Anthem – Great British Hymns
and Choral Works
Huddersfield Choral Society/Aidan Oliver
Murray Greig, Thomas Osborne & David Hooper (trumpets), Mark Wagstaff (timpani), Thomas Trotter (organ)
rec. 3-5 June 2016, Rochdale Town Hall, UK
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD465 [69:05]
With trumpets and drums bursting in on the scene in tandem
with the massed ranks of the Huddersfield Choral Society after Thomas
Trotter’s splendiferous introduction to Zadok the Priest,
there will be few red-blooded Englishmen whose neck-hair will fail to
rise at the opening of this fun-filled disc. And the spine tingling
effects do not stop there. A sumptuous account of Vaughan Williams’s
Old Hundredth and a terrifically potent performance of I
Was Glad ooze Coronation opulence, despite the absence from the
Parry of the “Vivat” shouts. Moving away from these
big traditional English show-stoppers, there’s plenty of wallowing
Edwardiana in two generous helpings of Elgar and a wonderfully rich
account of God So Loved the World from Stainer’s Crucifixion.
Here is a large, full-bodied choir, singing in full voice and clearly
having an absolute ball in these classics from the English choral repertory.
In its natural habitat – grandiloquent English choral gestures
embodying the great days when Britain was a world power with immeasurable
self-confidence – the Huddersfield Choral Society remains a pinnacle
of the grand sound of English choral singing. Under Aidan Oliver, its
sound is as gloriously robust and full-bodied as it ever was. If he
was wrapped in the Union Flag and quaffing tankards of fine Tadcaster
Ale with one hand while commanding his massed vocal troops with the
other, I would not be at all surprised. This is the sort of iron-clad
discipline which the Duke of Wellington must have commanded amongst
his troops at Waterloo; and it has an equally decisive, if rather less
destructive, result. The massed voices are drilled to perfection in
the Handel, where there is some tremendously precise rhythmic detail,
with over 100 voices articulating their rows of semiquavers with absolute
precision.
However, there is a side to the English choral tradition which falls
clearly outside the comfort zone of the Huddersfield Choral Society
and, unfortunately, the powers-that-be have decided to venture there
with this disc. Music written for the intimate and reduced forces of
a church or cathedral choir falls way out of the scope of this massed
body of singers, and it shows in some cumbersome and clumsy performances.
The Britten Jubilate Deo lumbers over its delicate little rhythmic
bouncers like a carthorse ambling towards the crease at Headingly, while
Edgar Bainton’s classic anthem and James MacMillan’s haunting
Gaelic-flavoured gem have the refinement of truffles finely shaved over
a steaming Yorkshire Pudding with beef gravy.
Luckily a generous helping of refinement is to be found in Thomas Trotter’s
absolutely masterly accompaniments. His glittering fingerwork and transparent
registrations salvage Jonathan Dove’s Seek him that Maketh
the Seven Stars from a horribly hefty and clod-hopping choral tone,
allowing the choir’s tremendously impactful dynamic extremes to
take on a vaguely celestial feel. And Trotter’s gloriously colourful
playing in Finzi’s magnificent God is Gone Up brings
out the detail which the voices generally trample over.
There are also moments where the big choral sound yields surprisingly
effective results, not least in the concluding hymn – “O
God Our Help in Ages Past” – of Vaughan Williams’
O How Amiable. An anthem which has never come across to me
as anything other than dire and turgid - Vaughan Williams in routine
churn-out-an-anthem mode – here seems almost impressive. There
is also a wonderful expansiveness about the unison singing of so many
massed voices at the start of the Holst psalm setting.
Do not look to this disc for the English cathedral anthem at its best,
but seek it out for the grandeur and gloriously robust sound of some
great British coronation anthems sung with fervour and virile muscularity.
Marc Rochester
Disc contents
George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
Zadok the Priest, HWV258 [5:19]
Edgar BAINTON (1880-1956)
And I saw a New Heaven [5:18]
Sir Edward ELGAR (1857-1934)
Ave verum corpus, Op.2 No.1 [3:17]
Give unto the Lord, Op.74 [8:21]
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
O How Amiable [3:57]
The Old Hundredth [4:47]
Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)
Jubilate Deo in C [2:38]
Sir Charles Hubert Hastings PARRY (1848-1918)
My Soul there is a Country [3:55]
I Was Glad [5:21]
Gustav HOLST (1874-1934)
Psalm 148, H117 No.2 [4:51]
Sir John STAINER (1840-1901)
God So Loved The World [4:13]
Sir James MacMillan (b.1959)
A New Song [5:40]
Gerald FINZI (1901-1956)
God is Gone Up. Op.27 No.2 [4:43]
Jonathan DOVE (b.1959)
Seek Him that Maketh the Seven Stars [6:40]
