Viri Galilæi:
Favourite Anthems from Merton
Jonathan DOVE (b. 1959)
Te Deum (first recording) [8:51]
Thomas TALLIS (c.1505–1585)
If ye love me [2:10]
Sir Edward ELGAR (1857–1934)
Give unto the Lord [8:31]
Thomas MORLEY (1557/8–1602)
Nolo mortem peccatoris
[2:54]
John RUTTER (b. 1945)
The Lord bless you and keep you [2:41]
Sir Hubert PARRY (1848–1918)
Blest pair of sirens [10:46]
William BYRD (1539/40–1623)
Diliges Dominum [2:58]
Roger QUILTER (1877–1953)
Lead us, heavenly Father [2:21]
Thomas TALLIS
O nata lux
[1:52]
Gerald FINZI (1901–1956)
Lo, the full, final sacrifice [15:20]
William H. HARRIS (1883–1973)
Faire is the heaven [5:24]
William BYRD
Ave verum corpus
[3:44]
Patrick GOWERS (1936–2014)
Viri Galilæi [7:57]
Charles Warren, Peter Shepherd (organ)
Choir of Merton College, Oxford/Benjamin Nicholas, Peter Phillips
rec Chapel of Merton College, Oxford, 28-30 June 2015. DDD
Texts and translations included
DELPHIAN DCD34174
[75:36]
With some ensembles, orchestras and choirs one very soon runs out of superlatives. The Merton College Choir, though but recently founded, and their
association with the Delphian label, offers one such case. Having warmed to three of their earlier releases:
- DCD34122 Advent at Merton –
review by John
Quinn and
Download News 2012/23
- DCD34134 The Merton Collection: Merton College at 750 – my review and
review by John Quinn
-
I’ve only just caught up with their début recording, appropriately entitled
In the Beginning, courtesy of
emusic.com where it’s available for subscribers in 320kb/s mp3 for £3.36,
but NO booklet. John Quinn made this a Recording of the Month –
review.
I took the quality of the new recording on trust from the very moment that I placed my bid to review it. I was not disappointed.
I was, however, a little off in one of my assumptions: the title Viri Galilæi led me to expect a programme of Ascension-tide music to match the
other themed collections which they have produced, since these are the words spoken to the disciples after they have witnessed Christ’s ascent to heaven in
the Acts of the Apostles – ‘Men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up to heaven?’ I even thought that the programme might include Palestrina’s motet of that
name. No matter: we have a fine recording of that work, together with the Mass based on it and a
Magnificat performed by Ensemble Organum/Marcel
Pérès and Ensemble Vocal Européen/Philippe Herreweghe (budget price Harmonia Mundi HMA1951388 or 30-CD set of
Sacred Music HMX2908304/33).
What we have instead of a themed programme is an anthology of some of the mainstays of English church music from Tudor times to the present, with firm
favourites interspersed with the less well-known from the past and more recent works.
The work which lends its name to the title of the collection is a recent composition by Patrick Gowers. Composed in 1987 for the consecration of Richard
Harries as the Bishop of Oxford, it’s already deservedly become a modern classic. It ends the programme as an even more recent work opens it: the first
recording of Jonathan Dove’s setting of the English Prayer Book text of the
Te Deum. If you’ll allow me to climb on one of my hobby-horses for a
moment, I’m pleased that he chose that version and not the mish-mash that passes for this canticle in Common Worship shying away from the direct
translation ‘thou didst not abhor the virgin’s womb’ (non horruisti virginis uterum) for the mundane ‘you humbly chose the virgin’s womb’. The
music belongs to that class of modern compositions which, while not likely to be mistaken for anything other than contemporary, nevertheless shows a
kinship with the past that matches the timeless words of the Book of Common Prayer.
The direction is shared between the two guiding lights of the Merton choir, Benjamin Nicholas and Peter Phillips, the latter better known as director of
The Tallis Scholars. It’s appropriate that Phillips should direct all but one of the earlier compositions, two by Tallis and one each by Byrd and Morley.
I’m not sure how many times he must have performed these pieces: he’s recorded them for the Scholars’ own Gimell label and those recordings are
indispensable:
- If ye love me
in The Tallis Scholars sing Thomas Tallis: CDGIM203 (2-for-1)
- O nata lux
in The Essential Tallis Scholars: CDGIM201 (2-for-1) or Tallis Lamentations, etc. (CDGIM025)
- Ave verum corpus
in Playing Elizabeth’s Tune: GIMSA592 (SACD) or CDGIM992 (CD) or GIMDN902 (NTSC DVD) or GIMPD901 (PAL DVD).
With the Tallis Scholars Phillips tends to give the music time to breathe and the same is true of the recordings here: some very slightly slower, some
slightly faster than on those Gimell recordings. Be warned that these tracks will make you wish to explore some or all of the Gimell albums if you have
not already done so.
The inclusion of Finzi’s Lo, the full, final sacrifice redressed the balance for me after the rather disappointing recent Decca release of his
music, Introit, on which some beautiful performances are rather wasted on a bitty programme including several instrumental ‘re-imaginings’ of vocal
items (4789357 –
Download News 2016/4). There are two brief items
on that recording from Finzi’s setting of the metaphysical poet Thomas Traherne.
Lo, the full, final sacrifice is a setting of Traherne’s
near-contemporary Richard Crashaw, replete with Catholic Eucharistic theology, and for me it’s not only the longest but also the outstanding work in the
programme. It’s not entirely typical of Finzi’s usually very distinctive music but it’s a beautiful piece which receives too few outings – it’s rather
long for an evensong anthem – and it’s beautifully sung here.
Detailed comparisons are pointless but I’d like to draw your attention to one other collection of English church anthems. It’s actually Volume 2 of a
Hyperion series of recordings and it’s performed by St Paul’s Cathedral Choir directed by John Scott. It includes performances of
Lo, the full, final sacrifice and the concluding item on the new Delphian, Patrick Gowers’ setting of the Ascension-tide anthem
Viri Galilæi
(CDA66519). I’m not going to attempt to compare them except to say that both receive first-rate performances on both recordings, with the Merton choir in
no way put in the shade by St Paul’s, and that both contain so much more fine music that you are unlikely to regret the duplication.
The Hyperion has descended to their Archive Service but dealers may still have copies – try Presto or Amazon UK – and the album can be downloaded in mp3 or lossless sound from
hyperion-records.co.uk with pdf booklet. By comparison the Delphian recording is
closer but the Hyperion faithfully reflects the larger acoustic of the cathedral.
The value of the Delphian programme notes is mitigated only by the mis-statement that
Lo, the full, final sacrifice is a setting of words by
Traherne. Finzi did set Traherne in Dies Natalis but the text of this work comes from the early seventeenth-century recusant Richard Crashaw,
translating two hymns by Thomas Aquinas.
If you enjoyed Delphian’s earlier recordings of the Merton College choir you will need no urging from me to obtain the latest in what I hope will be a long
series. Otherwise this is a good place to start.
Brian Wilson
Previous review:
John Quinn (Recording of the Month)
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