Edward Nesbit (b.1986)
Sacred Choral Works
Mass
Evening Psalms
Fanfares and Rounds for organ solo
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis
The Choir of King’s College, London/Joseph Fort
Ruby Hughes (soprano)
Joshua Simões (organ)
rec. 2021, Dutch Church, Austin Friars, London
DELPHIAN DCD34256 [67]
Composers born in the 1980s may face a dilemma about style and accessibility. For example, what can be written for instruments is not necessarily what can be composed for voices. In his notes, the composer Edward Nesbit makes this point well and it’s one which faces most of us. He, like me, sang in the choir of Tewkesbury Abbey, one of the most inspiring buildings in England, and was brought up in the English choral tradition which, of course, includes Byrd, Stanford and Howells.
His Mass confronts these disparities head on. The very opening of the Kyrie reminded me immediately of Machaut’s mass (which I had been singing, by chance, the evening before) with its use of ‘hoquets’ – a line broken up between the voices. The use of ornamentation such as trills and grace notes brought to mind their use by James MacMillan in his sacred works. The writing for the virtuoso soprano soloist in the Gloria (the brilliant Ruby Hughes) develops this further but, as the composer admits, has the effect of reducing the texts to being mere sounds and a vehicle for Hughes’ virtuosity. It means that not even a cathedral choir is likely to perform this setting liturgically. But does that matter? This is clearly meant to be concert music. Whereas the medieval world made space for lengthy virtuoso settings of the mass (witness Obrecht’s ‘Missa Maria Zart’), the modern church can only rarely accommodate music like this.
Not surprisingly, there is no Creed, but then Cathedral choirs hardly ever sing one, so we move into the ecstatic Sanctus which, in part, also acts as a vehicle for the soprano soloist. The choral writing is mostly very demanding and the incredibly high tessitura required for the choir sopranos puts some strain into the colour of their sound in the ‘Hosanna in excelsis’. The Benedictus is more restrained and lyrical for the soloist but contrasting with that are the staccato, rhythmical figures which underpin it. This dichotomy is deliberate and aids what the composer admits will not always be a setting which offers “easy certainties”. Unusually, the Benedictus is the longest movement and ends with a totally different ‘Hosanna’ from that of the Sanctus. Nesbit adds a joyous, even jazzy, organ solo after this, which he calls an Interlude. That acts as a good contrast with the short, final Agnus dei, a thoughtful and lyrical setting with the soloist accompanied by long chords in the choir and organ decorations.
The mass is unique in so many ways and demonstrates a promising voice in British music but I feel that stylistically it attempts too much in its limited span and fails to communicate a real and inner depth of word setting and understanding, in favour of demonstrating the brilliance of a top choir and soloist.
The Evening Psalms, scored for choir, soloist and organ are five in number and were written between 2014-19. The first, a commission from the composer’s old school, Malvern College, is of Psalm 121, ‘I will lift mine eyes unto the hills’. The elaborate solo line, reminiscent of the Gloria in the Mass, folds over and around sustained chords. The ending is magical but the rest of the setting does not convince.
Then comes the ‘Wedding Psalm’ as its sometimes called, Psalm 67 ‘God be merciful unto us and bless us. One of Nesbit’s fingerprints is repeated, oscillating chords. He employs this here and in the previous psalm, resulting in a fascinatingly enigmatic ending - but I cannot really see the point of the lengthy solo organ interlude before verse five.
The idea of moving hypnotically between just two (or three) harmonies opens the well-known Psalm 23. The organ decorates above and there is a lively middle section before the chords return, the organ again playing fast passages above. It is almost linked to Psalm 117 ‘O Praise the Lord all ye Nations’. Its faster tempo acts as a counterfoil but the harmonic rhythm is again restricted as mentioned earlier.
The set ends with the longest setting, that of Psalm 59 which is all about God smiting the enemies of those who oppress us, so Nesbit composes an often rhythmic and quite aggressive setting, again very challenging and quite dissonant but mostly very effective.
Although Nesbit was coming to the organ as a composer for the first time in his Fanfares and Rounds, it is an enjoyable and idiomatic work in which he demonstrates that his own, if brief, organ lessons were not wasted. Stylistically, it breaks no particularly original ground and its rhythmical nature may remind the listener of William Mathias or John Joubert. Joshua Simões clearly enjoys playing this exuberant piece. It falls into a fast, slow, fast format and has several arresting ideas.
Every composer of church music will at some point want to tackle the Evening Canticles - the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis and has the choice of whether to make it a joyous, exuberant setting like, for example, Stanford in A, or something more reflective or even introspective, as with Dyson in F - to cite two commonly heard settings. That is why composers write several settings as there are so many ways of approaching these significant texts. Nesbit’s highly compact setting falls into the latter category but has an uplifting undertone and is almost mesmeric in its chanting, melodic repetitions, and perhaps because it lacks the organ, its meditative atmosphere is enhanced.
The choir is quite outstanding and considering the social distancing requirement at the time, as evidenced by the photo in the booklet, and what that might have meant for the conductor, my admiration is unbounded. As ever with Delphian, the presentation of the booklet with the fascinating essay by the composer, full texts and colour photos, is exemplary. If you can ever get into it, you will see that the Dutch church in London is a beautiful, ancient building with an ideal acoustic and a modest, two-manual organ, built in a baroque style in 1954, which works well with this music.
Gary Higginson
