure (semiquaver-quaver-semiquaver) for the great proportion of the piece becomes a touch annoying after a while, but don’t let that put you off.
Trevor Webb