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RODERICK WILLIAMS A NOTE FROM THE COMPOSER of the piece to suit the brief. I realise that it is certainly important to me that choir members SACRED CHORAL WORKS A good friend once suggested to me that my enjoy singing my music, even if they can compositions tended to take on the flavour of sometimes find it initially challenging. whatever piece I happened to be singing at the time. I realise there is quite some truth in this, I am hugely grateful to Ralph Allwood, a 1 Let nothing trouble you * [7.30] 0 O Saviour of the World [5.08] as this current survey of my choral compositions significant figure in my singing career since I Daisy Walford soprano, Archie Buchanan tenor q O Adonai [8.24] over the years will testify. It might initially be first attended one of his choral courses in my 2 O guiding night [7.59] Daisy Walford soprano, Michael Lafferty baritone hard to discern a consistent, individual style in teens, and to the Old Royal Naval College Trinity 3 Christmas Bells [3.49] w Mary had a baby [2.00] the selection of music on this disc and easier Laban Chapel Choir for honouring me with a instead to guess which composer’s language I whole disc of my music. Several of these pieces 4 And a Little Child Shall Lead them [8.05] Andrew Woodmansey tenor Rebecca Leggett alto e La Trinité qui ne change jamais [3.13] may have been imitating. However, I have come to here I had never heard before, as my performing realise that my working life as a choral musician schedule often prevents me from attending 5 Love bade me welcome [4.32] r Ave verum corpus re-imagined [4.55] and soloist has exposed me to a wide range of premières, and others I have not heard for 6 Children, go where I send thee [4.37] Matthew Norriss tenor music, which has affected me profoundly. Every decades. The dedication which Ralph, the Jocelyn Coates soprano, Simon Oakley alto, t The Lord’s Prayer [2.57] Andrew Woodmansey tenor Jocelyn Coates soprano, Archie Buchanan tenor piece I have ever sung will have informed me whole choir and its administrative support have 7 Hymne [3.39] y This is the work of Christ [3.29] as a composer in some way. I learn from everyone shown has been very moving for me to witness. and anyone I can. Likewise the Signum recording team, headed 8 Holy Father, Great Creator [4.29] by the ever-wise Adrian Peacock, has made 9 Quare fremuerunt gentes? [5.07] Total timings: [80.12] I find most often that the choice of text will music out of my youthful scribbles. Without the Roderick Williams baritone suggest a musical style and I will express myself efforts of all these musicians, technicians and within that framework. This is not so much a staff, my music would remain dormant, just a lesson in compositional pastiche, more that the figment of my memory. musical inspiration usually comes to me as I read the words and I am happy to compose in I am deeply grateful to all of you who have made OLD ROYAL NAVAL COLLEGE TRINITY LABAN CHAPEL CHOIR whatever style results. I am also a practising and this disc possible. JONATHAN EYRE PIANO practical musician, aware that my commissions RALPH ALLWOOD CONDUCTOR can be for choirs of different standards, amateur Roderick Williams, 2017 * CONDUCTED BY JONATHAN EYRE or professional, and I try to tailor the demands www.signumrecords.com - 3 - RODERICK WILLIAMS PROGRAMME NOTES wife, also a good friend and supporter from deliver the piece in good time for the choir to SACRED CHORAL WORKS those days, caught up with me at a weak rehearse and perform it. Julian will remember Let nothing trouble you moment during a party and wondered if I might from our student days that this hadn’t always I have admired the singing and musicianship O Guiding Night be able to write a Christmas carol for an annual been the case previously. of Roderick Williams since, as a young man, he Let nothing trouble you and O Guiding Night charity appeal run by the newspaper. Each came on an Eton Choral Course. It has only were both commissioned by the Genesis year a new carol is printed in the paper and Love bade me welcome come to my attention relatively recently that Project for a recording by The Sixteen. Director broadcast on YouTube. I assured her that I George Herbert’s poem was one of the earliest he also composes. With so many conservatoire of the choir Harry Christophers and project still had time to provide her with something songs I ever wrote for my solo baritone voice, vocal students singing in the choir, it seemed commissioner John Studyzinski are passionate and, fortunately, soon came across this accompanied by my younger brother on classical a perfect idea to make a recording entirely about adding practical contemporary music Longfellow poem. I had it in mind that many guitar. I had found a volume of Herbert’s devoted to his music. Thank you, Timothy Teague, to the everyday repertoire of Catholic Worship. modern Christmas carols tend towards the poems in my father’s study and became quite for that idea. They were specific in their brief that these slow and atmospheric so I especially wanted obsessed with the metaphysical poetry. Later I new works be appealing and approachable to write something with a bit of energy. I also encountered many iconic settings of this It is extraordinary how varied in style his music both for regular church choirs and for their felt that the poem reflected some of the dark particular poem, not least the one by Ralph is. He told me that whenever he is working congregations. John proposed the texts, providing times in the world which the FT is duty bound Vaughan Williams from the Five Mystical Songs. on an opera or a performance of any sort, mystical prayers that have particular personal to report, even if the poem’s final message is And yet I have always found room for further he gets so immersed in the style of that resonance for him. Let nothing trouble you is one of hope. readings of the text. When looking for a suitable composer that ideas for choral music in the written for unaccompanied four-part choir with anthem for the Jazz Matins, I came back to same idiom occur to him; and he writes. I am as little division in the parts as possible. O And a Little Child Shall Lead Them these lyrics once again. My intention was to grateful to him for his enthusiasm for the Guiding Night is written for choir with organ Only a few years after graduating from university, contrast the anxiety and wretchedness of the project. He even wrote a new piece for him to or piano and also utilises frequent homophony a friend of mine from college days, Julian soul with the infinite compassion of Love. sing with us. I imagined a nice gentle lyrical to convey the text as well as interplay between McNamara, contacted me through his position piece with ooos and ahs and him singing the voice parts to give an feeling of barely as choir master for the English Church in Hymne lyrically and perhaps a little cheesily above suppressed, ecstatic energy. Geneva. He kindly asked me to write a piece Dedicated to my brother-in-law and his bride a rich but gentle choral texture. How wrong for the choir, adding that one of the altos had on their wedding day, I chose a French text to can one be? Christmas Bells a particularly fine voice. This was most likely reflect the bride’s dual nationality and this in A good friend of mine from my university days my first proper choral commission and turn suggested a lyrical, French style for Ralph Allwood MBE has since spent most of his professional life although I remember wrestling with it for composition. The choir on the wedding day as a journalist for the Financial Times. His quite some time, I was pleased to be able to was made up of many friends and relatives - 4 - - 5 - who dealt with the technical demands of the O Saviour of the World building and his description. The sopranos together. I decided that a French text would piece on a single rehearsal with great panache. Similar in a sense to Suzi Digby’s William improvise on a small fragment of the text led be suitable for the occasion even though I had Byrd project (see Ave Verum Corpus Re-imagined), by a soloist, positioned in the upper gallery very little experience at that time of singing Holy Father, Great Creator I was asked by conductor Eamonn Dougan to like angels, imitating each other almost or writing in French. Nonetheless, the sprung Occasionally I am approached to write music respond to Thomas Tallis’ Salvator Mundi in like birdsong. The rest of the choir is placed rhythms of Tippett meet with the harmonies for singers or choirs with whom I have no order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the downstairs, behind the congregation if possible, of Duruflé in this energetic piece, which opens personal connection. This commission came Thomas Tallis Society. I was inspired to use representing the people, anxious in their out into an optional three-choir canon in the out of the blue from a choir in North Leigh and the same scoring and also the melodic outline supplication.