Last year I welcomed,
Heaven’s Happiness, an earlier
disc of choral music by James Cook (review).
Now along comes a second CD from the
same source, recorded in the same location
and featuring the same expert group
of singers. There has been one important
change, however, in that Rufus Frowde,
who played the organ on the previous
disc, now directs the choir. I note,
by the way, from the booklet that Voces
Oxonienses, which is made up of professional
singers, has been formed specifically
to record Cook’s music.
The previous disc was
devoted to settings of words by sixteenth-
and seventeenth-century Puritan writers,
such as John Bunyan and these authors
provide the texts for the works in this
present programme also. This means that
the pieces are full of rich, powerful
imagery and that there is a focus on
suffering, death and the hoped-for rewards
of the afterlife. As Cook sets his texts
with sensitivity this makes for some
stimulating music, though on one or
two occasions I did find myself thinking
that it would be interesting to hear
him addressing different themes or,
perhaps, writing in a different genre.
James Cook is evidently
quite a prolific composer. It will be
noted that all but one of the seventeen
pieces here recorded were written during
a period of five years. However, more
to the point, with the exception of
three pieces that, as I’ll mention below,
are movements from larger works, the
remainder all come from collections
of Cook’s vocal pieces, some of them
evidently quite extensive.
Most of the music on
this CD, as on the last one, is for
unaccompanied voices. Indeed, in his
note accompanying the previous CD Cook
commented that organ accompaniment is
a rarity in his work. In some ways I
think that’s rather a pity. He writes
well and resourcefully for unaccompanied
voices but in the three pieces here
which have an organ accompaniment the
instrument adds a significant additional
dimension and a variety of texture and
colour that, frankly, is rather welcome.
The earlier disc included
two of the three movements of Cook’s
Triptych (2002). I felt at the
time that it was a pity that the final
movement had not been recorded. Well,
here it is. Christ’s blood is heaven’s
key is a powerful piece in which
the intermittent organ accompaniment,
in the composer’s words, "adds
much to the drama and gravitas of the
music." Triptych seems to
me to be a strong and eloquent work
and it’s good to have it complete, though
it’s a slight inconvenience to have
it split across two CDs.
The organ is employed
to even more telling effect in Beyond
the movable heavens. This and the
preceding item, which gives the CD its
title, are from a larger work, Diptych
(2003) – again, one wonders why
the complete work was not recorded.
In Beyond the movable heavens the
organ provides an accompaniment in which
alternating triads play an important
role. However, the ear is caught particularly
by some impressive passages of dark,
cavernous pedal notes, which are superbly
reported by the engineers and which
add a thrilling element to the scoring.
For the rest we hear
unaccompanied voices and here it’s appropriate
to say that the singing by Voces Oxonienses
is consistently of a very high quality
indeed. Among the pieces that I particularly
enjoyed was The lap of eternity,
a lovely lilting setting, which is mainly
a dialogue between soprano and bass
soloists against a gentle background
of choral harmonies, to the word "heaven"
(I think.) Another success is All
loves excelling, a lovely chorale-like
piece. The words are emotionally rich
and Cook enhances them with beautiful,
affirmative music.
I was also impressed
by Run sweet babe, which takes
a text by John Bunyan. This is a short,
disarmingly simple setting. We shall
meet in comfort at our journey’s end
addresses the theme of souls meeting
"lovingly in heaven." It is,
as Cook says, an optimistic text and
the music has a suitably light tread.
There is, indeed, much
to admire and enjoy in this collection
of pieces and in the exemplary performances
that they receive. I suggest, however,
that this is a disc for dipping into
rather than listening to the whole programme
at once. The sound is very good and
James Cook himself provides useful notes
about both the music and the texts he
has chosen and the background to them.
In his review
of this disc Rob Barnett summed up the
music very succinctly and accurately
in commenting that Cook "works
within traditional tonal boundaries;
knowingly or unwittingly acknowledging
links with the British choral tradition."
Anyone with an interest in that tradition
can safely and confidently explore this
rewarding CD.
John Quinn
see also review
by Rob Barnett
Voces Oxonienses/Rufus Frowde 
