Sanctum Est Verum Lumen Multi-Part Music for Choir
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SANCTUM EST VERUM LUMEN MULTI-PART MUSIC FOR CHOIR NATIONAL YOUTH CHOIR OF GREAT BRITAIN MIKE BREWER Sanctum est verum lumen: multi-part music for choir Notes on the music National Youth Choir of Great Britain Spem in alium is not the first piece to be contrapuntal tuttis for the full choir, overlapping Mike Brewer conductor written in forty parts – that was Ecce beatem exchanges between discrete blocs of singers, lucem by Alessandro Striggio – nor did it prove huge monolithic chords, close canons that to be the last word in contrapuntal complexity, eventually dissolve into unsynchronised but it remains an unparalleled tour-de-force heterophony, an ‘über-gimel’ for the eight of compositional virtuosity, combining sopranos alone (gimel being a favourite Tudor fluid imitative counterpoint, cori spezzati device where the upper voices are divided to 1 Gabriel Jackson: Sanctum est verum lumen [10.49] antiphony, dense pointillist ‘total polyphony’, provide a section of special brilliance), and at 2 Robert Wylkynson: Jesus autem transiens/Credo in Deum [5.10] numerological proportioning and sheer one point everyone briefly sings the same note sonorous spectacle, and its pre-echoes and (the D above middle C). I wanted to write a 3 Francisco Guerrero: Duo Seraphim [3.33] aftershocks reverberate through all the other piece that was essentially about light; the text, 4 Josquin des Prez (attrib.): Qui habitat [5.11] pieces on this disc. though funereal in origin, is radiantly optimistic and invites a variety of ways of evoking that 5 Tomás Luis de Victoria: Magnificat sexti toni [7.53] For me, Tallis is the greatest of all English sense of light in music, from gentle luminosity 6 Tarik O’Regan: I sleep, but my heart waketh [8.01] composers, and I had long wanted to write a to fiercely dazzling brightness. Soprano solo: Laura Attridge companion piece to Spem in alium; in 2005 (the Tallis quincentenary year) I was given the Illumination of a different kind may be found 7 Felice Anerio: Stabat Mater [9.19] opportunity to do so by the Lichfield Festival, in the pages of the Eton Choirbook, a richly 8 Johannes Ockeghem (attrib.): Deo gratia [3.42] where Sanctum est verum lumen was decorated collection of late 15th-century premiered by Ex Cathedra, directed by Jeffrey sacred music and one of the few English 9 Bo Holten: In nomine [6.35] Skidmore. It is (for how could it not be?) a manuscripts to survive the ravages of the Soloists: Zoe Brown, Elaine Tate, Christopher Hann, Bartholomew Lawrence conscious homage to Tallis’s masterpiece – Reformation. Compiled for use at Eton 10 Thomas Tallis: Spem in alium [10.01] both pieces are in the same key (though on College in the early sixteenth century, it is this recording Spem in alium is transposed up the repository of a repertoire that is unique Total playing time [70.21] a tone, in accordance with David Wulstan’s in its long-breathed floridity, a collection of theories about pitch in 16th-century England), brilliant, ornate polyphonic jewels to lighten the both pieces last 138 bars of four beats (that darkness of the medieval mind, from whose was pure coincidence, but seemed indeed ecstatic filigree the early music of Tallis was Recorded on 17 September 2006 & 12-13 April Producer: Paul Baxter Photograph editing: Raymond Parks providential!), and I divided the forty voices born. Among this compendium of extraordinary 2007 in St Alban the Martyr, Holborn and on Engineer: Adam Binks Design: Drew Padrutt into the same eight 5-part choirs that Tallis inspirations the most remarkable must be 4-5 August 2007 & 8 April 2008 in the Chapel of 24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks Booklet editor: John Fallas deployed. Sanctum est verum lumen Jesus autem transiens/Credo in Deum by Merton College, Oxford 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK re-explores and re-imagines some of the Robert Wylkynson, master of the choristers at Photography © Delphian Records www.delphianrecords.co.uk myriad ways Tallis devised to combine and Eton from 1500. An example of the canonic exploit those forty parts: there are massive principle at its most reductive (it is a simple With thanks to Benjamin Nicholas and Gabriel Jackson Sanctum est verum lumen: multi-part music for choir Notes on the music National Youth Choir of Great Britain Spem in alium is not the first piece to be contrapuntal tuttis for the full choir, overlapping Mike Brewer conductor written in forty parts – that was Ecce beatem exchanges between discrete blocs of singers, lucem by Alessandro Striggio – nor did it prove huge monolithic chords, close canons that to be the last word in contrapuntal complexity, eventually dissolve into unsynchronised but it remains an unparalleled tour-de-force heterophony, an ‘über-gimel’ for the eight of compositional virtuosity, combining sopranos alone (gimel being a favourite Tudor fluid imitative counterpoint, cori spezzati device where the upper voices are divided to 1 Gabriel Jackson: Sanctum est verum lumen [10.49] antiphony, dense pointillist ‘total polyphony’, provide a section of special brilliance), and at 2 Robert Wylkynson: Jesus autem transiens/Credo in Deum [5.10] numerological proportioning and sheer one point everyone briefly sings the same note sonorous spectacle, and its pre-echoes and (the D above middle C). I wanted to write a 3 Francisco Guerrero: Duo Seraphim [3.33] aftershocks reverberate through all the other piece that was essentially about light; the text, 4 Josquin des Prez (attrib.): Qui habitat [5.11] pieces on this disc. though funereal in origin, is radiantly optimistic and invites a variety of ways of evoking that 5 Tomás Luis de Victoria: Magnificat sexti toni [7.53] For me, Tallis is the greatest of all English sense of light in music, from gentle luminosity 6 Tarik O’Regan: I sleep, but my heart waketh [8.01] composers, and I had long wanted to write a to fiercely dazzling brightness. Soprano solo: Laura Attridge companion piece to Spem in alium; in 2005 (the Tallis quincentenary year) I was given the Illumination of a different kind may be found 7 Felice Anerio: Stabat Mater [9.19] opportunity to do so by the Lichfield Festival, in the pages of the Eton Choirbook, a richly 8 Johannes Ockeghem (attrib.): Deo gratia [3.42] where Sanctum est verum lumen was decorated collection of late 15th-century premiered by Ex Cathedra, directed by Jeffrey sacred music and one of the few English 9 Bo Holten: In nomine [6.35] Skidmore. It is (for how could it not be?) a manuscripts to survive the ravages of the Soloists: Zoe Brown, Elaine Tate, Christopher Hann, Bartholomew Lawrence conscious homage to Tallis’s masterpiece – Reformation. Compiled for use at Eton 10 Thomas Tallis: Spem in alium [10.01] both pieces are in the same key (though on College in the early sixteenth century, it is this recording Spem in alium is transposed up the repository of a repertoire that is unique Total playing time [70.21] a tone, in accordance with David Wulstan’s in its long-breathed floridity, a collection of theories about pitch in 16th-century England), brilliant, ornate polyphonic jewels to lighten the both pieces last 138 bars of four beats (that darkness of the medieval mind, from whose was pure coincidence, but seemed indeed ecstatic filigree the early music of Tallis was Recorded on 17 September 2006 & 12-13 April Producer: Paul Baxter Photograph editing: Raymond Parks providential!), and I divided the forty voices born. Among this compendium of extraordinary 2007 in St Alban the Martyr, Holborn and on Engineer: Adam Binks Design: Drew Padrutt into the same eight 5-part choirs that Tallis inspirations the most remarkable must be 4-5 August 2007 & 8 April 2008 in the Chapel of 24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks Booklet editor: John Fallas deployed. Sanctum est verum lumen Jesus autem transiens/Credo in Deum by Merton College, Oxford 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK re-explores and re-imagines some of the Robert Wylkynson, master of the choristers at Photography © Delphian Records www.delphianrecords.co.uk myriad ways Tallis devised to combine and Eton from 1500. An example of the canonic exploit those forty parts: there are massive principle at its most reductive (it is a simple With thanks to Benjamin Nicholas and Gabriel Jackson 13-part round), the piece also has a conceptual celebratory, Duo seraphim has the same bright on the sixth tone. Scored for three unequal and premiered by the National Youth Choir in neatness that is strikingly modern. A setting intensity that characterises all the music of choirs (SATB+SATB+SSABar), the piece 2006, this setting of lushly erotic lines from of the Apostles’ Creed is divided into twelve Guerrero, who was maestro di capella at Seville is constructed entirely from blocks – self- the Song of Songs also shows an interesting segments preceded by ‘Jesus autem transiens’ Cathedral in the mid-sixteenth century. contained blocks of material, patiently dislocation between the rich sensuality of the (‘Jesus then passing among them’). Each delineating each verse of the canticle, and words and the objectified constructivism of the successive entry is annotated with the name Surviving only in German sources published blocks of texture, each choir frequently being music that harks back to a medieval concept of of one of the twelve disciples, and as the after his death, the attribution of Qui habitat heard alone. While there are moments of word-setting where the music co-exists with motto threads its way through the texture in to Josquin des Prez has been questioned tutti magnificence, much of the writing is the text rather than seeking to illustrate it.