Eastertide Evensong
James Anderson-Besant & Glen Dempsey (organ)
The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge/Andrew Nethsingha
rec. live, 2 May 2018; 6 March 2019 (Apostles’ Creed); 11 November 2021 (Prayers), St John’s College Chapel, Cambridge, UK
Texts & English translations included
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD707 [57:07]
The latest CD from Andrew Nethsingha and the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge is a complete service of Evensong for the Easter season. Almost everything was recorded at a BBC broadcast of Choral Evensong during the 2018 Easter Term; the spoken Apostles’ Creed and Prayers were recorded at later dates.
As we’ve come to expect from this choir’s recordings, the music is discerningly chosen and spans a wide range of eras and styles. Andrew Nethsingha’s strong commitment to new and recent liturgical music is reflected in the choice of the Introit. I hadn’t previously heard Julian Anderson’s setting of My Beloved Spake; I like it very much. In contrast to the ecstatic full-choir exclamations one hears in Patrick Hadley’s fine setting of the same text, Anderson’s composition, written for a wedding, is less extrovert. Anderson makes use of rich, sensuous choral textures and uses the organ very sparingly. Just as in Hadley’s more familiar piece, the prevailing mood is ecstatic, but on this occasion the ecstasy is more gentle and caring. I’m delighted that I’ve discovered this work.
To the best of my knowledge, I’ve not encountered Kenneth Leighton’s Preces and Responses before either. In his booklet essay, Nethsingha points out how challenging it is to compose good music for these words, where succinctness has to be the order of the day. I think the Preces are excellent but the Responses, where there is greater compositional scope, are even finer. In the Responses I greatly admire the expressive music for the ‘Lord have mercy’ and for the ‘Our Father’; in the latter there are some imaginatively unexpected harmonic shifts. Leighton’s Responses are outstanding and here they’re performed splendidly.
We’re on much more familiar ground with Herbert Howells’ set of Evening Canticles written for Gloucester Cathedral. Only a few days before appraising the present CD I heard these canticles sung – very well - by another choir as part of Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3. On that occasion I found myself wondering what Herbert Sumsion and the Gloucester Cathedral Choir of 1946 made of this challenging and wonderful music when they were first presented with it. This 2018 performance by the St John’s choir is all one could ask for. The choir sings both canticles very well indeed; they are admirably responsive to both words and music. Howells’ sensuous harmonies and long vocal lines are expertly rendered. The ‘Glory be’ at the end of the Magnificat soars like the musical equivalent of fan vaulting. When we’re treated to a reprise at the end of the Nunc dimittis the effect is, if anything, even more thrilling. Nethsingha and his choir build the latter canticle superbly; there’s genuine fervour in the passage beginning at ’to be a light to lighten the Gentiles’.
The psalms can be easily overlooked in a disc such as this. I like very much the selection of chants that Andrew Nethsingha has made here. All are excellent examples of the genre and both the choir’s singing of them and the organ accompaniment by James Anderson-Besant are imaginative. Incidentally, in the booklet Andrew Nethsingha mentions that the next album from St John’s will be devoted entirely to psalms.
The anthem is a quintessential Easter piece, John Taverner’s Dum transisset Sabbatum. This great five-part setting of an Easter responsory is rightly described in the notes as “sumptuous”. The St John’s choir is very impressive here – the trebles are undaunted by the almost relentless high line. The acclamations of ‘Alleluia’ have especial fervour.
The service closes with a thrilling voluntary. Apparently, this Evensong in question was Organ Scholar James Anderson-Besant’s first live broadcast service. His choice of the Finale from Widor’s Symphonie VI was inspired. His playing is full of energy and joie de vivre. Widor’s music, here given a marvellous performance, sounds resplendent on the St John’s Chapel organ and it matters not that the instrument isn’t authentically French in voicing. At the end, Anderson-Besant’s bold decision to throw the organ’s famous Trompeta Real stop into the mix (from 6:08) pays dividends, adding a celebratory frisson to the piece’s exuberant conclusion.
This is a fine celebration of Evensong for Eastertide. The choir’s singing is up to its usual exemplary standard. Andrew Nethsingha, who tells us that over the years he has been involved in around 8,000 celebrations of Evensong, brings all that experience to his choice of music and to his direction of the choir. The organists (Glen Dempsey in the Howells canticles and James Anderson-Besant elsewhere) make distinguished contributions. I should also say that the two readers of the Lessons, Manal Patel and Samuel Moore, deliver the scriptural passages excellently. The spoken prayers are read by the Dean of St John’s, Canon Mark Oakley.
The production standards are very high. The recorded sound is excellent. Andrew Nethsingha has written the booklet essay, as usual. His essays are always a mine of information and perception; this latest one is no exception.
John Quinn
Contents
Julian ANDERSON (b 1967) My Beloved Spake (2006) [5:19]
Kenneth LEIGHTON (1929-1988) The Preces (1964) [1:27]
John GOSS (1800-1880) Psalm 12 [3:25]
Charles Hylton STEWART (1884-1932) Psalm 13 [2:56]
Sir Charles Villiers STANFORD (1852-1924) Psalm 14 [4:10]
The First Lesson: Hosea 13, vv 4-14 [1:48]
Herbert HOWELLS (1892-1983) Magnificat: The Gloucester Service (1946) [6:47]
The Second Lesson: I Corinthians, 15, vv90-end [1:48]
Herbert HOWELLS Nunc dimittis: The Gloucester Service (1946) [4:34]
The Apostles’ Creed [1:02]
Kenneth LEIGHTON The Responses (1964) [7:10]
John TAVERNER (c 1490-1545) Dum transisset Sabbatum (I) [7:37]
The Prayers [2:10]
Charles Marie WIDOR (1844-1937) Finale (Symphonie VI) (1878) [6:47]
