No sooner had I reviewed
David Hill’s new CD of Advent and Christmas
music with the choir of St. John’s College,
Cambridge review
than this new disc arrived which features
Hill’s old choir under his successor
at Winchester, Andrew Lumsden.
Lumsden has been in
charge at Winchester since 2002, ample
time to put his own stamp on the choir,
and it’s clear from this CD that the
choir is in very good heart. The
chosen programme is logical and satisfying,
beginning with the Advent Prose. At
the Advent Carol Service in Winchester
Cathedral, we are told, this is sung
in procession from the Retroquire to
the body of the cathedral. That’s the
effect that is achieved here and very
atmospheric it sounds. The men of the
choir sing the plainchant excellently,
with a nice round tone and beautifully
clear diction.
The choir excels in
the polyphonic offerings. Byrd’s Vigilate
is presented vigorously and with
appropriate urgency. I admired the clarity
in the fast-moving lines of polyphony.
The Weelkes anthem is also pleasingly
robust.
Most of the choral
offerings, however are of much more
recent vintage. The Biebl and Manz pieces
I’ve heard before but those by Gowers
and MacMillan are new; indeed, the MacMillan
here receives its first recording. Paul
Manz’s setting of words from the Book
of Revelation was published in 1954.
I think it’s an inspired little piece.
Musically it’s quite straightforward
but it burns with a gentle conviction
and perhaps that’s not surprising when
you read in the notes the circumstances
behind its composition. The Winchester
choir do it proud. Franz Biebl wrote
his rapt Ave Maria in 1964 for
a German fire brigade male voice choir.
The music features lovely chromatic
harmonies interspersed with a couple
of brief passages in plainsong. A mood
of intense devotion permeates the piece
and the use of male altos on the top
line imparts a particularly haunting
quality to the proceedings. It’s performed
splendidly here and this is, on balance,
the most sheerly beautiful piece in
the whole programme. I say that even
though Howells’ gorgeous but ubiquitous
A Spotless Rose is included –
do people think this is the only piece
of Christmas music that he wrote? Incidentally,
since we read in the notes that the
words of Howells’ carol are an English
versification of the old German chorale
Es is ein’ Ros’ entsprungen it
might have been a nice idea to place
the Brahms organ work next to the Howells
carol.
I’m glad to find two
impressive contemporary pieces in the
programme. James MacMillan’s Laudi
alla Vergine Maria was commissioned
jointly by Winchester Cathedral’s Chapter
and by the Netherlands Chamber Choir.
It dates from 2004 and it’s a setting
in Italian for unaccompanied choir of
lines from Dante’s Inferno. It’s
a typically arresting piece by this
eloquent composer. The choir is divided
into as many as eight parts and there
are also a similar number of solo parts,
taken by choir members. The soloists
have difficult, florid lines to sing
and, in fact, the whole composition
sounds to present formidable challenges
to the performers. So far as I can judge
these are triumphantly surmounted by
Lumsden and his singers. Some other
composers might have opted to set the
same lines in a more gentle fashion
but MacMillan, a committed Catholic,
is forthright in his praise of Mary.
The whole piece makes a thrilling effect,
especially since it inspires superbly
committed singing here. MacMillan builds
the music to an ecstatically joyful
final climax on the word ‘Ave’ but then,
in a masterstroke, the music dies away
on quieter repetitions of the same single
word.
Patrick Gowers’ Ad
te levavi dates from 1999 and is
one of a set of four Advent pieces.
It sets the collect for Advent Sunday
and, despite its Latin title, it’s in
English. It begins with a very hushed,
mysterious organ introduction. Listeners
should be warned that when I heard it
through loudspeakers, using the same
comfortable volume setting that I’d
employed for the rest of the disc, I
found this introduction all but inaudible
up to the point where the voices enter
(at 1:05). It was only when I listened
through headphones that the organ could
be heard. The choral part of the piece,
which employs two four-part choirs,
starts with slow moving, antiphonal
chanting of the opening lines in a quiet,
prayerful style. Gradually Gowers makes
his part writing more complex and this,
added to an incremental increase in
volume, ratchets up the tension in the
music. The work is cast in an arch-like
form and after a climax has been achieved
the music subsides back to the subdued
level of the beginning. I found it a
most effective piece.
The final choral offering
is Stanford’s noble Benedictus
in C (1909). This is a sturdy and finely
wrought piece, typical of the composer’s
liturgical music and its inclusion is
greatly to be welcomed. The setting
culminates in a magnificent soaring
doxology at the very end of which Sarah
Baldock makes the organ pedal part superbly
sonorous. This makes a splendid conclusion
to the programme.
Mention must also be
made of the three organ pieces, which
are interspersed at strategic intervals.
Andrew Lumsden himself contributes Bach’s
famous Chorale Prelude: Wachet
auf in which he uses the reeds on
the Winchester organ to very good effect.
His assistant, Sarah Baldock, offers
us two more subdued pieces, one by Bach
and one by Brahms. She plays both very
nicely.
This is a most enjoyable
disc. Some of the music is fairly familiar
but there’s a good and welcome leavening
of less familiar and, indeed, recent
music. The programme as a whole is very
well balanced and the execution is excellent.
The recorded sound and documentation
are both very good. This is a very enjoyable
and satisfying seasonal disc.
John Quinn
Winchester Cathedral Choir/Sarah Baldock &*Andrew
Lumsden (organ)/dir. Andrew Lumsden. *First recording.
