This collection opens with a setting of Psalm 23 which some
will find an appropriate response to the comforting text and
others will find sweet and indulgent. I think it’s fair
to say that music like this, and word setting like this, with
its rich scoring, added-note diatonic harmony and sudden enharmonic
modulations, couldn’t have been written without the liberating
influence of John Rutter over the last thirty years; this very
piece might have been written by him. Much the same can be said
about Stay With Me, Lord, where the composer skilfully
exploits unison singing, phrase repetition, and rich scoring
for strings, including short solos from section leaders. The
Call of Wisdom was commissioned to celebrate the Queen’s
Diamond Jubilee. It is accompanied by organ alone, though no
organist is named. There are a couple of particularly fruity
cadences just before the end. Man Unkind, an extract
from an oratorio entitled St Cuthbert, features a certain
amount of chromatic harmony, presumably to evoke the mystic
elements in the text. My Lord Has Come is a really lovely
unaccompanied carol that was included in the new volume of Carols
for Choirs (OUP, 2010). That We May Love Again is,
like the first piece on the disc, an extract from Todd’s
Te Deum.
The Song of Songs has inspired many composers, and here,
in the unaccompanied Vidi Speciosam, the Latin text encourages
the composer to venture further into chromatic territory. The
opening passage is extremely effective, with a particularly
winning way of working its way to a bare fifth or octave via
a series of highly surprising chromatic chords. This works well
enough to make the listener wish the composer would stretch
his tonal wings further and more often, especially since the
remainder of the work returns to diatonic dissonance reminiscent
of Morten Lauridsen, but without, to my ears at least, that
composer’s individuality of voice. I rather fear that
this is my reaction to the collection as a whole.
The longest work on the disc is Among Angels, for choir
and harp, composed for The Sixteen and first performed by them
in Salzburg in 2006. The work was composed to a commission from
the Genesis Foundation, and the booklet devotes a page to the
composer’s introduction to this foundation and his gratitude
to them for their support. A quick internet search establishes
that this charity, created in 2001 by American banker John Studzinski
- personally acknowledged in Will Todd’s note - “supports
and nurtures young and emerging artists” in “music,
theatre, dance and the visual arts”. The words of Among
Angels - there aren’t many of them - are by Ben Dunwell,
and seem to be angel-related. The music contains some truly
ravishing noises, plus a few frankly clunky key changes and
cadences. The composer is clearly in sympathy with the sentiments
expressed, but I find them, slim though they are, insufferable.
The first five minutes of the work comprise a setting of the
words “Fear not you the dark,/We carry you on soft wide
wings.”
The organ-accompanied You Have Seen the House Built is
the most dissonant work in the collection, a setting of words
by T. S. Eliot more or less appropriate for a work celebrating
the 900th anniversary of Chichester Cathedral. The words hardly
call for musical setting, and Todd’s music doesn’t
really fuse with them in any real sense. The work is austere
and overwrought, and the dissonances, including one particularly
dramatic one in the closing cadence, seem pasted in for effect.
The composer seems much more at ease in the final piece, I
Sing Because… for choir and jazz trio. This lovely,
relaxed music draws you in and gives real pleasure, albeit with
barely a trace of the melancholy that is surely present in the
words.
The composer writes his own introduction to each piece in the
booklet, and sung texts are provided. The disc is sumptuously
recorded and, as you might expect from Tenebrae, sumptuously
sung. The English Chamber Orchestra, and the individual players
when the piece requires it, are excellent, though they are given
little opportunity to shine. The whole is impeccably conducted
by Nigel Short.
I perceive much, though not all, of this music as cloyingly
sweet, but it is superbly done here, and if you like that kind
of thing, this is without a doubt the kind of thing you’ll
like.
William Hedley
Tenebrae 