These performances have been reissued before, with the Taverner items
still available on a 2-CD Double Decca collection, coupled with Byrd’s
Masses. Stocks of that twofer appear to be about to expire but the King’s
Western Wynde Mass remains available, also with the Byrd Masses,
on Newton Classics 8802020 (2 CDs).
This is the Record of John
is also available on several Decca anthologies of music from King’s.
Even at the time of release of the Taverner recording in 1962 doubts
were expressed about David Willcocks’ direction, despite a warm welcome
that the music of this great early Tudor composer was at last receiving
a whole LP to itself – indeed, that’s all that there was on Argo ZRG5316.
In particular the over-emphasis of the top line, in the manner of the
English choral tradition, brings to the fore the
cantus firmus
of the secular tune on which the
Western Wynde Mass is based
when Taverner has gone to some pains partially to conceal it. The effect
is somewhat akin to the over-enthusiastic keyboard continuo sometimes
found on earlier recordings of baroque concertos, when the ideal is
to be – just - aware of its presence. All too often on recent recordings
it’s inaudible.
The opening
Kyrie le roy is an isolated piece but it’s often
employed, as here, to preface one of Taverner’s Masses which, as was
customary, don’t include a setting of this text, usually sung to chant.
The King’s recording sounds a little dogged but, surprisingly, the clock
says that they are faster than The Tallis Scholars - see below. Alto
don’t give separate timings for the sections of the
Western Wynde
Mass but this, too, is faster overall than from the Scholars. Again
the singing is a little forthright but though there is that tendency
to over-emphasise the tune I enjoyed the performance more than I expected.
The same is true of the shorter works, though I might have preferred
the choir to caress the music a little more at the mention of the spices
which the women were bringing to Jesus’ tomb –
aromata is such
an evocative word. Stile Antico take the music of
Dum transisset
sabbatum more slowly and lovingly on a very fine recent Harmonia
Mundi recording: HMU80755:
Passion and Resurrection: Recording
of the Month –
review
and
Download
News 2013/4.
If you’re looking for a vintage performance of the wonderful music of
this period from a Cambridge choir, I’d point you not to King’s but
in the direction of George Guest’s recording with the next-door choir
of St John’s on the EMI Eminence label. None of their Taverner is extant
but Heritage HTGCD329 offers their recordings of Tallis and Weelkes.
An inexpensive 50-CD set of the best EMI Eminence releases has just
been issued, containing their recordings of the three Byrd Masses and
Tallis’s Missa
Salve intemerata Mater (7393972). If you come
across a good second-hand copy of their recording of Taverner’s
Western
Wynde song and Mass and Tallis’s
Salve intemerata Mater
Mass (CD-EMX2155 or 7632902), snap it up.
The Gibbons recording was released in 1959 – surely that’s the year
of release rather than of recording, as listed by Alto? Even then, as
with the Taverner, there were serious reservations about a recording
which nevertheless received a welcome overall. This time the complaint
was of colourless solo singing in verse anthems which in their day would
have been sung by the finest voices of the Chapel Royal.
Perhaps wisely, only the most famous of these,
This is the Record
of John, has found its way onto the CD reissue, the other contents
having been included on an earlier Alto release of music by Byrd and
Gibbons (ALC1182). I enjoyed hearing this performance, but I was more
aware of the extent to which time has passed by King’s late-50s style
of singing Gibbons than when I reviewed its reissue on Beulah 2BX20
–
Download
Roundup April 2011/1.
By coincidence the same recording of this anthem has again been reissued
recently by Beulah on a download-only album available from iTunes and
Amazon UK (
Praise from King’s, 1PD70). I’ve recommended that
collection in my 2013/7 Download News for its inclusion of the classic
King’s recording of Haydn’s
Nelson Mass; though admitting that
the performances of the earlier music there (Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons and
Bach) are fossils, I’ve described them as interesting fossils and the
same holds true of its appearance here.
The recorded sound in Taverner is more than acceptable. For the Gibbons
Beulah have ironed out much of the glassiness that used to be a feature
of Argo LPs of recordings from King’s. In that they have been rather
more successful than Alto, though I no longer fear that I’m about to
hear the shattering of some of the college chapel’s stained glass as
I used to be when listening to those LPs; even with a good Shure cartridge
(latterly the ME95ED) the stylus seemed to have a life of its own. Comparison
of the two versions of
This is the Record of John reveals that
Beulah have produced a fuller, more credible sound. Alto’s transcription
of the Taverner is more credible still, with the merest hint of glassiness
on loud top notes – a measure of the improvements that had been achieved
in a couple of years in the early stereo era.
The Alto presentation leaves something to be desired. There are no texts,
which is surely a must, especially with Latin settings, even at budget
price. The budget-price Gimell and Hyperion recordings listed below
offer texts at a price commensurate with Alto’s. In case you are searching
the Bible in vain, the text of the
First Song of Moses comes
from George Wither’s
Hymns and Songs of the Church, a metrical
paraphrase of Exodus 15:
NOW shall the praises of the Lord be sung;
For he a most renowned Triumph won:
Both horse and men into the sea he flung.
And them together there hath overthrown.
The Lord is he whose strength doth make me strong
And he is my salvation and my song:
My God, for whom I will a house prepare
My father’s God whose praise I will declare.
There’s a howler of a typo in the documentation: a spurious
i
in
Christe Jesu pastor bone -
Christie Jesu – who
he? Less seriously, I’m not sure that Gibbons qualifies as a ‘Tudor
Master’, as he is described on the title page when the music by which
he is remembered mostly dates from the Jacobean period.
The whirligig of time has brought much more easily recommendable recordings
of Taverner’s music, often at prices competitive with this Alto reissue.
The
Western Wynde Mass is available on a Gimell 2-CD set for
around £10 or less, with music by other early Tudor composers which
I made Bargain of the Month (Tallis Scholars, CDGIM209 –
review)
and the full-price parent CD from which that performance is taken also
contains the
Kyrie le roy and
Dum transisset sabbatum
(CDGIM204). Hold on till Autumn 2013, however, and I understand that
the Tallis Scholars have a new Gimell CD of Taverner in the offing:
there’s an excerpt on their recent budget 2-CD
Renaissance Radio:
CDGIM212: Recording of the Month –
review
and
Download
News 2013/3.
For
Christe Jesu pastor bone there’s a recording by the choir
of Christ Church, Oxford, for whose predecessors the music was composed:
Treasures of Christ Church, Avie AV2215 –
Download
Roundup January 2012/1; also included on
A Tudor Christmas,
Gift of Music CCLCDG1098) and one by Alamire and QuintEssential from
the ‘other’ place (
Henry’s Music, Obsidian OBSID-CD705 –
Download
Roundup August 2009.
Before it was adapted for Henry VIII and later Elizabeth I, this motet
was originally a prayer to St William of York for Cardinal Wolsey,
O
Wilhelme pastor bone. In that form it’s performed by The Sixteen
on a budget-price Hyperion Helios CD, CDH55055, also including
Dum
transisset sabbatum II and the Mass
O Wilhelme. This CD
is included in the wonderful bargain 10-CD set
The Golden Age of
Polyphony, which also contains
Kyrie le roy, the
Western
Wynde and other Taverner masses (CDS44401/10 –
review
and Bargain of the Month
review).
The Sixteen prove that it’s possible to sing both settings of
Dum
transisset faster than Stile Antico (above) and even faster than
King’s under Willcocks without making it sound rushed.
Mater Christi sanctissima is performed by New College Choir,
Oxford, on a budget 2-CD Regis set (RRCD2091 – review), by Alamire (Taverner:
Imperatrix Inferni, CD707 –
review
and
Download
Roundup January 2012/1) and by The Sixteen on another budget Hyperion
Helios CD of Taverner’s music: CDH55053, also in the
Golden Age
set.
As with Taverner there are more recommendable recent recordings of the
music of Orlando Gibbons, though none that combine exactly the works
contained here:
- Hyperion Helios CDH55463: Advent at St Paul’s (budget
price: contains This is the Record of John)
- Naxos 8.553130: Oxford Camerata/David Summerly (budget price)
- Hyperion CDA67858: Westminster Abbey Choir/James O’Donnell
- ASV Gaudeamus CDGAU123: King’s College Choir/Philip Ledger (may
not be easy to obtain in the UK)
Harmonia Mundi have also recently given us the chance to enjoy the music
of Orlando Gibbons’ son Christopher (HMU807551: Recording of the Month
–
review).
I have enjoyed hearing these performances again but considerations of
space mean that this CD will not be staying in my collection. One recording
which will, however, of music from this period recorded by King’s and
David Willcocks remains available at budget price: paired anthems by
Byrd and his continental contemporaries, together with music by Gibbons
and Weelkes: Classics for Pleasure 5860482. The performances sound rather
too large-scale by comparison with more recent versions employing smaller
forces – see my
review
of the music of Byrd on Harmonia Mundi
Music for a Hidden Chapel
(budget price, HCX3955182) – but the CD remains a better memento of
the Willcocks era than the earlier ex-Argo recordings.
These were of great value in their day in furthering the cause of Tudor
and Jacobean music, and if you particularly want an inexpensive introduction
to Taverner and Gibbons together, the Alto recording is good value,
but with inexpensive alternatives for each composer separately I’d look
elsewhere. Don’t be tempted to download this recording – you may find
yourself paying more than twice the price of the CD if you do and you’ll
have no notes at all.
Brian Wilson
