Ascendit Deus - Music for Ascensiontide and
Pentecost
Full track-listing at the foot of this review
Choir of Clare College, Cambridge; The Dmitri Ensemble/Graham Ross
Peter Harrison, Matthew Jorysz (organ)
rec. April, June, July, 2014, Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban, St
Albans; Chapel of Tonbridge School, Kent; All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak,
London.
Texts and English, French and German translations included
HARMONIA MUNDI HMU907623 [77:31]
It looks as if Graham Ross and the Choir of Clare College have been
working their way through the liturgical year, illustrating each segment of
the annual cycle with appropriate music. We’ve already had excellent albums
for Advent (review), Christmas (review) and Passiontide (review). Now here is a sequence of pieces for
Ascensiontide and Pentecost.
There’s some daring programming here. Indeed, while all the previous
albums have included a good sprinkling of contemporary pieces this one, I
fancy, presents the most adventurous programming so far. With the best will
in the world I have to say that, purely as a matter of personal taste, I
don’t find the contemporary pieces are uniformly successful.
Brett Dean’s Was it a voice? was written for this choir and sets
a text by the Australian poet, Graeme William Ellis (b. 1944). We read in
Graham Ross’s note that Dean sought to express “something of humility and
restraint” in this Ascension setting and it’s true that the music eschews
conventional jubilation. I found the music long on vocal effects and short
on anything memorable. I’m afraid it didn’t do anything for me – for one
thing it’s too long for its material – and I can only hope that others will
find more in it than I did. I’m sorry to say that the recent piece by Graham
Ross himself, which was not written for Clare College, is another item to
which I don’t warm. It’s a setting of various words from the Gospel of St
John for a cappella choir with an independent part for soprano
saxophone. I’m not entirely what the saxophone is meant to represent but its
piercing, wailing tone and the music which it plays is distinctly
unappealing. Part way through the piece a quartet of voices is heard singing
a slightly modified version of If ye love me by Thomas Tallis and
against this the main choir sings a Latin translation of part of the same
text. As the music winds down, we are told, it becomes apparent that much of
the saxophonist’s material has been derived from the Tallis though I found
this hard to discern. The piece seems to me to be a collision between old
and new music and, frankly, I’m baffled by it.
An infinitely more successful re-imagining of old music is to be found in
Come, Holy Ghost by the late Jonathan Harvey. This piece is founded
on plainsong around which is woven amazingly inventive and luminous choral
textures. In one passage there is what seems like a vividly imagined and
effective musical allusion to the Disciples talking in tongues. It’s a
highly original composition and here it receives a tremendous performance.
Judith Weir’s Ascending into heaven (1983) is equally intriguing.
Through her vocal writing and the important independent organ part Weir
illustrates both the mystery and the elemental power of the Ascension.
Especially effective is the way that the music spirals upwards almost to
nothing at the very end.
Nico Muhly’s setting of George Herbert’s well-known text, Let all the
world in every corner sing is most unusual. Not the least of its
surprises is the inclusion of an important cello part along with the organ
and choir. The music is intriguing and Muhly eschews conventional rejoicing.
God is gone up is the last piece that Giles Swayne wrote during his
time as Composer in Residence at Clare. It couldn’t be more different from
the familiar Finzi setting, not least because an entirely different text is
used. The piece proceeds from a very dramatic opening. Swayne, it seems to
me, views the Ascension as a frightening departure from earthly life by
Christ and a departure, moreover, that fills the Disciples with
incomprehension. As the piece unfolds it eventually achieves a mood of what
I can only call brazen rejoicing. It’s a very strange, almost graphic piece
but it certainly has impact.
So too does Finzi’s well-known anthem which at least shares a title with
Swayne’s offering though the music is vastly different. As with the Swayne
the impact is immediate through the arresting organ fanfares. The piece is
one of Finzi’s best choral works and it gets a tremendous performance here.
Patrick Gowers’ Viri Galilaei (1987) is not yet as well-known as
the Finzi, though it seems to have been gaining much more attention in
recent years, and rightly so. The music starts and ends in mystery but in
between it’s tremendously exciting. Towards the end Gowers folds into his
setting a verse from a great Ascension hymn, See the Conqueror mounts in
triumph with an exuberant organ part underneath the choral writing. The
piece was written for double chorus and organ – requiring two organists, I
think – but here it’s given in an arrangement by Graham Ross which adds
brass and percussion parts to marvellous effect, making this terrific piece
even more effective. It’s highly appropriate that this piece should be
included since Gowers was an alumnus of Clare College. I presume the booklet
went to press before Gowers’ death in the closing days of 2014 was
announced.
Equally resplendent through the use of organ, brass and percussion is
Vaughan Williams’s O clap your hands. On a smaller scale in terms
of the forces required are Stanford’s Coelos ascendit hodie and the
Credo from Frank Martin’s Mass. Both are scored for double choir. The
Stanford is a jubilant, resolute piece and in this excellent performance I
like very much the way in which the separation of the two choirs is clearly
but naturally conveyed. That’s the case too in Frank Martin’s masterly piece
which is given a very committed and expert performance. I particularly
relished the joyful “pealing bells” effect of the singing at ‘Et
resurrexit’.
This is another very fine and varied album from Clare College. The singing
is consistently superb in every respect throughout a demanding programme. I
noticed with interest that the choir seems to have very few altos at present
– the forces are 10/4/6/9 – but there’s no lack of definition in any of the
parts and the choir seems to be very well balanced at all times.
John Rutter is again the engineer and producer for a recording by his old
college choir and he’s done a first rate job, working in three different
acoustics.
John Quinn
Track-Listing
Peter PHILIPS (c 1560-1638) Ascendit Deus
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958) O clap your hands
Patrick GOWERS (1936-2014) Viri Galilaei*
Brett DEAN (b. 1936) Was it a voice?* (Music for
Ascension Day)
Nico MUHLY (b. 1981) Let all the world in every corner
sing*
Gerald FINZI (1901-1956) God is gone up
Sir Charles Villiers STANFORD (1852-1924) Coelos ascendit
hodie
Frank MARTIN (1890-1974) Credo from Messe
Graham ROSS (b. 1985) Ascendo ad Patrem meum*
Judith WEIR (b. 1954) Ascending into heaven
Jonathan HARVEY (1939-2012) Come, Holy Ghost
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907) Pinsesalme
Sir Edward ELGAR (1857-1934) The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me
Giles SWAYNE (b. 1946) God is gone up* (A Song for the
Ascension)
* world première recordings
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