What's your favourite Te Deum?

[ardcarp]

Just a joke. Sorry! One of the loveliest bass voices I ever heard belonged to an ex-Llandaff lay clerk.

[Troublebob]

Does anyone know of a Te Deum setting by Walter Greatorex (of Woodlands fame)? I'm sure I heard of it, though I don't know if it was ever published.

[decantor]

I'm just pleased to hear a Te Deum at all these days now that Matins is hardly ever sung in most places.
I reckon that with the demise of Matins ( Mattins ) many cathedrals have seen their repertoire reduced by about 50% - it's tragic.

Probably true. But all is not lost. Matins is still often sung on Sundays, and a Te Deum is occasionally sung as an anthem, or as a concluding 'special', at Evensong. We must be thankful for small mercies.

[antongould]

Bruckner and thanks to my mentor salymap Dvorak.

[Miles Coverdale]

I reckon that with the demise of Matins ( Mattins ) many cathedrals have seen their repertoire reduced by about 50% - it's tragic.

VCC

An overestimate, surely. Even when cathedrals were doing daily Matins (and that hasn't happened for many years), the canticles are the only part of the service which couldn't be re-used at Evensong. And if a choir was only doing Sunday Matins, then Evensongs would outnumber Matins by about five or six to one.

It is true that if you look at the catalogue listings on the covers of old Novello editions, for example, you'll see plenty of canticle settings (Morning and Evening) that have disappeared into oblivion, but usually with good reason - i.e. it was pretty tedious, second-rate music.

[Simon Biazeck]

Interestingly, yes! In F with Benedictus

http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/028223/details.html

[Keraulophone]

Bruckner Te Deum
Kodály Budavari Te Deum
Walton Coronation Te Deum
and
Dvorak Te Deum

Spot on. A pity the Kodaly isn't more widely known.

[RAC]

my question: did George Dyson write a Te Deum?[/QUOTE]

Yes, it's No.190 in Stainer & Bell's Modern Church Services.
I have a large collection of single copies of services and anthems which I started in the 1950s soon after I finished singing treble.
The earliest purchases, of course, were pieces I'd enjoyed singing and they included Dyson's morning and evening canticles in D.
I have the 3 copies in front of me: the Te Deum was published in 1914, the Jubilate (Modern Church Services No.241a) was published in 1924, as was the Evening Service (No.242 in the same series).
Like Britten in C the Jubilate was composed long after the Te Deum. There are 3 spare pages after the Jubilate and they list the series 1 - 243, 190, 241 & 242 are the only pieces by Dyson.
241a is not listed, 241 is listed as Jubilate and Benedictus.
The Te Deum has a striking and memorable opening, but, for me, it doesn't hang together as a whole as well as the Jubilate or Mag & Nunc.
Compared with other Te Deums I find Britten in C, Howells Coll Reg, Stanford in B flat , Stanford in C, more coherent and more memorable.

RAC

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Elgar by a mile.
Quite like the Rutter too.

[Magnificat]

An overestimate, surely. Even when cathedrals were doing daily Matins (and that hasn't happened for many years), the canticles are the only part of the service which couldn't be re-used at Evensong. And if a choir was only doing Sunday Matins, then Evensongs would outnumber Matins by about five or six to one.

It is true that if you look at the catalogue listings on the covers of old Novello editions, for example, you'll see plenty of canticle settings (Morning and Evening) that have disappeared into oblivion, but usually with good reason - i.e. it was pretty tedious, second-rate music.

MC

You must remember that a lot of those Evensongs would repeat repertoire so the fact that they would have outnumbered Sunday Matins doesn't necessarily mean that the loss of Matins canticles would not have reduced the variety of repertoire sung overall by quite a considerable amount when a choir no longer sings all the settings of Te Deum, Benedictus, Jubilate, Benedicite, Lamentations etc that could once have been sung at Matins.

The fact that in some cathedrals the Te Deum is no longer sung at all ( at least on a regular basis - they may do it as an add on for a broadcast CE but rarely if ever in a normal service ) is tragic in itself.

VCC

[Petrushka]

Stanford in B flat. Fond memories of singing this in my time as a treble in the church choir. Always sent my spine tingling.

In the concert hall, Berlioz.

[Miles Coverdale]

Like Britten in C the Jubilate was composed long after the Te Deum.

Britten's Jubilate in C was not the original partner to the Te Deum in C. Britten wrote a Jubilate in E flat to go with the Te Deum in C, but decided not to publish it. It was eventually published posthumously in 1984. Not widely done, I don't think.

[salymap]

Dvorak, Berlioz, Verdi

[MickyD]

Marc-Antoine Charpentier, H146
.

William Croft in D

I had quite forgotten that beautiful Croft work, Vinteuil - thank you for reminding me, it has come off the shelf this morning for another airing.

[ardcarp]

Croft Burial Service and Te Deum, St Pauls, John Scott, Parley of Instruments, Mmmmm. Hyperion, I think.