CONTENTS
TRACK LISTING page 3
ENGLISH page 4 Sung texts and translation page 7 Performer biographies page 9
FRANÇAIS page 15 Textes chantés et traduction page 19
DEUTSCH Seite 21 Gesangstexte und Übersetzung Seite 25
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JOHANN SEBASTIAN MISSA 1 Chorus Kyrie eleison ...... [9'56] BACH 2 Duet Christe eleison ...... KATHERINE WATSON & HELEN CHARLSTON [4'57] (1685–1750) 3 Chorus Kyrie eleison ...... [3'24] 4 Chorus Gloria in excelsis Deo ...... [1'44] 5 Chorus Et in terra pax hominibus ...... [4'26] 6 Aria Laudamus te ...... KATHERINE WATSON [4'22] 7 Chorus Gratias agimus tibi ...... [3'14] MASS 8 Duet Domine Deus ...... KATHERINE WATSON & GWILYM BOWEN [5'30] IN B MINOR 9 Chorus Qui tollis peccata mundi ...... [3'04] BWV232 bl Aria Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris ...... IESTYN DAVIES [4'28] bm Aria Quoniam tu solus sanctus ...... NEAL DAVIES [4'28] bn Chorus Cum Sancto Spiritu ...... [3'42] KATHERINE WATSON SYMBOLUM NICENUM soprano bo Chorus Credo in unum Deum ...... [1'59] HELEN CHARLSTON bp mezzo-soprano Chorus Patrem omnipotentem ...... [2'04] bq IESTYN DAVIES Duet Et in unum Dominum ...... KATHERINE WATSON & IESTYN DAVIES [4'23] countertenor br Chorus Et incarnatus est ...... [3'23] GWILYM BOWEN bs Chorus Crucifixus etiam pro nobis ...... [3'23] tenor bt Chorus Et resurrexit tertia die ...... [4'04] NEAL DAVIES bass bu Aria Et in Spiritum Sanctum ...... NEAL DAVIES [5'18] cl Chorus Confiteor unum baptisma ...... [3'55] cm Chorus Et exspecto resurrectionem ...... [2'05] THE CHOIR OF SANCTUS TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE cn Chorus Sanctus ...... [5'12] OSANNA, BENEDICTUS, AGNUS DEI AND DONA NOBIS PACEM ORCHESTRA OF THE co Chorus Osanna in excelsis ...... [2'42] AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT cp Aria Benedictus ...... GWILYM BOWEN [4'16] leader MARGARET FAULTLESS cq Chorus Osanna in excelsis ...... [2'45] cr Aria Agnus Dei ...... IESTYN DAVIES [5'16] STEPHEN LAYTON cs Chorus Dona nobis pacem ...... [3'30] conductor 3
ITHIN A DECADE of taking up his post as Thomas- obsequious terms: ‘In deepest Devotion I present to your kantor in Leipzig in 1723, Bach was becoming ever Royal Highness this trifling product of the science which I W more frustrated with the Saxon city’s civic politics. have acquired in Musique, with the most humble request Never one to compromise, he had clashed with the that you will deign to regard it not according to the authorities almost from the word go. In August 1730 imperfection of its Composition, but with a most gracious complaints that he had been neglecting his duties led him eye, in accordance with your world-renowned Clemency, to submit a ‘brief but highly necessary draft of a well- and thus take me into your most mighty Protection’. appointed church music’ to the Leipzig council. Inter alia, In the event Bach was not granted the honorary title of he pointed out that he did not have sufficient skilled singers Court Composer to the Saxon Elector and King of Poland and, especially, players at his disposal. Bach’s protests fell until 1736, after flattering August II and his family with a largely on deaf ears. In October he wrote to an old stream of homage cantatas. By then the ‘trifling product’ schoolfriend, Georg Erdmann, asking about the possibility had probably been heard at least once in Catholic Dresden, of a post in Danzig, adding that the Leipzig authorities are perhaps, as the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff has proposed, ‘very strange and little interested in music, so that I have to during Bach’s visit in the summer of 1733. Nor is live amid almost constant vexation, envy and persecution’. aperformance in Protestant Leipzig out of the question. The Bach’s official role was as teacher-cum-music director, with ‘Kyrie’ and ‘Gloria’ of the Mass Ordinary formed part of the duties that included giving Latin instruction to the boys in Lutheran liturgy at high feasts and special thanksgiving St Thomas’s School. For Bürgermeister Jakob Born and services; and the Missa could well have been heard in one others on the city council, the composer was behaving like of the city’s principal churches. Indeed, parts of the new a Kapellmeister with attitude, one who had tasted too much Missa may have been performed in St Nicholas’s in April renown for his own good. 1733, when Friedrich August II attended a service to receive Bach remained in his Leipzig post until the end of an oath of fealty from the Leipzigers. his life. But after devoting himself intensively to the We can only speculate why in 1748–9, at the end of his production of music for the Lutheran liturgy, his creative life, Bach expanded the Missa into a full Mass, drawing on focus shifted: to the city’s Collegium Musicum—an a six-part D major ‘Sanctus’ composed for Christmas Day ensemble of students and professionals which held weekly 1724, and movements from assorted church cantatas. concerts in Gottfried Zimmermann’s fashionable coffee (Bach had already reworked a movement from Cantata 29, house—and to the world beyond Leipzig. Above all, Bach ‘Wir danken dir, Gott’, as the ‘Gratias agimus tibi’, and part avidly cultivated his ties with the Dresden court, whose lavish of the opening chorus of Cantata 46, ‘Schauet doch und musical resources he had highlighted in his memorandum sehet’, as the ‘Qui tollis’.) Certainly, the Mass in B minor, to the Leipzig authorities. In July 1733 he travelled to the as the Missa tota became known after its publication a Saxon capital in the hope of obtaining a court title from the century later, was never performed in full during Bach’s new Elector, Friedrich August II, that would in turn enhance lifetime. Lasting nearly two hours, the complete work was his status in Leipzig. In his portfolio was a recently far too long for performance at either a Lutheran or a composed Missa (consisting of the ‘Kyrie’ and ‘Gloria’), Catholic Mass. But its constituent parts—Missa, Symbolum offered to the Elector in what seem to us toe-curlingly Nicenum (i.e. ‘Credo’), ‘Sanctus’, and the final section
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comprising the ‘Osanna’, ‘Benedictus’, ‘Agnus Dei’ and resolution of the grieving ‘Agnus Dei’, and, beyond it, of the ‘Dona nobis pacem’—could have been performed tortuous opening B minor ‘Kyrie’. separately. Perhaps Bach was hoping that the work would Throughout the B minor Mass Bach juxtaposes the most be taken up in Dresden. One scholar has recently proposed varied musical styles, as Mozart was to do in his unfinished a Viennese connection to the Mass, with a St Cecilia’s Day C minor Mass nearly half a century later. (Coincidentally, performance in St Stephen’s Cathedral organized by Bach’s these are the only two Masses routinely identified by their acquaintance Count Johann Adam von Questen berg. Parts key alone, their composer’s name superfluous!) The of the Mass may have been heard in Leipzig in the last year ‘Christe eleison’ duet, with its suave, galant phraseology of the composer’s life. But with no surviving documentation, and carolling thirds for the soprano soloists (just the kind all this remains speculation. of thing to appeal in fashionably up-to-date Dresden) comes Perhaps the traditional, Romantic view is nearer the between two contrasting ‘Kyrie’ settings. The first ‘Kyrie’, for mark after all: that the aged Bach compiled the Mass, five-part chorus, follows a mighty exordium for full choir— unprecedented in its monumentality, not for immediate use, perhaps the most thrilling opening of any sacred work— but as an encyclopaedic conspectus of his art and a choral with a sombrely magnificent fugue on an angular chromatic counterpart to The Art of Fugue or the Musical Offering. subject ex pressive of penitential awe. In a soundscape that The first complete performance, in Leipzig, took place in combines maximum complexity with intense beauty, the 1859, over a century after Bach’s death. When the Zürich orchestra (pairs of flutes, oboes d’amore and bassoons, plus music publisher Hans Georg Nägeli issued the ‘Kyrie’ and strings) is often independent of the voices, creating textures ‘Gloria’ in 1833, he proclaimed them as ‘the greatest of up to seven parts. Bach draws on the stile antico for the musical work of all times and peoples’. For Benjamin second ‘Kyrie’, an austere fugue in four parts, with the voices Britten the B minor Mass was, with its spiritual antithesis, doubled by the instruments throughout. Not for the only Schubert’s Winterreise, one of the twin peaks of Western time in Bach’s music, the fugue subject here traces the civilization. He had a point. outline of a cross. The Mass’s protracted origins, stylistic heterogeneity and Subsequent sections of the Mass show a similar stylistic use of ‘parody’—common to most of Bach’s vocal works disjunction. Several German scholars have surmised that composed after 1730, most famously the Christmas the rollicking D major opening section of the ‘Gloria in Oratorio—have made some commentators uncomfort able. excelsis Deo’, like a celestial Passepied, may derive from Except for the ‘Sanctus’, each of the four sections contains alost instrumental concerto. Later in the ‘Gloria’, the music originally written for non-liturgical pur poses. Yet Bach ‘Gratias agimus tibi’, beginning in the old ‘Palestrina’ style forges diversity into a mighty unity, with a balance of keys, and ending in trumpet-festooned splendour, contrasts both centred on B minor and, especially, D major, with with the galant soprano aria ‘Laudamus te’, with its florid its attendant trumpets and drums. The multi-movement solo violin part (more concerto influence here), and the ‘Gloria’ and Symbolum Nicenum have comparable lilting duet ‘Domine Deus’. Here Bach sets the solo soprano symmetrical structures, while Bach confirms the unity of and tenor against an enchanting—and decidedly galant— the whole Mass by bringing back the D major ‘Gratias tapestry of airily dancing flute, muted violins and violas, and agimus tibi’ as the ‘Dona nobis pacem’: a joyous final pizzicato bass.
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The alto aria ‘Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris’, with solo No composer, surely, has ever equalled the resplendence oboe d’amore, is another movement animated by a dance of the six-part (SSAATB) ‘Sanctus’, recycled from Christmas lilt while extending and subtly varying the dance’s regular 1724 when the composer, still new to his Leipzig post, pulled four-bar phrases. The following ‘Quoniam tu solus sanctus’, out all the musical stops. As the musicologist Donald Tovey written against the background of the minuet, complements memorably put it: ‘Bach is here conducting the angelic the bass voice with the lugubriously sonorous palette of hosts. The strings represent the swinging of censers: the corno da caccia (i.e. hunting horn), two bassoons and various antiphonal sections of the choir sing to each other continuo. As the Bach scholar John Butt noted in his study like two seraphim.’ The fugal ‘Pleni sunt caeli’ that follows of the Mass (Cambridge, 1991), Bach here seems to have is another seraphic Passepied. ‘relished depicting the “Most High” with the deepest forces Thus far Bach has demonstrated an inspired variety of possible’. choral techniques and textures. In the ‘Osanna in excelsis’ In the Symbolum Nicenum, the mellifluous bass aria that enfolds the plangent ‘Benedictus’ for tenor and solo ‘Et in Spiritum Sanctum’, a pastoral jig scored for oboes flute, he widens his scope still further, writing for double d’amore and continuo, is a world away from the five-part four-part choir, with the orchestra providing a third ‘chorus’. stile antico choral settings of ‘Credo in unum Deum’ This inspiriting music is in part parodied from the homage and ‘Confiteor unum baptisma’, each of which uses a cantata ‘Preise dein Glücke’, composed for Dresden in 1734. Gregorian chant melody as a cantus firmus. The ‘Credo in In a final act of creative recycling, Bach then adapts the alto unum Deum’ adds two independent violin lines to the aria ‘Ach, bleibe doch’ from his Ascension Oratorio, BWV11, voices, plus a sturdy continuo bass part in unceasing as the ‘Agnus Dei’, in the process simplifying and crotchet motion to symbolize the rock-like certainties of the intensifying both the vocal line and the accompaniment for Nicene Creed. unison violins. The ‘Confiteor unum baptisma’—perhaps the last For all the B minor Mass’s stylistic diversity, many Bach choral music Bach wrote—is a dazzling feat of counter point lovers would agree that it offers a spiritual experience as comparable with The Art of Fugue and the Musical deep as that afforded by the St Matthew Passion. These two Offering, all of them characteristic of the composer’s monumental (whatever the forces used) works, each of ‘abstract’, inward-looking late style. In an intricate unsurpassed grandeur and profundity, are polar opposites. polyphonic weave, the Gregorian plainchant is first sung In the Passion the individual soul relives Christ’s sufferings, in canon by basses and altos, then intoned in longer notes by and in the process moves from repentance to salvation. In the tenors. With a sudden slowing of the tempo, the words the Mass, transcending religious denomina tion, the entire ‘Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum’ provoke the most church celebrates the glory of God and seeks redemption. labyrinthine harmonies of Bach’s career: a moment of Between them they constitute the ne plus ultra of sacred unearthly mystery and tension that seems to peer far into music. the nineteenth century. The release into a jubilant D major, RICHARD WIGMORE © 2018 complete with hollering trumpets and pounding timpani, has an overwhelming elemental force.
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1 Coro Kyrie eleison. Chorus Lord have mercy. 2 Duetto Christe eleison. Duet Christ have mercy. 3 Coro Kyrie eleison. Chorus Lord have mercy. 4 Coro Gloria in excelsis Deo. Chorus Glory be to God on high. 5 Coro Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Chorus And on earth peace to men of good will. 6 Aria Laudamus te, benedicimus te, Aria We praise you, we bless you, adoramus te, glorificamus te. we adore you, we glorify you. 7 Coro Gratias agimus tibi Chorus We give you thanks propter magnam gloriam tuam. for your great glory. 8 Duetto Domine Deus, rex caelestis, Duet Lord God, heavenly king, Deus Pater omnipotens. God the almighty Father. Domine Fili unigenite, Jesu Christe, Altissime. O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Most High. Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris. Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father. 9 Coro Qui tollis peccata mundi, Chorus You who take away the sins of the world, miserere nobis. have mercy upon us. Qui tollis peccata mundi, You who take away the sins of the world, suscipe deprecationem nostram. receive our prayer. bl Aria Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, Aria You who sit at the right hand of the Father, miserere nobis. have mercy upon us. bm Aria Quoniam tu solus sanctus. Tu solus Dominus. Aria For you alone are holy. You alone are the Lord. Tu solus Altissimus, Jesu Christe. You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ. bn Coro Cum Sancto Spiritu Chorus With the Holy Ghost in gloria Dei Patris. Amen. in the glory of God the Father. Amen. bo Coro Credo in unum Deum. Chorus I believe in one God. bp Coro Credo in unum Deum, Chorus I believe in one God, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, visibilium omnium et invisibilium. and of all things visible and invisible. bq Duetto Et in unum Dominum, Jesum Christum, Duet And in one Lord Jesus Christ, Filium Dei unigenitum, the only-begotten Son of God, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula. begotten of his Father before all worlds. Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, God of God, Light of Light, Deum verum de Deo vero, very God of very God, genitum, non factum, consubstantialem begotten, not made, being of one substance Patri, per quem omnia facta sunt. with the Father, by whom all things were made. Qui propter nos homines Who for us men et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis. and for our salvation came down from heaven.
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br Coro Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto Chorus And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost ex Maria virgine, et homo factus est. of the virgin Mary, and was made man. bs Coro Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, Chorus And was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, passus et sepultus est. he suffered and was buried. bt Coro Et resurrexit tertia die Chorus And the third day he rose again secundum scripturas. according to the scriptures. Et ascendit in caelum, And ascended into heaven, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris. and sits at the right hand of God the Father. Et iterum venturus est cum gloria And he shall come again with glory, iudicare vivos et mortuos, to judge both the quick and the dead, cuius regni non erit finis. whose kingdom shall have no end. bu Aria Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Aria And I believe in the Holy Ghost, Dominum et vivificantem, the Lord and giver of life, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit; who proceeds from the Father and the Son, qui cum Patre et Filio simul who with the Father and Son together adoratur et conglorificatur, is worshipped and glorified, qui locutus est per prophetas. who spoke through the prophets. Et unam sanctam catholicam And I believe in one holy, catholic et apostolicam ecclesiam. and apostolic church. cl Coro Confiteor unum baptisma Chorus I acknowledge one baptism in remissionem peccatorum. for the remission of sins. Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. And I look for the resurrection of the dead. cm Coro Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum Chorus And I look for the resurrection of the dead et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen. and the life of the world to come. Amen. cn Coro Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Chorus Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts. Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria eius. Heaven and earth are full of his glory. co Coro Osanna in excelsis. Chorus Hosanna in the highest. cp Aria Benedictus, qui venit in nomine Domini. Aria Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. cq Coro Osanna in excelsis. Chorus Hosanna in the highest. cr Aria Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, Aria O Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, miserere nobis. have mercy upon us. cs Coro Dona nobis pacem. Chorus Grant us peace.
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KATHERINE Watson HELEN Charlston Katherine Watson was a choral Helen Charlston began singing scholar at Trinity College, in the St Albans Abbey Girls Cambridge, where she studied Choir. She then studied music Anglo-Saxon History and at Trinity College, Cambridge, Literature. A year after gradu - where she was a choral scholar ating she won a place on for four years and held a William Christie’s Le Jardin des scholarship on the Pembroke Voix and has since performed College Lieder Scheme, led regularly under the batons of by pianist Joseph Middleton. William Christie, Emmanuelle Hailed ‘a rather special mezzo’ Haïm, Stephen Layton and by MusicWeb International, Jonathan Cohen throughout Helen is a Rising Star of the Europe and further afield. Orchestra of the Age of Enligh -
© Hugo Bernand In 2012 Katherine was a ten ment for 2017–2019. © Ben McKee Young Artist with the Classical Opera Company and the Helen has appeared as a soloist throughout Europe, recipient of Glyndebourne’s much coveted John Christie Australia and America and is often heard in concert across Award, appearing as Fairy/Nymph in Purcell’s The Fairy the UK. Highlights include Helen’s debut at Wigmore Hall Queen and Diana in Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie. More singing Telemann’s Ihr Völker hört with Florilegium (also recently, she has played the title role in Handel’s Theodora, broadcast on BBC Radio 3), Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the heroine Amélite in Rameau’s Zoroastre and Giunone in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig with the Gabrieli Consort and Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. Players under Paul McCreesh, a worldwide tour of Handel’s She has an extensive concert career and has worked with Messiah, Schoenberg’s Lied der Waldtaube at Cadogan Hall, a number of eminent conductors. Highlights include Duruflé’s Requiem with the City of London Sinfonia and programmes of arias from Giulio Cesare in France, Rameau Bach’s B minor Mass with Vox Luminis. arias in Frankfurt and the Far East, and a Monteverdi gala She has appeared at festivals across the UK and Europe, at the Festspielhaus, Baden-Baden. As a keen recitalist, including the Three Choirs, Aix-en-Provence, Roman River Katherine regularly performs lieder and chansons by and Keble Early Music festivals, and the London Festival of Mozart, Schubert, Mahler, Strauss, Poulenc and Messiaen. Baroque Music. Operatic roles include Olga in Eugene She recently performed on a tour of Bach’s B minor Onegin, Florence Pike in Albert Herring, Sara in Jonathan Mass with Les Arts Florissants which culminated in a Dove’s Tobias and the Angel and Dinah in Bernstein’s performance at the BBC Proms. Previous recordings for Trouble in Tahiti. Helen created the role of Dido in young Hyperion include François Couperin’s Leçons de ténèbres composer Rhiannon Randle’s Dido is Dead, a chamber with Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen, and Bach’s Christmas opera based on Virgil’s writings. Most recently, she has sung Oratorio with Trinity Choir, Stephen Layton and the OAE. Messaggera and Proserpina in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo for the Brighton Early Music Festival.
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IESTYN Davies GWILYM Bowen Iestyn Davies was born in York. Born in Hereford, Gwilym He studied Archaeology and Bowen was a choral scholar at Anthropology at Cambridge Trinity College, Cambridge, University, where he was a where he graduated with choral scholar at St John’s double first-class honours in College, before pursuing his Music, subsequently studying vocal studies at the Royal at the Royal Academy of Music. Academy of Music. Since his In opera, his diverse reper - operatic debut for Zürich toire has included Pelléas in Opera he has sung at many of Pelléas et Mélisande, multiple the major houses across the roles in L’incoro nazione di world, including the Royal Poppea and Il ritorno d’Ulisse Opera House, the Metropolitan in patria with the Academy of
© © Marco Borggreve Opera New York, La Scala Ancient Music, Angers Nantes Strong © Pablo Milan, Chicago Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera, English Opéra and The Grange Festival, Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne Progress and Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Festival Opera and Opéra National de Bordeaux. Aldeburgh. He is regularly involved in new opera, having Iestyn also enjoys a busy concert, recital and recording created the roles of Tamino in Be With Me Now at the career. He was the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the protagonists in Kate Whitley’s Society’s Young Artist of the Year award and held a residency Unknown Position and 0520, and Smith in Matt Rogers and at London’s Wigmore Hall, where he continues to perform Sally O’Reilly’s And London Burned. regularly. Other appearances include recitals at the Edin- Gwilym has performed extensively in concert, including burgh International Festival, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Snape the Evangelist in Bach’s Passions around the world, cantatas Proms, Brighton Festival, York Early Music Festival and his with Masaaki Suzuki at Alice Tully Hall, Mahler’s Das Lied recital debut at Carnegie Hall, New York. In concert he von der Erde with the City of London Sinfonia, and Handel’s regularly appears with major orchestras and Baroque Messiah and Bach’s Mass in B minor and Christmas ensembles, and he also collaborates with accompanists Oratorio with Stephen Layton and the Orchestra of the Age including Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles and Kevin Murphy. of Enlightenment, as well as the arias in a world-first Welsh- Iestyn has previously recorded Handel’s Messiah and JS language television broadcast of the St John Passion. Bach’s St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio with In addition to a busy performing schedule, Gwilym also Stephen Layton; he also features on three solo albums with prepares performing editions, writes on music both on his Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen, including a Gramophone blog and for the Three Choirs, St Davids Cathedral and Award-winning programme of Bach cantatas. Cheltenham Festivals, and has recorded his own ill-advised Iestyn was made a Member of the Order of the British arrangements of Bach for multiple banjos. Empire in 2017 for services to music.
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NEAL Davies STEPHEN Layton Neal Davies studied at King’s Stephen Layton is one of the College, London, and the Royal most sought-after conductors Academy of Music, and won of his generation. He has often the Lieder Prize at the 1991 been described as the finest Cardiff Singer of the World exponent of choral music Competition. He has appeared in the world today, and his with the Oslo Philharmonic ground-breaking approach under Mariss Jansons, the has had a profound influence BBC Symphony with Pierre on choral music over the last Boulez, the Cleveland and 30 years. Fellow and Director Philhar monia orchestras with of Music at Trinity College, Christoph von Dohnányi, the Cambridge, Layton is also Chamber Orchestra of Europe Founder and Director of
© Sussie Ahlburg with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Polyphony and Music Director Saunders © Keith the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Frans of the Holst Singers. Former posts include Chief Conductor Brüggen, the Gabrieli Consort with Paul McCreesh, the of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, Chief Guest Conductor Hallé with Sir Mark Elder, Concerto Köln with Ivor Bolton, of the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Artistic Director and and the London Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic Principal Conductor of City of London Sinfonia, and Director orchestras with Daniel Harding. He has been a regular of Music at the Temple Church, London. guest at the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Layton is regularly invited to work with the world’s Proms. He has also appeared at major opera houses leading choirs, orchestras and composers. His interpre- including the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, tations have been heard from the Sydney Opera House to Welsh National Opera and Scottish Opera, as well as in Paris, the Concertgebouw, from Tallinn to São Paolo, and his Marseille, Salzburg and at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. recordings have won or been nominated for every major His wide discography includes Handel’s Messiah, international recording award. He has two Gramophone Theodora and Saul and Haydn’s Die Schöpfung (Gramo - Awards (and a further ten nominations), five Grammy phone Award, 2008) under McCreesh, Janácvek’s Jenuofa and nominations, the Diapason d’Or de l’Année in France, the The Makropulos Case under Sir Charles Mackerras, Echo Klassik award in Germany, the Spanish CD Compact Barber’s Vanessa under Leonard Slatkin, Messiah under Award, and Australia’s Limelight Recording of the Year. René Jacobs, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 under Osmo Layton is constantly in demand to premiere new works Vänskä, the Hyperion Schubert Edition with Graham by the greatest established and emerging composers of our Johnson and Britten’s Billy Budd with Daniel Harding age. Passionate in his exploration of new music, Layton has (Grammy Award, 2010). introduced a vast range of new choral works to the UK and the rest of the world, transforming them into some of the most widely performed today.
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THE CHOIR OF Trinity College Cambridge Voted the fifth best choir in the world in Gramophone Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols & St Nicolas; new works magazine’s ‘20 Greatest Choirs’, The Choir of Trinity College by Polish composer Paweł Łukaszewski; and Yulefest!, a Cambridge comprises around thirty Choral Scholars and two selection of sacred and secular Christmas music, all released Organ Scholars, all of whom are students at the university. on the Hyperion label. The choir’s latest release is of choral The College’s choral tradition dates back to the all-male music by Charles Villiers Stanford. choir of the fourteenth century, when former Chapel Five of the Choir’s recordings have been nominated for Royal choristers studied in King’s Hall which later became Gramophone Awards, including two releases from 2015— part of Trinity College. Directors of Music have included Northern Lights, a recording of the choral music of the Charles Villiers Stanford, Alan Gray, Raymond Leppard and Latvian composer E–riks Ešenvalds, and Kenneth Leighton’s Richard Marlow. Female voices were introduced in the Crucifixus and other works—and, from 2016, Howells’ 1980s by Richard Marlow, in a new departure for Cambridge Collegium Regale, which recently won Limelight Recording choral music. Stephen Layton has been Director of Music of the Year in Australia. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio was since 2006. described by The Daily Telegraph as ‘a telling, affecting During term the Choir’s main focus is the singing of the and inspiring experience’; Classic FM called Beyond All liturgy in the College Chapel, exploring a wide-ranging reper - Mortal Dreams a ‘glorious album … that will repay toire drawn from both Catholic and Protestant traditions. repeated listening for years to come’; and the Briggs was Outside term, the Choir’s programme of performances and described by Gramophone as ‘one of the finest CDs of recordings recently included BBC broadcasts of Bach’s Mass sacred choral and organ music you’ll ever hear’. in B minor and Christmas Oratorio with the Orchestra of Its ambitious programme of tours has taken the Choir the Age of Enlightenment in London, Haydn’s Nelson to destinations in Europe, the USA, Canada, South Africa, Mass with the City of London Sinfonia in Aldeburgh and Namibia, Zimbabwe, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Peru. Cambridge, Poulenc’s Gloria with the Britten Sinfonia in Recent concerts in North America include sold-out perform - Norwich Cathedral, and Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum with ances at the National Conventions of the American Guild of the Academy of Ancient Music in London and Cambridge. Organists and the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and Recent additions to the Choir’s extensive discography a concert in New York to commemorate the anniversary of include Howells’ Requiem and other works, which won a 9/11. The Choir has now undertaken two month-long Gramophone Award in 2012; Beyond All Mortal Dreams, nationwide tours of Australia as part of the Musica Viva settings of contemporary American a cappella music, which International Concert Season, in 2010 and again in 2016. was nominated for a US Grammy Award in 2012; Baltic All services from Trinity College Chapel are webcast live Exchange, choral music from the Baltic region; David and available on the Choir website, where a searchable Briggs’ Mass for Notre Dame; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio; archive of over 4,000 musical tracks recorded live in services Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum; Handel’s Chandos Anthems; over the last few years is also available. www.trinitycollegechoir.com
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