Choral Music on Saturday's CD Review

**Gabriel Jackson** · 22-02-14, 23:57

Originally posted by ardcarp View Post

There was much of interest for Choir aficionados on CD Review today:

The Voice of the Turtle Dove
SHEPPARD: Libera nos 1 & II; In manus tuas I; In manus tuas III; Gaude gaude gaude Maria
MUNDY: Vox Patris caelestis; Adolescentulus sum ego
DAVY: Ah mine heart remember thee well; O Domine caeli terraeque creator
The Sixteen, Harry Christophers (conductor)
CORO COR16119 (CD)

Sheppard - Sacred choral music
SHEPPARD: Libera nos; Reges Tharsis et insulae; Gaude virgo Christiphera; Sacris solemniis; Paschal Kyrie; Cantate Mass; Adesto sancta Trinitas II; Hodie nobis caelorum rex; Verbum caro
Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, Duncan Ferguson (conductor)
DELPHIAN DCD34123 (CD)

MONTEVERDI: Missa In illo tempore
MERULO: Toccata Sesta; Toccata Settima
CIMA: Sonata
MARINI: Romanesca
CASTELLO: Sonata Seconda
Caroline Balding (violin), Roger Hamilton (harpsichord),
Cambridge Taverner Choir, Owen Rees (conductor)
HERALD HAVP372 (CD mid-price)

Madrigals of Love and Loss
MONTEVERDI: Volgendo il ciel (Ballo ‘Movete'); Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda; Or che’l ciel e la terra; Ohime, dov'e il mio ben (Book 7); Zefiro torna; Ohime il bel viso (Book 6); Sestina - Lagrimae d'Amante al sepolero dell'amata
Thomas Walker (tenor), James Gilchrist (tenor), Katherine Watson (soprano), Anna Dennis (soprano), Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen (conductor)
HYPERION CDA68019 (CD)

and:

Ivan Hewett joins Andrew to talk about recently released recordings of choral music

Alfred Schnittke: Konzert fur Chor
SCHNITTKE: Concerto for Choir; Three Sacred Hymns; Voices of Nature
PART: Dopo la vittoria
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Peter Dijkstra (conductor)
BR KLASSIK 900505 (CD)

PANUFNIK, R: Dance of Life - Tallinn Mass
Patricia Rozario (Life/Elu), Jaak Johanson (Narrator), Laura Lindpere (Kannel), Madis Metsamart (Percussion), Estonian TV Girls’ Choir, Collegium Musicale Chamber Choir, Choir Of Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Mihhail Gerts (conductor)
WARNER CLASSICS 2564642819 (CD)

Alpha & Omega - Choral Music by James MacMillan
MACMILLAN: Missa Dunelmi; St Patrick’s Magnificat; …fiat mihi…; Cum vidisset Jesus; I am your Mother; Invocation; Domine non secundum peccata nostra; Alpha & Omega
Madeleine Mitchell (violin), Cappella Nova, Alan Tavener and James MacMillan (conductors)
LINN CKD439 (Hybrid SACD)

…the flowers have their angels
BRITTEN: Rejoice in the Lamb Op. 30; A Hymn to the Virgin; Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria; Five Flower Songs Op. 47
MEALOR: Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal; Praise
VICTORIA: Ecce sacerdos magnus
The Rodolfus Choir, Tom Winpenny (organ), Ross Gunning (percussion), Ralph Allwood (conductor)
SIGNUM SIGCD366 (CD)

Peter Eben - Salve Regina
EBEN: Ubi caritas et amor; Salve regina; Cantico delle creature; Verba sapientiae; Psalmi peregrini; Mundus in periculo (Tryptichon); Komm herab o Heiliger Geist; Rhythmus de gaudiis Paradisi; Abba - Amen;
Sachsisches Vocalensemble, Matthais Jung (conductor)
CPO 7776272 (CD mid-price)

Anyone got any views on the relative merits of The Sixteen and St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh singing Shepherd? Or on the Hewett/ McGregor chat about new releases?

Yes. Have you?

**ardcarp** · 23-02-14, 00:19

Yes. Have you?

I'm never short on opinions Gabriel! Just thought I'd let someone else go first.

I know you're a great supporter of St Mary's Edinburgh, and I think it is a huge achievement for them to produce a CD of that calibre. 'Comparing' them with The Sixteen seems pointless...different sort of choir, different performing styles, both valid and immensely enjoyable. Big plus for St Mary's doing the piece with the locally reconstructed 2nd treble part.

Far too late to start on the Hewett review...except I thought he very unjustly rubbished Roxana Panufnik's Dance of Life on the grounds that 'bells and choirs are just a genre'. What????

**Gabriel Jackson** · 23-02-14, 00:54

Originally posted by ardcarp View Post

I'm never short on opinions Gabriel! Just thought I'd let someone else go first.

I know you're a great supporter of St Mary's Edinburgh, and I think it is a huge achievement for them to produce a CD of that calibre. 'Comparing' them with The Sixteen seems pointless...different sort of choir, different performing styles, both valid and immensely enjoyable. Big plus for St Mary's doing the piece with the locally reconstructed 2nd treble part.

Far too late to start on the Hewett review...except I thought he very unjustly rubbished Roxana Panufnik's Dance of Life on the grounds that 'bells and choirs are just a genre'. What????

It's not the first time! Their first recording with Duncan was of Taverner (including Missa Corona spinea) and, yes, we did a disc together a couple of years ago which turned out brilliantly. Unlike some on here, I agree, there is more than one way to sing (early) music.

As to Ivan Hewett, well, he has very odd ideas about what he deems "spiritual music" (regardless of how the composers themselves think of their work) which he then rubbishes for doing something he thinks the composers are trying to do, when they aren't. Poor thing, he's very confused. And self-contradictory...

**jean** · 23-02-14, 16:18

The first performance I ever heard of Spem in Alium -I don't think I'd even heard of it before that - was given by the choir of St Mary's Cathedral in the course of the Edinburgh Festival in 1962 or 1963.

Just thought I'd mention it.

**ardcarp** · 23-02-14, 18:30

Jean. I wonder what date that graet big edition came out? I first sang it as a student in the 60s. We all had copies cut in half (so you either had the bottom four choirs or the top four) 'cos they couldn't afford a full set for everyone. Really annoying....but you could see the conductor better.

**jean** · 23-02-14, 19:19

I don't know. I don't remember if I could even see what the Edinburgh performers were holding in front of them.

I've sung it from the cut-in-half score too, but it's not just the cost of a full score for everyone, surely - they're far too unwieldy to be used in performance!

Since then, I've seen rather good scores with two choirs together and (this is the trick) plentiful cues.

**Gabriel Jackson** · 23-02-14, 19:35

Originally posted by jean View Post

I don't know. I don't remember if I could even see what the Edinburgh performers were holding in front of them.

I've sung it from the cut-in-half score too, but it's not just the cost of a full score for everyone, surely - they're far too unwieldy to be used in performance!

Since then, I've seen rather good scores with two choirs together and (this is the trick) plentiful cues.

It's the size rather than the cost of those big scores that's a problem, definitely, isn't it?
What we did for my 40-part piece (for the same forces as Spem) is have one choirbook for each of the eight choirs with their 5 parts as normal and all the other seven choirs in short score. No one ever gets lost! I got the idea from Alistair Dixon's edition of Spem (though I've never actually seen it...)

**Vox Humana** · 23-02-14, 22:55

Originally posted by ardcarp View Post

Anyone got any views on the relative merits of The Sixteen and St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh singing Shepherd? Or on the Hewett/ McGregor chat about new releases?

I didn't hear the programme, but The Sixteen's CD looks awfully like a repackaging of old tracks to me. Certainly none of those tracks are new to The Sixteen's discography.

I have been listening a lot to the Edinburgh Sheppard CD recently and have been enjoying it hugely. I find their plainsong too hard driven, but otherwise I think they get to the heart of the music very effectively, I think. My other constant companion at the moment is The Huelgas Ensemble's CD of Eton Choirbook music. The serenity of that is just heart-melting, but, lovely though it is, I rather doubt that that was how the composers expected it to sound. In Sheppard's time the majority of services were sung in plainsong without polyphony. Polyphony was part of the paraphernalia (like incense, silk copes, extra candles, more elaborate ceremonial) trotted out to make more important feast days more splendid and impressive. I just find it difficult to imagine music on these occasions being a discreet and heavenly background. A panoply of forthright aural splendour (which Edinburgh certainly give us) fits better with my take on it all. But I could be wrong.

Originally posted by ardcarp View Post

Jean. I wonder what date that graet big edition came out? I first sang it as a student in the 60s.

I don't have precise dates, but the Tallis volume in the OUP/Carnegie Trust's great "Tudor Church Music" series, containing his collected Latin music (as then known), appeared in 1928. At some point OUP then issued Spem in alium as a separate publication; this was revised by Philip Brett in about 1966. Apparently there was an even earlier edition (1888) by A. H. Mann.

**ardcarp** · 24-02-14, 00:08

this was revised by Philip Brett in about 1966

Yes, just dug out my own copy (uncut!) of Spem and it is indeed copyright 1966, OUP ed Philip Brett (though it is a revised edition of an earlier one by Messrs Buck, Fellowes, Ramsbotham and Warner). The first page (which I don't think I'd noticed before) is a figured 'thoroughbass', presumably provided for performance with organ accompaniment.

**Gabriel Jackson** · 24-02-14, 00:16

Originally posted by ardcarp View Post

The first page (which I don't think I'd noticed before) is a figured 'thoroughbass', presumably provided for performance with organ accompaniment.

One source has a figured continuo part.

**Roger Judd** · 24-02-14, 10:41

I was a member of the Cambridge University Musical Society choir that recorded Spem in alium in King's Chapel (Argo, now on a Decca CD), directed by David Willcocks in March 1965. We used the new Philip Brett edition, and John Langdon, then King's organ scholar, provided the organ continuo part. The logistics of the recording were quite fun - in 1965 there was virtually no general electric light in the chapel, so temporary lights had to be set up so that we could read the score - as as been described, cut in half. The eight choirs were arranged across the west side of the organ screen and along the north and south sides of the ante-chapel, in clearly separated groups, with DVW on a plinth in the middle of the chapel, directing operations. Each of the eight choirs had a sub-conductor who had been responsible for rehearsing their choir - I had choir eight. I have always been irritated by the BBC who insist on saying that Spem is sung by the choir of King's College - they had nothing to do with it! The chapel choir only had some 28 singers, and multi-tracking was a skill for the future in '65.
RJ

**ferneyhoughgeliebte** · 24-02-14, 11:43

Many thanks for these insights into that remarkable recording, Roger - I shall myself cease from referring to it as "the King's College Choir version" with immediate effect.

**ardcarp** · 24-02-14, 13:04

Many thanks from me too!

Incidentally no MS source of Spem (AFAIK) has a figured bass. The Egerton and Gresham MSS just have a bass-line, the former marked 'for ye Organ'. Both sources set the English words in praise of James 1st's sons, though the copyists include the original Latin text on a separate page. Only a late 18thC source shows Latin text underlay which I gather the OUP edition uses with a few tweaks.

**Keraulophone** · 24-02-14, 15:58

Returning to John Sheppard, a more appropriate comparison with St Mary's, Edinburgh (although they have a mixed top line) might have been with the recent recording of his 'Western Wynde' Mass, Gaude gaude, gaude Maria virgo and some shorter works, by St John's College, Cambridge / Andrew Nethsingha on Chandos. Having read the decidedly lukewarm reviews this disc had received in both Gramophone and BBC Music magazine, I was interested to hear it for myself, as other CDs in this series have been excellent. Given the forces employed, i.e. a choir of boys and men of the Anglican tradition, the results are IMHO magnificent, and I would recommend this disc very highly. New College Ch/EH made a fine recording of the same Mass a long time ago (late 1970s?) on the CRD label; it's interesting to compare their sound then and now!).

Choral Music on Saturday's CD Review

Choral Music on Saturday's CD Review

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