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Home , Aurora Orchestra, Ivor Gurney, Sarah Connolly, Tom Berry (boxer)

A WALK WITH IVOR GURNEY A WALK WITH IVOR GURNEY from late 1907 were allowed use of the organ to Philip Lancaster try out their works ‘in the midst of ’s imperturbable Norman pillars’. Gurney was also CD1 In September 1910, an Elgar night at the a former chorister in the cathedral choir, with 1 Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1872-1958) [14.16] Gloucester Three Choirs Festival began with a long involvement with the Three Choirs 2 Like as the Hart (1892-1983) [7.09] a new work, holding up the main feature, Festival, at which he had first encountered 3 Since I believe in God the Father Almighty Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) [5.49] The Dream of Gerontius. It was, the cathedral Elgar, who inspired him to become a composer. organist, , said, a new work 4 A Walk With Ivor Gurney * Judith Bingham (b. 1952) [12.15] by a ‘strange man who lives in Chelsea’; With his experience at Gloucester, and later 5 Ivor Gurney [4.28] By a Bierside ‘something to do with Thomas Tallis the great associations with Westminster and Salisbury Orchestrated by Herbert Howells Tudor composer’. That ‘strange man’ was Cathedrals and St. John’s College, Cambridge, CD2 Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the new work his Howells would go on to write many works for 1 In Flanders Ivor Gurney [3.15] Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. The choir and organ. In early 1941, during the Orchestrated by Herbert Howells Fantasia, for double string , was Second World War, he composed a set of six 2 Sleep Ivor Gurney [3.32] based on a tune Tallis had written for anthems ‘in time of war’, five of which were Orchestrated by (1901-1956) Archbishop Parker’s metrical psalter, published written on successive days. Like as the Hart was 3 An Oxford Elegy Ralph Vaughan Williams [22.51] in 1567, which Vaughan Williams had in 1906 composed in a single sitting on 8 January. introduced into The English Hymnal. For two Written in , with air-raids a constant 4 Valiant for Truth Ralph Vaughan Williams [5.24] members of the audience it was a seminal threat, whilst many men were engaged in 5 Lord thou hast been our refuge Ralph Vaughan Williams [8.18] moment: Ivor Gurney and Herbert Howells fighting, and many were lost, the questioning were both so excited by the Fantasia that, cry of ‘where is now thy God?’ must have Total timings: [87.23] following the performance, they walked the been close to the lips of many. * World Premiere Recording streets of Gloucester together into the night, talking, trying to make sense of what they had Gurney wrote very little church music, and TENEBRAE just heard. little of what he did write has survived. His AURORA ORCHESTRA motet for double choir, Since I believe in God DAME SARAH CONNOLLY MEZZO SOPRANO played an important part the Father Almighty, was written in June SIMON CALLOW NARRATOR in the musical origins of both Gurney and 1925, a couple of years before Gurney stopped NIGEL SHORT CONDUCTOR Howells. They studied with Herbert Brewer, and composing. It is a deeply personal work that www.signumrecords.com - 3 - seems to look back to Gloucester Cathedral, . He walked with friends, talking of World War. Whilst serving with the 2/5 Hubert Parry, the director of the college, worried with extended pauses written into the piece music and poetry, and alone, often reading, Gloucestershire Battalion near Arras in June greatly for his students, and felt any losses very that allow the great acoustic of that building declaiming Shakespeare to unsuspecting cattle, 1917, Gurney began a song setting of a poem deeply. He tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade to sing fully. The reasons for Gurney’s attraction and pausing to write ideas in his notebook. by A.E. Housman, ‘On Wenlock Edge’, which Vaughan Williams from volunteering; and in April to ’s poem are obvious. It speaks Gurney’s connection with Gloucestershire, tells how little the human condition has changed: 1917 he wrote to Howells, ‘Gurney’s case I feel of an ambivalent relationship with God. The however, was not merely circumstantial or each generation must weather the storms of their to be quite a special martyrdom. His mind is so speaker undoubtedly believes in God, but neither aesthetic. As observes in his age; ‘Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I’. When full of thoughts and feelings far removed from he nor anyone else can know or understand novel The Woodlanders, one who truly inhabits writing A Walk with Ivor Gurney, commissioned crude barbarities that it seems almost monstrous. him, particularly as one who had ‘crie[d] a place knows ‘those invisible ones of days by Tenebrae in 2013, Judith Bingham identified But war is monstrous and we have to take it as angrily out on God’ in poems of the First gone by’: they know ‘whose feet have traversed something of that common circumstance: far as we can from the collective point of view.’ World War and in his later life. Also, throughout the fields’, ‘whose hands planted the trees’, ‘[T]he Romans were foreign invaders here, and his life, Gurney remained true in his pursuit and the ‘domestic dramas’ that have been we don’t feel the same sympathy for them as we It was only whilst serving in that Gurney of beauty. It could have been of Gurney that enacted in that place. In his late poem do for the men in the trenches. And yet, on the began to write poetry in earnest, serving his Bridges wrote of he ‘whose spirit within [him...] ‘Gloucester Song’, Gurney writes, ‘I walk the land tomb memorials found in Gloucestershire, one apprenticeship in the trenches and behind loveth beauty’. In the final stanza, while the my fathers knew, wide to distants blue / And gets a sense of men stranded far from home, the lines. It was more difficult to write music, speaker is cherishing the freedom of belief, summon all the tales unseen, the good earth and of the gulf of time between them and but he did compose a handful of songs. Amongst Gurney, in his ‘hours of anguish and darkness’, lets them through.’ Memory is an inherent part us.’ In A Walk with Ivor Gurney, Bingham sets these, In Flanders – a setting of a poem by may have been cherishing an idea of a freedom of his landscape, summoning up the Elizabethans, passages from several Gurney poems and his boyhood friend Will Harvey – is an expression both spiritual and physical; freedom from the Danes and Romans. He felt that connection with intersperses them with inscriptions from some of homesickness, composed in January 1917. mental hospital in which he spent the last the past in his veins also: upon seeing a of those Roman memorials, ‘evok[ing] the sense By a Bierside sets a poem that first appeared fifteen years of his life, where he eventually Roman brooch, discovered in a field, he declared, Gurney had of time and people of the past within ’s play, The Tragedy of resigned himself to his hopeless abandonment. ‘how the centuries in my blood shouted and woke!’ residing in the landscape. The mezzo-soprano Pompey the Great (1910), where it is spoken by solo is ‘the spirit of that landscape’, while the four centurions, lamenting the death of a young In his freedom, Gurney was an inveterate Part of Gurney’s attraction to the Roman male voices of the choir, always “off-stage”, sing Roman soldier. It was written in August 1916, walker. He perhaps knew Gloucestershire more presence in Gloucestershire may have arisen Roman tomb memorials of soldiers long dead.’ whilst lying on a damp sandbag in a disused intimately than any other in his day. He walked from a shared experience of war in a foreign trench mortar emplacement. Gurney wrote endlessly the county’s meadows and hills, across territory. Gurney’s studies at the Royal College With the coming of the war, the Royal College of at some length on the song, which begins the Severn plain westwards to May Hill, north of Music were interrupted in 1915 by his Music – as other institutions – emptied of many as ‘a rhapsody on beauty, full of grief but not towards Elgar’s Malvern hills, and east into the volunteering for active service in the First of its students as they volunteered for active service. bitter, until the unreason of death closes the

- 4 - - 5 - thought of loveliness, that Death unmakes. in the form of a set of Five Elizabethan Songs, for narrator, chorus and orchestra: An Oxford sought is shining still.’ This pastoral invocation Then the heart grows bitter with the weight of composed in December 1913–January 1914. Elegy. Adapted from two poems by Arnold, ‘The of the Elegy is something that Gurney would grief and revelation of the impermanence of Shortly after the publication of these songs, in Scholar Gypsy’ and ‘Thyrsis’, it recounts the have related to, in both his poetry (particularly things[...] But, anger being futile, the mind 1920, the young Gerald Finzi took a copy of one story of a disillusioned Oxford scholar who, that poetry influenced by ) and turns to the old strangeness of the soul’s of them – a setting of John Fletcher’s ‘Sleep’ – two centuries earlier, went to live with the his music. For Gurney, music – like his sense wandering apart from the body, and to to his composition lesson with Edward Bairstow gypsies, to discover their arts before returning of the past – ‘clung to’, and was ‘exhaled’ by, what tremendous mysteries! And the dimly in York. Soprano Elsie Suddaby was there, and to relate them to the world. Two centuries on, the landscape, while poetry ‘fill[ed] up spaces apprehended sense of such before us all she and Bairstow tried the song through. It the scholar is still glimpsed in the countryside, in landscape and life with human interest overpowers the singer, who is lost in the glory was Finzi’s ‘moment’ on the road to Damascus: wandering, still seeking the truth that he and memory’. Gurney’s Gloucestershire Rhapsody of the adventure of Death.’ In another letter, Sleep demonstrated to Finzi the power of song, set out to find, and while the lonely elm tree for orchestra (1919-21) depicts a similarly he wrote that he imagined ‘some poet-priest and reinforced his determination to become a still stands on the top of Ilsley Downs he enchanted pastoral idyll, wandering the landscape pronouncing an oration over the dead body of composer. It also sent him to Gloucestershire – shall wander yet. Vaughan Williams presents and seeking its truth, imbued also with that keen some young Greek hero.’ This description, and the birthplace of not only Gurney and Howells, but us with a rich, Samuel Palmer-like vision of an sense of the former inhabitants of that place. that of the soul ‘wandering apart from the also of Hubert Parry, Ralph Vaughan Williams -Eden; a vivid depiction of a midsummer body’, recall Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, and and Gustav Holst – to discover what it was idyll that is more a state of mind than a Vaughan Williams was fascinated by the idea particularly the Priest’s parting declamation about that county that inspired such music. Finzi reality – perhaps the idyll where lies the of the wanderer and the ‘journey’ in his work, over the dying Gerontius – ‘Proficiscere, anima was later to spend many years working on wisdom that the Scholar was hoping to find in pieces such as Songs of Travel and A Sea Christiana’ – which is echoed musically in Gurney’s behalf, striving to bring his work to a in his wanderings; that he still seeks. Symphony. In 1949 another project that had Gurney’s declamatory setting of the words wider public. In 1949 he paid tribute to the song been in gestation for four decades was finally ‘It is most grand to die!’ Both In Flanders that had provided him with such inspiration, Vaughan Williams’s biographer, Michael Kennedy, completed: an opera based on John Bunyan’s and By a Bierside were orchestrated by Howells scoring Sleep and three other songs for string has suggested that An Oxford Elegy recalls 1678 allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress. His at the behest of Sir Charles Stanford, for orchestra for a performance by his Newbury and pays tribute to those friends who were association with this book began in 1906, when performance at the . String Players, sung again by Elsie Suddaby. lost in the wars, including Gurney, who survived he was invited to provide incidental music for the war but was effectively lost to the world a some scenes adapted from The Pilgrim’s Progress, While the Romans were a tangible and inspiring In 1901, Ralph Vaughan Williams had begun few years afterwards when he was committed. to be staged at Reigate Priory. In this incidental presence in the Gloucestershire landscape, it making sketches for an opera based on Matthew In the closing stanzas of the Elegy the speaker music, a certain melody by Thomas Tallis was was the music and poetry of the Elizabethan Arnold’s poem The Scholar Gypsy. Over four tells how ‘thou art gone, and me thou leavest used as the basis for a movement for strings, age that proved particularly fertile for Gurney. decades later, when he returned to the idea in here / Sole in these fields’, and says of their which accompanied a tableau in which Gurney’s first acknowledged masterpiece came 1947, it became not an opera but a melodrama, shared journey and aspirations, ‘the light we Christian arrives at, and passes through the

- 6 - - 7 - wicket gate at the start of his journey. A few SONG TEXTS 3 Since I believe in God the Father Almighty 4 A Walk With Ivor Gurney years later, this portion of the score was Ivor Gurney Judith Bingham removed and developed into the Fantasia on a CD1 Theme by Thomas Tallis. Between the writing Since I believe in God the Father Almighty, [The] stars are sliding wanton [through trees]. of the incidental music in 1906 and the 2 Like as the Hart Man’s Maker and Judge, Overruler of Fortune, (Stars sliding) completion of the opera in 1949, there were Herbert Howells ‘Twere strange should I praise anything further ‘Pilgrim’ works, including a one act and refuse Him praise, On uplands bleak and bare to wind ‘pastoral episode’ (1922) and music for a Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks, Should love the creature forgetting the Creator, Beneath a maze of stars I strode; radio production (1943). In 1941 he composed so longeth my soul after thee, O God. Nor unto Him in suff’ring and sorrow turn me: Phantoms of Fear haunted the road, Valiant for Truth: a choral setting of a passage My soul is athirst for God, Nay how could I withdraw me from His embracing? Dogging my footsteps close behind. that tells of the passing of Mr. Valiant-for- yea, even for the living God. Truth ‘from this world, to that which is to come’, When shall I come to appear But since that I have seen not, Till Heaven blew clear of cloud, showed each crossing the river of death and being welcomed before the presence of God? and cannot know Him, Most tiny baby-star as fine into the Celestial City. My tears have been my meat day and night, Nor in my earthly temple apprehend rightly As any jewel of kings. Orion while they daily say unto me, His wisdom and the heav’nly purpose eternal; Triumphed through bare tracery of beech. The programme concludes with Vaughan “Where is now thy God?” Therefore will I be bound to no studied system So unafraid I journeyed on Williams’s 1921 setting of psalm 90, combining Nor argument, nor with delusion enslave me, Past dusky rut and pool alight both the original psalm and a metrical version Words: Psalm 42 vv. 1–3 Nor seek to please Him in any foolish invention, With Heaven’s chief wonder of night by Isaac Watts, ‘O God our help in ages past’, Which my spirit within me, that loveth beauty Jupiter, close companion. sung to the hymn tune St. Anne. Whether in And hateth evil, hath reprov’d as unworthy: (The Companions) Roman times or the present, on the journey of life, even in the face of war or incarceration, But I cherish my freedom in loving service, Dis Manibus Lucius Valerius Aurelius faith has been a refuge; a source of strength Gratefully adoring for delight beyond asking veteranus legionis vicensimae. Hic situs est. and hope. Or thinking, and in hours of anguish and darkness (To the spirits of the dead, Lucius Valerius Aurelius Confiding always on His excellent greatness. veteran of the 20th Legion. He lies here.)

Words: Robert Bridges (1844-1930) My God, the wind is rising! On those edges [Of Cotswold,] dark glory might swing my soul – Mystery sounds, the wind’s drum roll.

- 8 - - 9 - None care to walk there. The wind of Autumn has touched there, Death opens unknown doors. 2 Sleep (Hell’s Prayer) the beech trees have changed. It is most grand to die. Ivor Gurney, orchestrated by Gerald Finzi All the willowherb of all the world All night the fierce wind blew- falling steep to the Villa Words: John Masefield (1878-1967), reprinted with permission of Come, sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving All night I knew Where once the Romans ranged, The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate Lock me in delight awhile; of John Masefield. Time, like a dark wind, blowing is a wonder of light chanced Let some pleasing dream beguile All days, all lives, all memories Upon…O friend are you not drunken All my fancies; that from thence CD2 Down empty endless skies – with the sea of far lost mystic colour? I may feel an influence A blind wind, strowing (Above the Villa) 1 All my powers of care bereaving. Bright leaves of life’s torn tree In Flanders Ivor Gurney, orchestrated by Herbert Howells Though but a shadow, but a sliding, Through blank eternity. Dis manibus… Let me know some little joy; (The Wind) I’m homesick for my hills again, We that suffer long annoy Words: Ivor Gurney (poems identified in brackets) & Roman tomb Are contented with a thought Rufus Sita, eques Cohortis Sextae Thracum, memorials from Gloucestershire. My hills again, Thro’ an idle fancy wrought, annorum quadraginta, stipendiorum duo et viginti. To see above the Severn plain O let my joys have some abiding, Hic situs est. 5 By a Bierside Unscabbarded against the sky O let my joys have some abiding. (Rufus Sita, a horse trooper of the 6th Cohort of Ivor Gurney, orchestrated by Herbert Howells The blue high blade of Cotswold lie; The giant clouds go royally Thracians, 40 years old, paid for 22. He lies here.) John Fletcher (1579-1625) This is a sacred city built of marvellous earth. By jagged Malvern with a train of shadows. I think of the gods, all their old oaths and gages. Life was lived nobly here to give such beauty birth. Where the land is low 3 An Oxford Elegy Battered now tonight with huge wind-bursts Beauty was in this brain, and in this eager hand. Like a huge imprisoning O, Ralph Vaughan Williams and rages, Death is so blind and dumb. Death does not I hear a heart that’s sound and high, Flying moon glimpses like a shattered and understand. I hear the heart within me cry: Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill; flimsy sail – “I’m homesick for my hills again! Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes; O Rome immortal,- Death drifts the brain with dust My hills again! No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, How my love labours you repaid with love and soils the young limbs’ glory. Cotswold or Malvern, sun or rain! Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, and promises. Death makes justice a dream My hills again!” Nor the cropp’d grasses shoot another head. They were there, Romans, quiet comrades and strength a traveller’s story. But when the fields are still, and ponderers… Death drives the lovely soul Frederick William Harvey (1888-1957). Reproduced with kind And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest, (Fort Yukon) to wander under the sky. permission of Elaine Jackson and Eileen Griffiths.

- 10 - - 11 - And only the white sheep are sometimes seen But rumours hung about the country-side, Long since and in some quiet churchyard laid – Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch’d green; That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, Some country nook, where o’er thy unknown grave Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, Come Shepherd, and again begin the quest. Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave, Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, And I myself seem half to know thy looks, Under a dark red-fruited yew-tree’s shade. Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Here will I sit and wait, And put the shepherds, Wanderer, on thy trace; Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell, While to my ear from uplands far away Or in my boat I lie No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours. And stocks in fragrant blow; The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, Moor’d to the cool bank in the summer heats, Thou waitest for the spark from Heaven! and we, Roses that down the alleys shine afar, With distant cries of reapers in the corn – ‘Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills, Ah, do not we, Wanderer, await it too? And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, All the live murmur of a summer’s day. And watch the warm green-muffled Cumnor hills, See, ’tis no foot of unfamiliar men And groups under the dreaming garden-trees, And wonder if thou haunt’st their shy retreats. Today from Oxford up your pathway strays! And the full moon, and the white evening-star. Screen’d is this nook o’er the high, half-reap’d field, Leaning backwards in a pensive dream, Here came I often, often, in old days; He hearkens not! light comer, he is flown! And here till sundown, Shepherd, will I be. And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then. What matters it? next year he will return, Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep, Pluck’d in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers, Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm, And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days, And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream, Up past the wood, to where the elm-tree crowns With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern, Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep: Still waiting for the spark from Heaven to fall. The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames? And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways, And air-swept lindens yield The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs, And scent of hay new-mown. Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers And once, in winter, on the causeway chill The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames? – But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see. Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid, Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go, That single elm-tree bright Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour And bower me from the August sun with shade; Have I not pass’d thee on the wooden bridge Against the west – I miss it! is it gone? In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp’d hill. And the eye travels down to Oxford’s towers: Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, That sweet city with her dreaming spires, Thy face tow’rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge? Our friend, the Scholar Gipsy, was not dead; I know these slopes; who knows them if not I? – She needs not summer for beauty’s heightening, And thou hast climb’d the hill While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on. But many a dingle on the loved hill-side, Lovely all times she lies, lovely today! And gain’d the white brow of the Cumnor range; Needs must I, with heavy heart With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom’d trees, Turn’d once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall, Into the world and wave of men depart; Where thick the cowslips grew, and far, descried, Come, let me read the oft-read tale again: The line of festal light in Christ Church hall – But Thyrsis of his own will went away. High tower’d the spikes of purple orchises, The story of that Oxford scholar poor, Then sought thy straw in some sequester’d grange. So have I heard the cuckoo’s parting cry, Hath since our day put by Who, one summer morn forsook his friends, From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees, The coronals of that forgotten time. And came, as most men deem’d, to little good, But what – I dream! Two hundred years are flown; Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze: They are all gone, and thou art gone as well. But came to Oxford and his friends no more. And thou from earth art gone The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I!

- 12 - - 13 - Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night 4 Valiant for Truth 5 Lord thou hast been our refuge so passeth it away and we are gone In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams The years of our age are three score years and ten, I see her veil draw soft across the day, and though men be so strong that they come to And long the way appears, which seem’d so short After this it was noised abroad that Mr Valiant- O God our help in ages past, our hope for years four score years, And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air, for-Truth was taken with a summons …; and to come, yet is their strength but labour and sorrow. The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth. had this for a token that the summons was Our shelter from the stormy blast and our Turn Thee again O Lord at the last. true, ‘That his pitcher was broken at the eternal home. Be gracious unto Thy servants. There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here fountain.’ When he understood it, he called for O satisfy us with Thy mercy and that soon. Sole in these fields; yet will I not despair. his friends, and told them of it. Then, said he, Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one So shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. Despair I will not, while I yet descry ‘I am going to my Father’s, and though with generation to another. That lonely Tree against the western sky. great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay, repent me of all the trouble I have been at the earth and the world were made, thou art God generation to another. Woods with anemones in flower till May to arrive where I am. My sword, I give to him from everlasting and world without end. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Know him a wanderer still. that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and Thou turnest man to destruction; again thou sayest the earth and the world were made, thou art God Then let in thy voice a whisper often come, my courage and skill, to him that can get it. My Come again ye ; from everlasting and world without end. To chase fatigue and fear. marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, for me, that I have fought his battles, who now seeing that is past as a watch in the night. And the glorious Majesty of the Lord be upon us. Why faintest thou? I wander’d till I died. will be my rewarder.’ When the day that he O prosper thou the work of our hands, Roam on! The light we sought is shining still. must go hence, was come, many accompanied As soon as thou scatterest them they are even as O prosper thou our handiwork. Our tree yet crowns the hill, him to the riverside, into which, as he went, a sleep Our Scholar travels yet the loved hillside. he said, ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ And as he and fade away suddenly like the grass. Words: Psalm 90

Words: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), adapted from The Scholar went down deeper, he said, ‘Grave, where is thy In the morning it is green and groweth up, Gypsy and Thyrsis victory?’ So he passed over, and all the trumpets but in the evening it is cut down, dried up and sounded for him on the other side. withered.

Words: John Bunyan (1628-1688) For we consume away in Thy displeasure, and are afraid at Thy wrathful indignation. For when thou art angry at our days are gone; we bring our years to an end as a tale that is told:

- 14 - - 15 - TENEBRAE Alto Bass Described as ‘phenomenal’ (The Times) Brahms and Bruckner Motets, the profits from Tom Lilburn Tom Bullard * and ‘devastatingly beautiful’ (Gramophone the sale of which benefit Macmillan Cancer Soprano Martha McLorinan William Gaunt † Magazine,) award-winning choir Tenebrae, Support. In order to mark Tenebrae’s fifteenth Fiona Fraser Eleanor Minney Jimmy Holliday under the direction of Nigel Short, is one anniversary in 2016-17, the choir re-released Katy Hill Elisabeth Paul Stephen Kennedy of the world’s leading vocal ensembles its first major commission by Joby Talbot, Joanna L’Estrange * Owain Park renowned for its passion and precision. Path of Miracles, alongside a new work by Emilia Morton Tenor Mark Williams composer, Owain Park. Music of the Spheres, Laura Oldfield† Ben Alden Tenebrae’s ever-increasing discography has Tenebrae’s album of part songs from the Bethany Partridge Jeremy Budd * brought about collaborations with Signum, British Isles, received a Grammy nomination Josephine Stephenson Nicholas Madden An Oxford Elegy only † Decca Classics, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI for ‘Best Choral Performance’ in 2018. Katie Trethewey Tom Robson all choral pieces apart from An Oxford Elegy Classics, LSO Live, and Warner Classics. In 2012 Tenebrae was the first-ever ensemble Tenebrae is a dedicated advocate for to be multi-nominated in the same category contemporary composers, having worked with for the BBC Music Magazine Awards, securing Judith Bingham, Ola Gjeilo, Alexander Levine, the accolade of ‘Best Choral Performance’ Alexander L’Estrange, Paweł Łukaszewski, Paul for their recording of Victoria’s Mass, Mealor, Hilary Tann, Sir and Will 1605. The following year the choir’s recording Todd. The choir is renowned for its highly- of Fauré’s Requiem with the London Symphony acclaimed interpretations of choral music Orchestra was nominated for the Gramophone with repertoire ranging from hauntingly Awards, having been described as ‘the very passionate works of the Renaissance through best Fauré Requiem on disc’ (Gramophone to contemporary choral masterpieces. Magazine) and ‘the English choral tradition at its zenith’ (Richard Morrison). In 2014 the Tenebrae is regularly engaged with the world’s choir’s recording of Russian Orthodox music finest and has appeared at major was launched on its own label, Bene Arte, national and international festivals and receiving glowing reviews and reaching venues including the BBC Proms, Edinburgh number 1 in the UK Specialist Classical Chart. International Festival, Three Choirs Festival, In 2016 Tenebrae received its second BBC Leipzig Gewandhaus (Germany) and Melbourne Music Magazine Award for a recording of Festival (). Other highlights include © Sim Canetty-Clarke

- 16 - - 17 - Tenebrae’s annual Holy Week Festival at St Aurora Orchestra John’s Smith Square, London, as well as concerts throughout the UK, Europe and the An Oxford Elegy USA. Alongside concert performances, the choir Ralph Vaughan Williams presents its inspirational workshop method, The Tenebrae Effect, designed to challenge Violin 1 Viola Flute and advance every participant by instilling Alexandra Wood (Leader) Nicholas Bootiman Jane Mitchell skills essential to a Tenebrae performance. Alessandro Ruisi Oliver Wilson Kate Suthers Francis Kefford Oboe ‘Passion and Precision’ are Tenebrae’s core Lara Sullivan Jenny Lewisohn Thomas Barber values. Through its continued dedication to Gillon Cameron Richard Waters performance of the highest quality, Tenebrae’s Bea Phillips Amanda Verner Cor anglais vision is to deliver dramatic programming, Cassandra Hamilton Patrick Flanaghan flawless performances and unforgettable Charlotte Reid Cello experiences, allowing audiences around the Kirsty Lovie Hetty Snell Clarinet world to be moved by the power and intimacy Tamara Elias Reinoud Ford Peter Sparks of the human voice. Clare O’Connell Joseph Shiner Violin 2 James Barralet www.tenebrae-choir.com Maria Spengler Richard Birchall Bassoon Naoko Keatley Jonathan Rees Amy Harman Michael Jones Ciaran McCabe Double Bass Horn Tom Aldren Ben Griffiths Pip Eastop Alexandra Caldon Elena Hull James Pillai Antonia Kesel Roger McCann Rebecca Dinning

- 18 - - 19 - Fantasia on a Theme by Francis Kefford Horn With its signature creative ethos, Aurora collaborations. The orchestra also appears Thomas Tallis Morgan Goff John Ryan •# Orchestra combines world-class performance regularly at other major venues including the Ralph Vaughan Williams Meghan Cassidy Richard Stroud •# with adventurous programming and trailblazing , Globe Theatre, and Wigmore By a Bierside, In Flanders, Sleep Luba Tunnicliffe •# Caroline O’Connell presentation. Founded in 2005 under Principal Hall; and has performed in the past nine BBC Ivor Gurney Laurie Anderson Sam Pearce • Asher Zaccardelli * Conductor Nicholas Collon, it has quickly Proms. Aurora regularly tours internationally, Violin 1 Tetsuumi Nagata *† Trumpet established a reputation as one of Europe’s with recent and upcoming highlights at The Alexandra Wood (Leader) ¥ • Simon Cox leading chamber orchestras, garnering several Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Kölner Philharmonie, Maria Spengler Cello David Hilton • Cassandra Hamilton †•# Robin Michael ¥ major awards including two RPS Awards and Victoria Concert Hall Singapore, Melbourne •# †•# Trombone a German ECHO Klassik Award. Festival, and Shanghai Concert Hall. Tamara Elias James Barralet • †•# †•# Mark Templeton Lara Sullivan Jonathan Rees • †•# † Tom Berry Michael Jones Vanessa Lucas-Smith • Collaborating widely across art forms and At the heart of Aurora is a commitment to †•# † Josh Cirtina (bass) Minn Majoe Jessie-Ann Richardson musical genres, Aurora has worked with an challenging expectations of what an orchestra Greta Mutlu †•# Rebecca Herman †•# Tuba exceptional breadth of artists ranging from can and should do on the concert stage, and Natasha Hall † Clare O’Connell * Sasha Koushk-Jalali • Anna Caban †•# Ben Chappell * from Ian Bostridge, Imogen Cooper and Sarah inspiring audiences of all ages and backgrounds Non Peters † Timpani Connolly to Edmund de Waal, Wayne McGregor, to develop a passion for orchestral music. Bass Henry Baldwin • Nathaniel Anderson-Frank *† and Björk. A champion of new music, it has Through an award-winning learning and Katerina Nazarova *†•# Elena Hull †•# Harp premiered works by composers including Julian participation programme, Aurora engages Roger Linley Sally Pryce # Violin 2 Alice Kent † Anderson, Benedict Mason, Anna Meredith, Nico diverse audiences and brings orchestral music Jamie Campbell ¥ Vera Pereira † Organ – Lord thou hast been our Muhly, and Judith Weir. In recent years, it has to schools, families, and young people with Natalie Klouda Ben Russell * refuge and Like as the Hart pioneered memorised performance (without special educational needs and disabilities. †•# James Sherlock James Toll the use of printed sheet music), and is thought Ciaran McCabe †•# Flute •# Trumpet solo – Lord thou Alexandra Caldon †•# Harry Winstanley to be the first orchestra worldwide to perform www.auroraorchestra.com •# hast been our refuge †•# Clare Findlater whole symphonies in this way. Davina Clarke Christopher Deacon Paloma Deike †•# Clarinet † Amy Heggart † •# Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis only Thomas Lessels • Based in London, Aurora is Resident Orchestra * •# By a Bierside only Alessandro Ruisi Richard Russell # at Kings Place, and Associate Orchestra *† In Flanders only Michael Trainor ± Sleep only at , where its pioneering Bassoon * Orchestra 2, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis •# Viola Jonathan Davies ¥ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis string ‘Orchestral Theatre’ series has featured a ¥ Ruth Gibson Dominic Tyler •# quartet soloist variety of spoken word, film, circus and theatre

- 20 - - 21 - DAME SARAH CONNOLLY and the Schubertiada Vilabertran and at the SIMON CALLOW Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Oxford Born in County Durham, mezzo-soprano Dame Lieder Festivals. She is regularly partnered Simon Callow is an actor, author and director. Sarah Connolly studied piano and singing at by Eugene Asti, , Malcolm Martineau He studied at Queen’s University, Belfast, and the Royal College of Music, of which she is and . then trained as an actor at the Drama Centre now a Fellow. in London. He joined the National Theatre in In concert she has performed at the Aldeburgh, 1979, where he created the role of Mozart in Her repertoire in opera ranges from Monteverdi, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Salzburg, and Tanglewood Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. His many one-man Handel and Gluck to Wagner, Strauss and festivals, and she is a frequent guest at shows include The Mystery of Charles Dickens, Britten and particular highlights include the BBC Proms where, in 2009, she was a Being Shakespeare, A Christmas Carol, Inside Dido () at Teatro alla Scala, memorable guest soloist at the Last Night. Milan and The Royal Opera, ; She appears regularly with many of the world’s the Composer () and Clairon great orchestras under conductors such as () at The , New Ivor Bolton, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Mark Elder, York; Orfeo () and the title Daniel Harding, Philippe Herreweghe, Vladimir role in at Bayerische Jurowski, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Riccardo Staatsoper, Munich; the title role in Giulio Chailly, and Sir Simon Rattle. Sarah Connolly Cesare and Phèdre () for has recorded prolifically and twice been the Glyndebourne Festival; Brangäne (Tristan © Jan Capinski nominated for a Grammy Award. She was made und Isolde) for The Royal Opera, the and the Bayreuth Festspiele. She has also a DBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours, having Glyndebourne Festival, the Gran Teatro del appeared frequently with Scottish Opera, previously been made a CBE in the 2010 New Liceu in Barcelona and the Festspielhaus Welsh National Opera and Opera North and Year’s Honours. In 2011 she was honoured by Baden-Baden; the title role in is particularly associated with the English the Incorporated Society of Musicians and and Sesto (La clemenza di Tito) at the Festival National Opera. presented with the Distinguished Musician d’Aix-en-Provence; Phèdre (Hippolyte et Aricie) Award. She is the recipient of the Royal at Opéra national de ; the title role She has appeared in recital in London, New Philharmonic Society’s 2012 Singer Award. in Ariodante for the Dutch National Opera York, Boston, Paris, Amsterdam, , and the Wiener Staatsoper and Fricka (Das San Francisco, Atlanta, Stuttgart; at the BBC Rheingold & Die Walkure) for The Royal Opera Proms, the Incontri in Terra di Siena La Foce

- 22 - - 23 - Wagner’s Head, Juvenalia and, most recently, NIGEL SHORT Symphony Orchestra described as a ‘master The Man Jesus. He has appeared in many stroke of programming’ (Financial Times). films including A Room with a View, Four Award-winning conductor Nigel Short has built Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love, up an enviable reputation for his recording Nigel has vast recording experience having Phantom of the Opera and is currently playing and live performance work with leading conducted for many of the world’s major The Duke of Sandringham in the television orchestras and ensembles across the world. labels including Decca Classics, Deutsche series Outlander. He directed Shirley Valentine Grammophon, EMI Classics, LSO Live, Signum in the West End and on Broadway, Single A singer of great acclaim, Nigel was a member and Warner Classics. In 2018, he received Spies at the NT and Carmen Jones at the of the renowned vocal ensemble The King’s a Grammy nomination in the category of Old Vic, as well as the film of The Ballad of Singers from 1994–2000. Upon leaving the ‘Best Choral Performance’ for Tenebrae’s the Sad Café. He has written biographies of group he formed Tenebrae, a virtuosic choir album of parts songs from the British Isles, Oscar Wilde, Charles Laughton and Charles that embraced his dedication for passion and Music of the Spheres. As a Gramophone Dickens, and three autobiographical books: precision. Under his direction, Tenebrae has award-winning producer, Nigel works with Being An Actor, Love Is Where It Falls, and collaborated with internationally acclaimed many of the UK’s leading professional choirs My Life in Pieces. The third volume of his orchestras and instrumentalists and now and vocal ensembles including Alamire, Ex massive Orson Welles biography, One Man enjoys a reputation as one of the world’s finest Cathedra, Gallicantus and The King’s Singers. Band, appeared in 2016; Being Wagner: The vocal ensembles. Triumph of the Will, a short biography of Wagner, was published last year. Music is his To date, Nigel has conducted the Academy great passion, and he has made many of Ancient Music, Aurora Orchestra, BBC appearances with the LPO, the LSO and the Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of © Chris O’Donovan . Europe, English Chamber Orchestra, English Concert, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Awards (2013), and since then has conducted Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of the orchestra at St. Paul’s Cathedral as part Enlightenment, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of the City of London Festival. Other orchestral and the Scottish Ensemble. He has directed recordings include Mozart’s Requiem and Ave the London Symphony Orchestra alongside Verum Corpus with the Chamber Orchestra of Tenebrae in a live recording of Fauré’s Requiem, Europe and a release of music by Bernstein, which was nominated for the Gramophone Stravinsky and Zemlinsky with the BBC

- 24 - - 25 - This recording was made thanks to generous donations from: Recorded at St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London from 2-4 January and 18 April 2018.

Producer – Nicholas Parker Recording Engineer – Mike Hatch Recording Assistant and Voiceover Recording Engineer – James Waterhouse Editors – Robin Hawkins, Andrew Mellor and Nicholas Parker

Front cover – image captured from the stained glass window at Gloucester Cathedral dedicated to Ivor Gurney, designed by Tom Denny. Tenebrae and Dame Sarah Connolly first performed much of the repertoire that features on this album at Gloucester Cathedral in August 2013 as part of a fundraising concert for the stained glass window which inspired this recording project. Reproduced by kind permission of Tom Denny and Gloucester Cathedral. Richard Baker, Lydia Challen, Monica Anne Darnbrough, Ed Frazier Davis, Adrian Frost, Ivor Gurney Trust, Jane Merrick, Anna O’Connor, Sir Simon and Lady Robey, Design and Artwork – Woven Design www.wovendesign.co.uk RVW Trust, Terence Sinclair, Simon Wood. P 2018 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Signum Records Ltd © 2018 The copyright in this CD booklet, notes and design is owned by Signum Records Ltd Tenebrae would also like to thank the following people for their support: Any unauthorised broadcasting, public performance, copying or re-recording of Signum Compact Discs constitutes an infringement of copyright and will render the infringer liable to an action by law. Licences for public performances or broadcasting may be obtained from Phonographic Performance Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this booklet may be reproduced, stored Hugh Cobbe, Dame Sarah Connolly, Jeremy Dibble, Sir Roger Gifford, in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Signum Records Ltd.

John Harte and Megan Russell at Aurora Orchestra, SignumClassics, Signum Records Ltd., Suite 14, 21 Wadsworth Road, Perivale, Middx UB6 7JD, UK. Jake Kirner at St Giles-without-Cripplegate, Jonathan Lane, . +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 E-mail: [email protected] www.signumrecords.com

- 26 - - 27 - ALSO AVAILABLE on signumclassics

Music of the Spheres Symphonic Psalms & Prayers Tenebrae, Nigel Short Bernstein • Schoenberg • Stravinsky • Zemlinsky SIGCD904 Tenebrae, BBC Symphony Orchestra David Allsopp countertenor Grammy Award Nominee 2017 Nigel Short conductor Best Choral Performance SIGCD492

“A spooky, flickering account of Elgar’s Owls underlines the “Bringing together Bernstein, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and ability of Short and his outstandingly responsive singers to Zemlinsky has turned out to be a master stroke of programming create riveting atmosphere, and communicate to the listener the by Nigel Short and his expert, small professional choir, Tenebrae.” import and implications of a song’s narrative…[an] intelligently Financial Times assembled, superbly sung collection” BBC Music Magazine

Available through most record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 - 20 -