+44 7801 178677
Influences
Cristóbal de Morales was born in Seville, and is connected with posts in Ávila, Plasencia and Toledo, along with spending a decade in Rome as a singer in the papal choir. Morales’ reputation is one of a difficult employee, changing posts often, and making tough demands of his singers, evidenced at times in his relentless contrapuntal writing. Regina caeli is based on the plainsong antiphon for Eastertide.
Francisco Guerrero was a prominent Spanish Renaissance composer known for his deeply expressive music, much of it written during his long service at Seville Cathedral. O sacrum convivium is a Vespers antiphon for the feast of Corpus Christi, the text often attributed to St Thomas Aquinas.
Alonso Lobo started his musical training at Osuna, near Seville, and remained in Spain for his whole life, with later positions at Seville and Toledo. Lobo may be regarded as stylistically more “home-grown” than his contemporaries, revelling in the calm order of strictly imitative counterpoint. Ave regina caelorum is a Marian antiphon for the season from Candlemas through to Easter. In the motet, the highest part is split, the second part following the first in canon.
Regina cæli, lætare, alleluia;
Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia;
Resurrexit sicut dixit, alleluia;
Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia.
Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia;
For he whom you were worthy to bear, alleluia;
He has risen as he said, alleluia;
Pray for us to God, alleluia.
O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur;
Recolitur memoria passionis ejus;
Mens impletur gratia;
Et futuræ gloriæ nobis pignus datur. Alleluia
O sacred banquet, in which Christ is received;
The memorial of his passion is renewed;
The soul is filled with grace;
And a pledge of future glory is given to us. Alleluia.
Ave, Regina caelorum,
Ave, Domina Angelorum:
Salve, radix, salve, porta
Ex qua mundo lux est orta:
Gaude, Virgo gloriosa,
Super omnes speciosa,
Vale, o valde decora,
Et pro nobis Christum exora
Hail, Queen of Heaven.
Hail, Lady of Angels
Hail! thou root, hail! thou gate
From whom unto the world a light has arisen:
Rejoice, O glorious Virgin,
Lovely beyond all others,
Farewell, most beautiful maiden,
And pray for us to Christ.
Johann Sebastian Bach is regarded by many as one of the greatest composers of Western music, developing Baroque counterpoint, harmony and musical structure to new heights. He held court positions at Weimar, Köthen, and was appointed director of music at St Thomas, Leipzig, in 1723. His choral output often performed today includes the St Matthew Passion, St John Passion, the Mass in B minor, and over 275 cantatas. Brich an, o schönes Morgenlicht appears in Part II of the Christmas Oratorio, Weihnachtsoratorium, written for the Christmas season of 1734–35; its words welcome the light and hope brought by Christ's birth.
Felix Mendelssohn was a German Romantic composer, pianist and conductor who helped revive interest in Bach's music, notably through his celebrated 1829 performance of the St Matthew Passion. Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden is his Christmas motet Weihnachten, which was composed in 1843 whilst he was working in Berlin cathedral. The text is associated with a Prussian Protestant church. agenda. Its festive eight-part writing allows the voices to create a richly layered sound, combining the grandeur of Renaissance-style polyphony with the expressive harmony of the nineteenth century.
Robert Lucas Pearsall was an English composer who spent much of his adult life in Germany and Switzerland, developing a deep affection for the Renaissance madrigal tradition at a time when it was being rediscovered in Britain. Great God of Love is an eight-part madrigal, first sung by the Bristol Madrigal Society in 1839, and reflects Pearsall's enthusiasm for intricate vocal counterpoint and the rich sonorities of divided choirs. The ‘de’ in his name was an affectation introduced by his daughter, managing the publication of his works after his death, perhaps hoping to boost sales by imitating the way in which early composers were referenced.
Brich an, o schönes Morgenlicht,
und lass den Himmel tagen!
Du Hirtenvolk, erschrecket nicht,
weil euch die Engel sagen,
dass dieses schwache Knäbelein
soll unser Trost und Freude sein,
dazu den Satan zwingen
und letztlich Frieden bringen.
Break forth, O beauteous heav'nly light,
and usher in the morning;
Ye shepherds, shrink not with afright,
but hear the angels' warning.
This child, now weak in infancy,
Our confidence and joy shall be,
The pow'r of Satan breaking,
Our peace eternal making.
Frohlocket, ihr Völker auf Erden,
und preiset Gott!
Der Heiland ist erschienen, den der Herr verheißen.
Er hat seine Gerechtigkeit der Welt offenbaret.
Halleluja!
Rejoice, ye people of the earth,
and praise God!
The redeemer is come, whom the Lord has promised.
He has revealed his righteousness to the world.
Hallelujah!
Henry Purcell is one of England's greatest Baroque composers. He worked at Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal during the reigns of Charles II, James II and William III and Mary II. His extensive output includes magnificent church anthems, royal odes, odes for St Cecelia's day, viol consort fantasias, and music for the theatre, including the opera Dido and Aeneas. His anthem I was glad sets verses from Psalm 122, and was written for the coronation of James II in 1685.
Benjamin Britten was one of the most important British composers of the twentieth century, known for his operas, church music and solo song. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes, the War Requiem, and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, which is based on a theme by Henry Purcell. A Shepherd's Carol was written in 1944 to words by the poet W. H. Auden, as part of Auden's ambitious Christmas text For the Time Being, which explores the meaning of the Nativity in the modern world. The original poem is a series of dramatic monologues, spoken by characters from the Christmas story, a narrator and chorus; it was too lengthy to be set in its entirety, and Britten set just fragments.
I was glad when they said unto me,
We will go into the house of the Lord.
Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is builded as a city
that is at unity in itself.
O pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
they shall prosper that love thee.
Peace be within thy walls,
and plenteousness within thy palaces.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen
The Shepherds Carol
O lift your little pinkie, and touch the winter sky
Love’s all over the mountains
Where the beautiful go to die
If Time were the wicked sheriff in a horse opera
I’d pay for riding lessons
And take his gun away. O lift . .
If I were a Valentino, and Fortune were abroad
I’d hypnotise that iceberg
Till she kissed me of her own accord
If I’d stacked up the velvet
And my crooked rib were dеad
I’d be breeding white canaries
And eating crackers in bed
But my cuffs are soiled and fraying
The kitchen clock is slow
And over the Blue Waters
The grass grew long ago
W H Auden
Charles Villiers Stanford was a composer, teacher and conductor who became a central figure in the revival of British music during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was born in Dublin, and was educated at the University of Cambridge before studying music in Leipzig and Berlin. He later became professor at the Royal College of Music, teaching compostion, and also Professor of Music at Cambridge. His pupils included Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, and Herbert Howells. Peace, come away, published in 1892, is an unaccompanied part-song whose text meditates on peace and sorrow, inviting the listener into a more reflective emotional world.
Charles Wood was an Irish composer and teacher who studied at the Royal College of Music under Charles Villiers Stanford. Wood also succeeded Stanford as Professor of Music at Cambridge University. Much of his output is settings of canticles and anthems for the Anglican church, yet he also wrote a series of string quartets, and numerous secular part-songs. Full fathom five sets Ariel's famous song from Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was a leading English composer whose music drew deeply on the country's folk songs, landscapes and literary heritage. His music is characterised by modal harmonies of earlier English Renaissance composers, blended with French orchestration and colour Ravel and Debussy. Vaughan Williams's interest in collecting music directly from singers helped preserve melodies that might otherwise have disappeared. He collected The Turtle Dove from David Penfold, landlord of the Plough Inn at Rusper in Sussex, in 1907, even making a phonograph recording of Penfold singing it.
Peace; come away: the song of woe Is after all an earthly song: Peace; come away: we do him wrong To sing so wildly: let us go.
Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale; But half my life I leave behind: Methinks my friend is richly shrined; But I shall pass; my work will fail.
Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, One set slow bell will seem to toll The passing of the sweetest soul That ever look'd with human eyes.I hear it now, and o'er and o'er, Eternal greetings to the dead; And "Ave, Ave, Ave," said, "Adieu, adieu" for evermore.
Lord Tennyson
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell.
The Turtledove
Fare you well, my dear, I must be gone,
And leave you for a while;
If I roam away, I'll come back again,
Though I roam ten thousand miles, my dear.
So fair thou art, my bonny lass,
So deep in love am I;
But I never will prove false to the bonny lass I love,
Till the stars fall from the sky, my dear.
Thomas Tallis was employed at Waltham Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and the Chapel Royal. The religious turblulence of Tudor England at the time meant that Tallis served under several monarchs, from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, adapting his compositions between catholic Latin and protestant English texts and purposes. O salutaris hostia is a verse from a Eucharistic hymn written by the medieval theologian and friar Thomas Aquinas. Miserere nostri, 'have mercy on us' was in 1575 in Cantiones sacrae, a joint publication with his pupil William Byrd.
Thomas Morley was an English composer, organist and theorist who helped popularise the Italian madrigal in England. He studied with William Byrd, whom he named as his mentor in his influential instruction guide A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke, published in 1597. Nolo mortem peccatoris sets a striking mixture of Latin and English.
William Byrd (1543 - 1623) was a pupil of Thomas Tallis; he became organist and choir master at Lincoln Cathedral where he perfected an English keyboard style and wrote both English and Latin church music. He moved to the Chapel Royal in 1570. Despite his devotion to his catholic faith in protestant England, Byrd retained royal favour and even was granted a monopoly on music printing with Tallis. Laudibus in sanctis is a vibrant motet that paraphrases Psalm 150, celebrating music, instruments, and worship with energetic rhythms and vivid word painting.
O salutaris hostia
quae caeli pandis ostium,
bella premunt hostilia:
da robur, fer auxilium
O saving Victim, opening wide
The gate of heaven to man below;
Our foes press hard on every side,
Thine aid supply, thy strength bestow
Nolo mortem peccatoris; Haec sunt verba Salvatoris.
[ I do not wish the death of a sinner." These are the words of the Saviour.]
Father I am thine only Son, sent down from heav’n mankind to save.
Father, all things fulfilled and done according to thy will, I have.
Father, my will now all is this: Nolo mortem peccatoris.
Father, behold my painful smart, taken for man on ev’ry side;
Ev'n from my birth to death most tart, no kind of pain I have denied,
but suffered all, and all for this: Nolo mortem peccatoris.
Laudibus in sanctis Dominum celebrate supremum:
Firmamenta sonent inclita facta Dei.
Inclita facta Dei cantate, sacraque potentis
Voce potestatem saepe sonate manus.
Magnificum Domini cantet tuba martia nomen:
Pieria Domino concelebrate lira.
Laude Dei resonent resonantia tympana summi:
Alta sacri resonent organa laude Dei.
Hunc arguta canant tenui psalteria corda,
Hunc agili laudet laeta chorea pede.
Concava divinas effundant cymbala laudes,
Cymbala dulcisona laude repleta Dei.
Omne quod aethereis in mundo vescitur auris
Halleluia canat tempus in omne Deo.
.
Praise the Lord among His holy ones; praise the Lord in the highest heavens, declare the glorious works of the Lord Almighty.
Tell of His works in singing. The power of His greatness sound in the holy anthems. Tell out in song His wonders.
The majesty of His name sound with trumpet’s martial clamour. With poetry crowd His festal courts to tell His praises.
Laud and honour beat of the drum resound to Him.
Lofty organs, pealing through long-drawn aisles, praise the Lord God.
Praise him, sharp-toned strings of psalteries sing in sweetest accordance. And lustily dancing let the festal rout give praise.
Resonant with hollow applaudings strike the loud timbrels,
or in soft murmuring sounds praise Him,
To him be glory! Let the creation adore Him, worship and praise Him, Halleluia singing, unto the Lord for ever.
(Paraphrase E H Fellowes, 1937)
INDEX CANTORUM for today is
Abi King, Jenny Tribe, Caroline Wainwright,
Emily Woodcock, Erin Brookes, Nathalia Fetherston-Dilke, Isobel King,
Christine Lewry, Sue Ramsey, Karen Williams, Julie Mutton, Anna Westrop,
Paul Shepherd, John Lunt, Jon Sketchley, Julian Poppleton,
Graham King, Jonathan Tribe, Richard Steedman.
Director: Mark Williams