1 Louisa [4:41] (b. 1993) Emily Benson soprano, Christopher Pelmore tenor Sing to me, windchimes * 2 I. Sing to me, windchimes [3:12] Owain Park * 3 Interlude – The inundation of the Spring [0:36] Gabriella Jones violin ** 4 II. Loveliest of trees [3:44] Annie Hamilton soprano 5 III. Star of the frost [2:03] 6 IV. The Rainy Summer [4:58] 7 Interlude – A Wind that woke a lone Delight [0:52] 8 V. Into my heart an air that kills [3:38] 9 VI. Life has a loveliness to sell [7:41]

10 Antiphon for the Angels ** [10:23] Shakespeare Love Songs 11 I. Love is a smoke [2:31] 12 II. Love, whose month is ever May [2:40] Jess Haig alto 13 III. So sweet a kiss [4:30] John Robb tenor 14 IV. When love speaks [2:15]

15 Holy is the true light [5:57] With thanks to the RVW Trust for its financial support towards the making of this recording. Helen Price soprano, Abaigh Wheatley alto, Tim Lintern tenor, Morgan Simes baritone Becky Ryland-Jones, Emma Kjellin, Richard Holdsworth, Adrian Collister quartet

Epiphoni is grateful to our many friends, supporters and benefactors for their ongoing support. Shakespeare Songs of Night-Time We are particularly grateful to the 66 backers who have given specifically to this project, including 16 I. Light thickens [2:21] the following who made significant donations: Jenny & James McPherson, Roger & Mary Simes 17 II. Weary with toil [3:56] and Andrew Stratford (supporters); Will Buxton, Ian Carpenter, Milly Taylor soprano, Jenny McPherson alto, Milo Comerford bass John Reader, Lara Scheidegger and Morgan Simes (benefactors). 18 III. Now it is the time of night [2:05] 19 IV. Let fall the windows of thine eyes [2:37] Recorded on 25-27 October 2019 in Booklet editor: Henry Howard Milly Taylor soprano the Church of St John the Evangelist, Design: Drew Padrutt 20 V. Be not afeard [2:43] Upper Norwood Cover: Daniele Levis Pelusi/Unsplash Pippa Wright soprano, Milo Comerford bass Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter Session photography: Sapphire Armitage 21 VI. The cloud-capp’d towers [3:26] 24-bit digital editing: Matthew Swan Concert photography: Ben Tomlin 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK Total playing time [76:59] www.delphianrecords.co.uk All tracks are premiere recordings Notes on the music Since singing is so good a thing physiological and psychological health would This ‘choral birthright’, both in skills and Latin motets using texts set by Charles I wish all men would learne to sing. come as no surprise to William Byrd. musical experience, was expanded and Stanford – Trinity College’s Organist – in developed for Owain Park through a pre- the late nineteenth century; or a setting of So wrote William Byrd in the preface to his Likewise with composition: whereas the choral university year as Organ Scholar at Wells Frances Chesterton’s poem ‘Here is the little 1588 Psalmes, Sonets, & songs of sadnes idiom was once regarded as no more than a Cathedral, and membership of the National door’ – also known in a much-loved version and pietie, commending the social and musical byway by many , major Youth Choir of Great Britain, singing a wider by Herbert Howells. Or, as on this recording, spiritual advantages of singing, but also its figures today – James MacMillan or Judith and more extensive choral repertoire than lines from The Tempest which many choirs benefits to health, clear pronunciation, and Weir, to name just two – would see their choral that of the Anglican Church. Then, the first of will know from Vaughan Williams’ famously even as ‘a singular good remedie for stutting music as the equal of their other works. two years as an assistant conductor to the challenging setting of 1951. and stammering’. Millennium Youth Choir of the Royal School of But one notable difference remains: the scarcity Church Music brought him to Trinity College, Owain Park’s version of The cloud-capp’d In that glorious ‘Golden Age’, where the of notable choral composers today who are Cambridge in 2013 as a trained singer, an towers forms the final movement of importance of choral and vocal music themselves trained professional singers. The accomplished organist (the chapel choir’s Shakespeare Songs of Night-Time (not just in England but internationally) subject of the present recording, Owain Park, is Organ Scholar), an experienced choral director and shares with Vaughan Williams’ some was unsurpassed, many composers a member of that small and select club. And he and a who had already been hearing gloriously luxuriant chordal writing. But this is were themselves professional singers. can claim membership of another: those whose his own music performed since his late teens. a characteristic of Owain Park’s choral style The Catholic Church employed figures lifelong musical tracks were set, in childhood, by as a whole – described by John Rutter, his such as Palestrina, Victoria and countless joining a choir affiliated to what can be called the When Owain Park was made a ‘house former teacher, as ‘towers of sound’. And the others as singers-who-compose, rather ‘cathedral tradition’. composer’ by the music publishers Novello piece demonstrates other typical facets of a than the reverse. As a choirboy Lassus was in 2015 he paid tribute to those many composer instinctively at home in the choral said to have been kidnapped three times by In Park’s case, the choir in question was that ‘compositional idols’ already represented medium and with precise ‘insider knowledge’ rival choirmasters covetous of his beautiful of St Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol, in the by that house. ‘It was amazing to walk into about how to achieve the effects he wants: treble voice. Byrd, while remembered now west of England – a glorious Gothic building the office and be reminded of some of the for example, the flickering sustained voices in as a composer, was, like many English famously described by Queen Elizabeth I musical icons who have been associated the opening bars, and the evolving scoring of contemporaries, a Gentleman ‘singing-man’ as the fairest in the land. This has for many with [it],’ he has said. These idols and icons the words ‘Light thickens’ which creates not in the Chapel Royal. years operated a choral programme which are figures who sit comfortably in Owain just contrasts of pitch and dynamics, but also emulates, in scope and repertoire, that of Park’s musical universe, and his own – highly weight and colour. Today choirs and choral singing – of every kind the great cathedrals. For a young singer, the sophisticated – musical language happily and degree of accomplishment, professional formative influence of such a programme acknowledges and reflects the heritage of This and the remaining five movements take and amateur – enjoy renewed popularity. cannot be overstated – and neither can the those predecessors but yet remains entirely nocturnal texts from eight other Shakespeare In Europe it is said that more people sing professionalism (discipline, concentration and his own. plays, along with a sonnet, each concluding with in choirs than attend football matches; application) and the technical skills (sight- a pair of lines from Romeo and Juliet, Act III, and the fact that choral singing is now reading, vocal flexibility, choral technique) Sometimes that heritage is referenced in scored in contrasted ways. Common to all of widely recognised as an activity benefiting which membership of such a choir demands. the titles of his pieces: for example, three them, and Owain Park’s writing in general, is Notes on the music an effortless (and instinctive) ability to make Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’, the Enigma Variation which that particular guardian of melancholy in the his audiences.And this in a composer not the words clear and discernible at all times, has come to be associated with funerals, English rural landscape, A. E. Housman. yet thirty. He, and we, have much to look even when the textures and harmonies are at commemorations, grief and loss. In the same forward to. their most complex – something with which year, Antiphon for the Angels, for violin and Works for children and for adults, for so many composers of choral music struggle. eight-part choir, was commissioned by the accomplished amateurs and top-rank © 2020 Michael Emery ensemble Voces8 and the violinist Rachel professional choirs: to all of these, Owain English-speaking composers have been Podger. It uses Latin and English versions of Park brings an innate understanding of the Michael Emery was formerly Senior Producer notably cautious about setting Shakespeare words by St Ambrose and Hildegard of Bingen, choral medium, an instinctive ability to track for the BBC Singers in London, and is now but, although Owain Park talks about the and, in the interaction between singers and down just the right text, and a capacity to Artistic Director of the professional choirs of sense of responsibility he feels in adding violin, recalls the ‘call-and-response’ technique write music that speaks powerfully to all Danish Radio in Copenhagen. music to the ‘holy writ’ of a great national of antiphonal singing which Ambrose is poet, his experience in school Shakespeare supposed to have invented. But Rachel Podger productions has made him comfortable about is a violinist celebrated for her playing of J. S. working with these texts. When the Maesbury Bach, and so the piece is framed by a hymn- Singers commissioned Shakespeare Love like passage which, in texture and harmony, Songs in 2013 he was happy to make his own evokes the congregational chorales which compilation, combining lines from different punctuate Bach’s cantatas and Passions. plays in a narrative arc describing the lovers’ journey from yearning and flirtation to sweet Perhaps the most unusual piece on this contentment (the final movement should be recording, in terms of its origins, is Sing to sung ‘lovingly’). me, windchimes, composed for Louth Choral Society in memory of Gill Fraser, a much-loved Louisa shows Owain Park working on a former member, with funds bequeathed for the smaller scale. It was commissioned as a purpose in her will. The brief was to produce 21st-birthday present by the family of a young a piece which reflected her love of nature, her woman of that name, her brother supplying free spirit, and her sensitivity to spirituality. Wordsworth’s eponymous poem. Holy is the Owain Park’s solution was to make a piece true light was commissioned by the choir which talks of loss and yearning, but also of Tenebrae in 2018 for a concert exploring the spring and rebirth, as well as the power of theme of Remembrance. It combines the music. The poetry he selected comes from the Latin plainchant Lux aeterna from the Requiem works of four women writers, with the words Mass with an English translation of words of a fifth – Emily Dickinson – providing the from the Salisbury Diurnal, a medieval service titles for two piano interludes which punctuate book. At its conclusion the piece quotes the piece; in addition there are two poems by Texts and translations 1 Louisa Sing to me, windchimes 5 III. Star of the frost Bees, humming in the storm, carry their cold Wild honey to cold cells. I met Louisa in the shade; 2 I. Sing to me, windchimes Ah, nobody knows Alice Meynell (1847–1922) And, having seen that lovely maid, The thing I would learn Why should I fear to say sing to me, windchimes But the star of the frost That, nymph-like, she is fleet, and strong; of eventide’s lullaby That is still in the night for a while 8 V. Into my heart an air that kills And down the rocks can leap along, beneath dim shadows And is burned in the morning and lost. Like rivulets in May? So would I be frozen, Into my heart an air that kills when dragonflies reel So would I be burned From yon far country blows: She loves her fire, her cottage-home; farther from the horizon Into silence What are those blue remembered hills, Yet o’er the moorland will she roam my soul needs music And lost; What spires, what farms are those? In weather rough and bleak; So would I return – Lyva Marty, ‘sing to me’ (poetrysoup.com) And, when against the wind she strains, Not I – not I – That is the land of lost content, Oh! might I kiss the mountain rains But a wind from the wild I see it shining plain, That sparkle on her cheek. 4 II. Loveliest of trees Besieging the blossoming The happy highways where I went Towers of the roses. And cannot come again. Take all that’s mine ‘beneath the moon’, Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Stella Benson (1892–1933), ‘Frost’ If I with her but half a noon Is hung with bloom along the bough, Alfred Edward Housman May sit beneath the walls And stands about the woodland ride Of some old cave, or mossy nook, Wearing white for Eastertide. 6 IV. The Rainy Summer 9 VI. Life has a loveliness to sell When up she winds along the brook, To hunt the waterfalls. Now, of my threescore years and ten, There’s much afoot in heaven and earth this year; Life has a loveliness to sell, Twenty will not come again, The winds hunt up the sun, hunt up the moon, William Wordsworth (1770–1850) All beautiful and splendid things, And take from seventy springs a score, Trouble the dubious dawn, hasten the drear Blue waves whitened on a cliff, It only leaves me fifty more. Height of a threatening noon. Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children’s faces looking up And since to look at things in bloom No breath of boughs, no breath of leaves, of Holding wonder like a cup. Fifty springs are little room, fronds, About the woodlands I will go May linger or grow warm; the trees are loud; Life has a loveliness to sell, To see the cherry hung with snow. The forest, rooted, tosses in her bonds, Music like a curve of gold, And strains against the cloud. Alfred Edward Housman (1859–1936) Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold, No scents may pause within the garden-fold; And for your spirit’s still delight, The rifled flowers are cold as ocean-shells; Holy thoughts that star the night. Texts and translations

Spend all you have for loveliness, you are essential joy. Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn; 14 IV. When love speaks Buy it and never count the cost; But your lost companion, Vow, alack! for youth unmeet, For one white singing hour of peace angel of the crooked Youth so apt to pluck a sweet. Love is not love Count many a year of strife well lost, wings – he sought the summit, Do not call it sin in me, Which alters when it alteration finds, And for a breath of ecstasy shot down the depths of God That I am forsworn for thee; Or bends with the remover to remove: Give all you have been, or could be. and plummeted past Adam – Thou for whom Jove would swear O no! it is an ever-fixed mark that a mud-bound spirit might soar. Juno but an Ethiope were; That looks on tempests and is never Sara Teasdale (1884–1933), ‘Barter’ And deny himself for Jove, shaken. Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179); translations by Barbara Newman (b. 1953) Turning mortal for thy love. Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, 10 Antiphon for the Angels Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV, scene iii remain; Behold the radiant sun departs Shakespeare Love Songs And when Love speaks, the voice of all In glory from our sight, 13 III. So sweet a kiss the gods But, O our God, possess our hearts 11 I. Love is a smoke Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. With Thy celestial Light. So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not Love is a smoke rais’d with the fume of sighs; from Sonnet CXVI, Venus and Adonis and Love’s To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, Labour’s Lost, Act IV, scene iii St Ambrose (c.340–397), ‘Jam sol recedit igneus’, Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes; As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays tr. Robert Campbell (1814–1868) Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with loving tears. have smot What is it else? A madness most discreet, The night of dew that on my cheeks down 15 Holy is the true light Spirited light! on the edge A choking gall, and a preserving sweet. flows: of the Presence your yearning Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine cum sanctis burns in the secret darkness, (1564–1616), Romeo and Juliet, Through the transparent bosom of the deep, tuis in aeternum quia pius es. Act I, scene i O angels, insatiably As doth thy face through tears of mine give Let eternal light shine upon them, Lord, into God’s gaze. light; with your saints for ever, for you are loving. 12 II. Love, whose month is ever May Thou shin’st in ev’ry tear that I do weep: O gloriosissimi lux vivens angeli, No drop but as a coach doth carry thee. Holy is the True Light and passing Love, whose month is ever May, qui infra divinitatem Do but behold the tears that swell in me, wonderful, lending radiance to them that Spied a blossom passing fair divinos oculos And that thy glory through my grief will show: endured in the heat of the conflict. From Playing in the wanton air: cum mistica obscuritate But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep Christ they inherit a home of unfading Through the velvet leaves the wind, omnis creature aspicitis My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. splendour, wherein they rejoice with All unseen, can passage find; in ardentibus desideriis, O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel, gladness evermore. Alleluia! Amen. That the lover, sick to death, unde numquam No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell. Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath. Communion at Mass for the Dead; Antiphon at potestis saciari. First Vespers on the Feast of All Saints, tr. George Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV, scene iii Herbert Palmer (1846–1926) Perversity Air, would I might triumph so! could not touch your beauty; But, alack! my hand is sworn Texts and translations

Shakespeare Songs of Night-Time 18 III. Now it is the time of night 20 V. Be not afeard 21 VI. The cloud-capp’d towers

16 I. Light thickens Now, ’tis now, it is the very witching time of Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, night … Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Light thickens, Now it is the time of night hurt not. Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve and the crow makes wing That the graves all gaping wide, Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, to the rooky wood: Every one lets forth his sprite, Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices Leave not a rack behind. Good things of the day In the church-way paths to glide. That, if I then had waked after long sleep, We are such stuff begin to droop and drowse. Now the hungry lion roars, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, As dreams are made on, and our little life Come, gentle night, And the wolf behowls the moon; The clouds methought would open and show Is rounded with a sleep. come, loving black-brow’d night. And the heavy ploughman snores, riches Come, gentle night … All with weary task fordone. Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak’d William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act III, scene ii; The Tempest, Act IV, scene i Romeo and Juliet, Act III, scene ii Not a mouse shall disturb this hallowed I cried to dream again. house. The Tempest, Act III, scene ii Come, gentle night … 17 II. Weary with toil Hamlet, Act III, scene ii; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, scene i Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But there begins a journey in my head, 19 IV. Let fall the windows of thine eyes To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired: Let fall the windows of thine eyes. For then my thoughts – from far when Enjoy the honey heavy dew of slumber; I abide – Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies, Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, Which busy care draws in the brains of men; And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Therefore thou sleepest so sound. Looking on darkness which the blind do see; Hush’d to thy slumber, Save that my soul’s imaginary sight In the perfum’d chamber of the great, Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Under the canopies … Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, lull’d with the sound of sweetest melody. Makes black night beauteous and her old … all the drowsy syrups of the world face new. Shall medicine thee to a sweet sleep. Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, Come, gentle night … For thee, and for myself, no quiet find. Richard III, Act V, scene iii; Julius Caesar, Act II, scene i; Come, gentle night … Henry IV Part II, Act III, scene i; Othello, Act III, scene iii Sonnet XXVII Biographies The Epiphoni Consort was founded in Tim Reader, The Owain Park was born in including The Sixteen, Gabrieli Consort, and 2014 by Tim Reader to fill a gap between the Epiphoni Consort’s Artistic Bristol in 1993. His Polyphony. amateur and professional tiers of London’s Director, studied singing, compositions are choral circuit. Its members comprise a accompanying and published by Novello, and Gabriella Jones studied at Chetham’s School number of people who sing to a professional at the have been performed of Music before graduating from Trinity College, standard but have other full-time­ careers. University of Exeter, internationally by Cambridge in 2016. She has performed as The group has won awards in Tenebrae’s graduating in 2000. In ensembles including the a soloist and chamber musician across the

Locus Iste Competition and in the London photo: Tomlin Ben 2019 he graduated with a Allen photo: Patrick Tallis Scholars and the UK and Europe, including appearances at the International A Cappella Choir Competition, Postgraduate Diploma in Aurora Orchestra. While at Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall and Cadogan and has appeared on television on the BBC4 Music from the University of York where he Cambridge University he studied orchestration Hall, and combined with musicians such as documentary The Joy of Rachmaninov and studied Solo Voice Ensemble Singing under with John Rutter, before undertaking a Leon McCawley, Tom Poster, Nicola Benedetti the BBC2 documentary Terry Pratchett: Back Robert Hollingworth. Master's degree in composition. and the Endellion Quartet. in Black, singing Tallis’s 40-part motet Spem in alium. The choir’s debut recording, Sudden Tim now juggles dual careers, one as a As a conductor, he maintains a busy Gabi held a University Instrumental Award Light, was released on Delphian Records consultant in all things digital for charities schedule of projects with ensembles during her time at Cambridge, and led the (DCD34189) in 2017 to critical acclaim from and arts organisations, and the other as including the BBC Singers, the Academy University Chamber Orchestra, performing Gramophone, Choir and Organ Magazine, BBC a singer and choral director in London, of Ancient Music, Cappella Cracoviensis under the baton of Sir Roger Norrington, Radio 3 and BBC Music Magazine. Recent including as a regular of the professional and Cambridge Chorale. His own vocal Carlos Izcaray and Nicholas Collon. In performances have included Bach’s Mass octet at St John’s Wood Church. He has consort, The Gesualdo Six, tours extensively 2013, Gabi co-founded the Trinity College in B Minor and Singet dem Herrn with City conducted Epiphoni in performances at around the world and has been lauded Chamber Orchestra, performing regularly of London Sinfonia and John Butt, a concert Westminster Abbey, St Martin-in-the-Fields, for its interpretation of renaissance and with the ensemble as leader and concert performance of Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé St Paul’s Cathedral, Southwark Cathedral, contemporary music. soloist. Following a Master’s degree at the with Kensington Symphony Orchestra, and The Barbican Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal College of Music with Detlef Hahn, the closing gala concert of London Festival St John’s Smith Square, and for BBC radio Owain is a Fellow of the Royal College of Gabi pursued an artist diploma in historical of Contemporary Church Music with an all- and television. Organists (FRCO), and was awarded the performance, studying with Lucy Russell and Jonathan Dove programme to celebrate the Dixon Prize for improvisation, having been Bojan Čičić. She was awarded the Constant composer’s 60th birthday year. Senior Organ Scholar at Wells Cathedral and and Kit Lambert Fellowship for 2019–20, Trinity College, Cambridge. He studied piano leading and directing various projects in with Reg Parker and Kate Miller, and was historical performance. She performs regularly an accompanist on the Pembroke Lieder with ensembles including Florilegium, Scheme, learning from Joseph Middleton and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the participating in masterclasses led by Roderick Academy of Ancient Music, the Hanover Band Williams and Sarah Connolly amongst others. and Wond’rous Machine. She is a Monteverdi Apprentice, performing with the Orchestre He was a Tenebrae Associate Artist for two Révolutionnaire et Romantique under Sir John seasons, and has worked with ensembles Eliot Gardiner. The Epiphoni Consort Sopranos Tenors Sapphire Armitage Richard Holdsworth Emily Benson Tim Lintern Barbara Gunter Christopher Palmer Annie Hamilton Christopher Pelmore Helen Price John Robb Becky Ryland-Jones Greg Windle Milly Taylor Pippa Wright Basses Jon Bannister Altos Charles Blamire-Brown Rose Dixon Ed Bremner Jessica Ginn Adrian Collister Jess Haig Milo Comerford Emma Kjellin Amatey Doku Jenny McPherson Paul Kiang Abaigh Wheatley Morgan Simes

David Bednall: Sudden Light (choral works) Gabriel Jackson: The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ The Epiphoni Consort / Tim Reader; Stephen Farr organ Emma Tring soprano, Guy Cutting tenor, Choir of Merton College, Oxford & Oxford DCD34189 Contemporary Sinfonia / Benjamin Nicholas DCD34222 There is something in the music of David Bednall that speaks of the English genius; it is present in his harmonic language, in its extended diatonic chords Strikingly coloured and richly imaginative, Gabriel Jackson’s re-telling of the age- and shimmering polytonal beauty, and there too in the folklike melodies of old story of Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion – commissioned by Merton College, many of the works on this recording. A disciple of Vaughan Williams, Finzi or Oxford – interweaves biblical narrative, Latin hymns and English poetry by Howells? Yet his music also harbours traces of Messiaen, Duruflé and Vierne. Merton alumni, culminating in a rare setting of lines from T.S. Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding’. The Epiphoni Consort and their director Tim Reader are passionate advocates, Under the direction of longtime Jackson collaborator Benjamin Nicholas, and with and this enterprising debut recording – opening with the ravishing depiction soloists and instrumentalists handpicked by the composer for this world premiere of luminosity that is Bednall’s 40-part motet Lux orta est iusto – serves to recording, The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ receives here a performance to highlight why he is well on his way to becoming one of the UK’s best-loved Editor’s choice match the work’s own harrowing drama and dark ecstasy. living choral composers. ‘majestic and deeply moving’ ‘fresh, enthusiastic performances’ — Choir & Organ, March/April 2019, FIVE STARS — BBC Music Magazine, November 2017 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE AWARDS 2020 – Choral winner

Judith Weir: Choral Music Howard Skempton: The Cloths of Heaven (choral music & songs) Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge / Geoffrey Webber The Exon Singers / Matthew Owens DCD34095 DCD34056 This first recording devoted entirely to Judith Weir’s choral music comprises Best known as a composer of exquisitely quirky miniatures for solo piano or her complete works to date for unaccompanied choir or choir with one accordion, Howard Skempton has in recent years developed an equally strong instrument (trombone and marimba as well as the more usual organ). affinity for the choral medium. The Exon Singers’ programme includes a new Tracking her evolving relationship with the medium from her earliest liturgical Missa brevis composed especially for this recording, alongside songs and shorter commission to the most recent, premiered in 2009, it also includes several choral and organ pieces surveying Skempton’s output over the past quarter- secular pieces and her two solo organ works, which are now established century. classics of the repertoire. The athleticism, intensity and clarity that mark out Geoffrey Webber’s choir are ideally suited to Weir’s strikingly original, ‘elegance of line and economy of means … a sound-world whose individuality and approachable and fascinating music. expressive beauty is revealed to memorable effect’ — Yorkshire Post, August 2008 ‘The freshness and precision of Weir’s writing is perfectly matched by the well tuned, clearly articulated singing’ — BBC Music Magazine, December 2011, CHORAL & SONG CHOICE DCD34239