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Home , Chapel Royal, Dow Partbooks, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Pelham Humfrey, Verse anthem

PELHAM HUMFREY THE OF HER MAJESTY’S

SACRED CHORAL MUSIC

JOSEPH McHARDY 1 O give thanks unto the Lord [11:13] PELHAM HUMFREY (1647/8–1674) AC NM NP AR THE CHOIR OF HER MAJESTY'S CHAPEL ROYAL, ST JAMES'S PALACE Service in E Minor – Morning Service

SACRED CHORAL MUSIC 2 [4:54] JOSEPH McHARDY, Director of Music AC NM NP AR 3 Jubilate [2:11] Alexander Chance countertenor Bojan Čičić violin 1 AC NM SW AR Nicholas Mulroy tenor Elin White violin 2 Jane Rogers viola Nick Pritchard tenor Service in E Minor – Communion Service Sarah McMahon Ashley Riches bass cello Alex McCartney theorbo 4 [0:59] Stephen Whitford bass/cantor Martyn Noble, Joseph McHardy organ 5 Credo [3:39] NM

6 [0:41]

7 Gloria [2:21]

8 By the waters of Babylon [13:03] NM NP AR

Service in E Minor – Evening Service This recording was made possible through the generous patronage of Her Majesty The Queen, with the kind support of the friends of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, and a significant contribution from 9 [4:01] John Parke Wright IV, supported by kind donations from Halcyon Days, Mrs Pamela and Dr Peter Harper, AC NM NP AR Admiral H Kirk Unruh, Peter and Roseanne Williams, Kirby Allison, Matthew Ekberg, Aaron Regent and 10 Nunc dimittis [2:36] Richard H Martin Jr, and other supporters and friends from the 1660 Captain Society. Thanks AC NM NP AR are also due to Benjamin Ashurov for help with the psalm texts.

11 O Lord my God [13:17] Recorded on 27-29 January 2020 in Design: Drew Padrutt @delphianrecords HM Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace Booklet editor: Henry Howard NM NP AR Producer: Paul Baxter Cover image: foxbrushfilms.com @delphianrecords Engineer: Matthew Swan Session photography: foxbrushfilms.com Total playing time [59:02] 24-bit digital editing: Matthew Swan Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK @delphian_records 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter www.delphianrecords.com Tracks 3-7 are premiere recordings ‘Singing after the Italian manner’ Imagine visiting London in 1672: English music on the Restoration Chapel Royal was The Chapel may be lost, but we about and devotion to Italian and French translations of Giulio Caccini’s treatise not simply on its compositional style, but are still Humfrey’s choir, and feel a sense of baroque vocal music, trying to read between Le nuove musiche circulate, available to on the institution’s performing practice, so continuity between his generation and the the lines, and imagining how he would have anybody who wants to sing Italian songs. much so that Henry Cooke and the Chapel current choir, in everything from the music approached performances of his own works. In Whitehall, Charles II employs his own Royal were described by John Playford as we sing and our use of the 1662 Book of band of Italian musicians, heard only by the ‘honour of our Nation’ for its evincing the Common Prayer to our role in supporting © 2021 Joseph McHardy his favoured courtiers. Stepping into the Italian ‘manner’. We wanted to look at the the Sovereign and the uniforms that the Chapel, the choir is new, revived in 1660 score with the eyes of those musicians trained choristers wear. Our connection really comes I am very grateful for the assistance of by Henry Cooke. Cooke was known for his in Gibbons and in Carissimi and Boësset – alive when we share Humfrey’s excitement Corrina Connor in preparing this foreword. expertise in the Italian style, and after his ornamentation becomes an essential part of death his protégés have taken over: Pelham the singers’ declamatory armour: the written Humfrey and , barely out of their music awaits the singer’s improvisatory skill. teens. According to , Humfrey My own formative experience with Monteverdi has been transformed by his experiences in opera and the expertise our soloists have in France, while Blow feverishly copies scores seventeenth-century Italian music spurred all of Italian music – possibly they drop in to hear of us to explore the Italianate ornamentation the Italian musicians at Queen Catherine’s espoused by Caccini, as well as French Catholic chapel too. The Chapel Royal choir ornamentation found in Mersenne’s L’art du comprises the best English singers, and they bien chanter (1666). We also studied Purcell’s cannot but be caught up in this Franco-Italian florid vocal music, imagining that he was creative maelstrom. Imagine now that we’re writing later in life what he had been taught to at in the King’s Chapel and it is time improvise earlier, in Humfrey’s lifetime. for the – By the waters of Babylon, a lament of the exiled and enslaved – a The Whitehall Chapel no longer exists, but we bitter irony when we consider how London’s used its geography to imagine an antiphonal growing wealth is generated by the toil of approach in which strings, choir, and soloists enslaved Africans, trafficked to the new formed distinct ‘’ who dialogue with colonies. Some string players rise; perhaps a each other; the strings do not double the voice few clerical eyes roll – this business of violin parts, and the continuo players mostly bow out music in the anthem is but an imitation of of the string symphonies. In Humfrey’s time Louis XIV’s 24 violons du Roy – but every the Chapel organ was at a higher pitch than is musician is determined to impress their now normal, and this recording reflects this. patron, Charles II. We also chose to ask a tenor to sing many of the parts designated ‘alto’, in the range Our guiding principle making this recording that the French described in the seventeenth was that the effect of Italian and French vocal century as haute-contre. Notes on the music Virtually all we know of the life of Pelham court. Pepys’s vivid vignette has helped shape The key of E minor imbues Humfrey’s Service demonstrate Humfrey’s dexterous negotiation Humfrey comes from the records of the perceptions of Humfrey ever since. Another in E minor less with chiaroscuro than with of the monarch’s aesthetic requirements. Chapel Royal, and a few recollections by the vignette comes from a wedding Hymneal an enveloping tenebrism: the dark character diarist Samuel Pepys and Humfrey’s close by Robert Veel on the occasion of Humfrey’s of the key and the restraint of the vocal O Lord my God sets six verses from Psalm 22 contemporary and fellow- Thomas marriage to Katherine Cooke; Veel’s eloquently writing invoke the gloomy chill of morning (vv. 1, 14, 16−19). In this psalm of individual Tudway. Humfrey spent half of his short life ribald paean hails Humfrey as a ‘jolly youth’ prayer in winter, mist drifting off the Thames lament, in which the suffering individual calls in the service of Charles II’s court, initially as with ‘wandering Hand and unconfined Eye’. into Whitehall, or the perilous darkness hopelessly for mercy while experiencing one of the first generation of boy choristers Few appreciations of Humfrey as a composer of a January evensong. In his settings of unjust persecution by enemies, Humfrey’s conscripted to the Chapel Royal choir by Henry survive, except for a sincere encomium by each section of these texts for the chief arrangement of the psalm verses emphasises Cooke after the Restoration in 1660. After Thomas Flatman written shortly after the daily Anglican offices, Humfrey permitted agony and humiliation. His heightening of Humfrey’s voice broke in 1664 he was sent composer’s untimely death, and ending: himself only the most occasional moments the dramatic impact of the text also draws to study on the Continent, spending time in of word-painting (for example the overlapping attention to its messianic prophecy, creating a France and probably Italy, financed by secret ’Twas Thou couldst make dead words to live, ascending figurations for ‘and lift them up’ in connection with the crucifixion of Jesus in St service funds. He returned to court in 1667, Thou that dull numbers couldst inspire the Te Deum, and a brief descending cascade John’s Gospel (John 19: 23–24). O Lord my God With charming voice and tuneful lyre, where he had two appointments as lutenist to That life to all, but to Thyself, couldst give; of quavers for ‘he hath scattered the proud’ also demonstrates Humfrey’s skill as a musical the King’s Private Music, and as a Gentleman Why couldst Thou not Thy wondrous art in the Magnificat) or florid melisma. Even the rhetorician, utilising several tropes associated of the Chapel Royal. Following the death of bequeath? doxology at the conclusion of the Magnificat with classical oratory throughout an anthem that Henry Cooke in 1672, Humfrey succeeded – often a tempting opportunity for elaboration exhibits characteristics of prosopopoeia – him as Master of the Humfrey wrote no purely instrumental – is restrained. Humfrey’s largely syllabic in which a speaker (or singer) communicates Royal, and composed sacred music for the music that survives. Instead, he responded setting of texts for matins, communion, and with their audience or congregation in the voice Chapel, celebratory odes for the King’s birthday with acute dramatic sensibility to text, most evensong suggest that the priority here of another person (in this case, the crucified and other occasions, and some theatre music. especially to the rich language of the psalms was the clear and relatively unadorned Jesus) – or pathopoeia, in which the singer/ In 1672 Humfrey married Cooke’s daughter in the . This elusive communication of liturgical texts. orator must move the audience to pity and Katherine. The following year their own composer elevated the with compassion. Humfrey’s deployment of different daughter died shortly after her birth, and in instruments – a relatively new genre during Passionate yet similarly restrained forms of voice types creates an internal/external division 1674 Humfrey himself died, purportedly of his lifetime – to great heights, synthesising expression distinguish Humfrey’s . in the psalm’s protagonist: while the great ‘exhaustion’, at Windsor, where he had travelled the dramatic instrumental and vocal music of Upon his return to the English court, Charles exhortation – an external utterance – that with the Chapel Royal and court. the grands by Jean-Baptiste Lully and II made clear his desire for chapel music begins the anthem is given to a bass, the his peers, ’s declamatory that reflected the French style, integrating internal physical sensations experienced by this Of Humfrey’s personality and day-to-day life vocal music of the new ‘Roman School’, elaborate instrumental introductions and protagonist (‘I am poured out like water, all my we know little. Pepys recorded encounters and the austere clarity of the English choral interludes with bright, breezy sojourns bones are out of joint’) are expressed by the with him, including one shortly after Humfrey’s music with which he’d been brought up. In into triple-time idioms. Humfrey complied high and low tenors. Humfrey’s instrumental return from France, in which he described this sense Humfrey’s music is truly baroque: with these requirements, but never to the writing also serves to heighten the intensity Humfrey as an ‘absolute Monsieur … full of angular, provocative, and often visceral, it detriment of his dramatic intentions. The of the text, an example being the sinuously form and confidence and vanity’ who loudly brought to King Charles II’s Chapel bold anthems O Lord my God, By the waters of chromatic counterpoint that evokes pouring disparaged the veteran musicians of the rhetoric and vivid musical chiaroscuro. Babylon and O give thanks unto the Lord all water and melted wax. At the anthem’s Notes on the music conclusion, the choir takes on a congregational of the Chapel Royal to cry vengeance against role, pleading for succour in response to the the children of Babylon increases the violence suffering they have just witnessed. of this prophetic verse.

Humfrey did not set the complete text of Psalm In contrast with the penitential austerity and 137 for By the waters of Babylon, omitting searing pathos of O Lord my God and By the parts of the fifth, sixth, and eighth verses to waters of Babylon, the optimistic tone of increase the dramatic momentum by removing O give thanks unto the Lord shows Humfrey repetition. His deployment of individual solo writing in a sprightly and dance-like manner, voices, ensembles of soloists, and choral no doubt pleasing the Francophile King. Again, sections always has a dramatic objective. The Humfrey picked his text with care, developing bass soloist acts as a narrator, setting the scene the anthem from verses 1, 5, 21−25 and in the first verse in a dialogue with the violins; 28 of Psalm 118, but curiously choosing to in the second verse of the psalm the tenors join conclude with a reprise of verse 1 rather than him, to describe their reluctance to sing as the with verse 29. In O give thanks Humfrey made Babylonians desired. Instead of reporting the more use of the choral forces available to him, Babylonians’ taunting imperative (‘Sing us one developing dialogues between soloists and the of the songs of Sion’) Humfrey uses the chorus choral group. Although the rhetorical dispositio to bring the vituperative Babylonians to life in of the text is perhaps less sophisticated than the choir stalls. in O Lord my God, the wholesome iterations of praise and thanksgiving bring to life the In the subsequent verse, the tenor and bass psalmist’s joy and health, strength, and song. soloists ask each other in bewildered despair how, how they might bring themselves to © 2021 Corrina Connor sing in this hostile situation, the repetition of ‘how’ heightening their sorrow. A slide Corrina Connor is a musician and musicologist from the prevailing tonality of F minor to the based in Wellington, New Zealand. She holds stranger region of B flat minor intensifies a BMus and PhD from Victoria University of the sense of alienation. The bass narrator’s Wellington – where her research focused on strident recollection of the children of society and masculinity in Johann Strauss’s Edom’s evildoing interrupts the plaintive Die Fledermaus – and an MPhil from the lamentation, precipitating the shockingly University of Oxford, her thesis exploring brutal denouement of the psalm, in which the musical rhetoric and performance in Pelham full force of the massed exiles comes to life. Humfrey’s penitential anthems. The irony of Humfrey employing the Children Texts 1 O give thanks unto the Lord 2 Te Deum Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints As it was in the beginning, and is now, O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee in glory everlasting. and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. gracious: because his mercy endureth for to be the Lord. O Lord, save Thy people, and bless Thine ever. All the earth doth worship Thee, the Father heritage. everlasting. Govern them, and lift them up for ever. I called upon the Lord in trouble: and the To Thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heav’ns and Day by day we magnify Thee; and we 4 Kyrie Lord heard me at large. I will thank thee, O all the Powers therein. worship Thy Name, ever world without end. Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts Lord, for thou hast heard me: and art become To Thee Cherubin, and Seraphin continually do cry, Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day to keep this law. my salvation. The same stone which the Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth! without sin. Lord have mercy upon us, and write all these builders refused: is become the head-stone Heav’n and earth are full of the majesty of Thy O Lord, have mercy upon us. thy laws in our hearts we beseech thee. in the corner. This is the Lord's doing: and it is Glory. O Lord, let Thy mercy lighten upon us, marvellous in our eyes. The glorious company of the Apostles praise As our trust is in Thee. Thee. O Lord in Thee have I trusted, This is the day which the Lord hath made: we The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise Let me never be confounded. 5 Credo will rejoice and be glad in it. Thee. I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker The noble army of Martyrs praise Thee. of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and Help me now, O Lord: O Lord, send us now The Holy Church throughout all the world doth invisible. prosperity, for thou art my God, and I will acknowledge Thee; 3 Jubilate thank thee: thou art my God, and I will praise The Father of an infinite Majesty; O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands: And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten thee. Thine honourable, true and only Son; serve the Lord with gladness, and come Son of God, begotten of his Father before all Also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. before his presence with a song. worlds, God of God, light of light, very God O give thanks unto the Lord … Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ. Be ye sure that the Lord he is God; it is he that of very God, begotten, not made, being of Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father. hath made us, and not we ourselves; one substance with the Father; by whom all Psalm 118: 1, 5, 21–25, 28 (Book of Common Prayer) When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man, we are his people, and the sheep of his things were made; who for us men and for Thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb. pasture. our salvation came down from heaven, and When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of O go your way into his gates with was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin death, Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heav’n thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; Mary, and was made man; and was crucified to all believers. be thankful unto him, and speak good of his also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the Name. and was buried; and the third day he rose again Glory of the Father. For the Lord is gracious, his mercy is according to the Scriptures, and ascended into We believe that Thou shalt come to be our everlasting; heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Judge. and his truth endureth from generation to Father; and he shall come again, with glory, We therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants, generation. to judge both the quick and the dead; whose whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to kingdom shall have no end. blood. the Holy Ghost. Texts And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord, the away the sins of the world, receive our prayer. 9 Magnificat which thou hast prepared before the face of giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the My soul doth magnify the Lord, all people: and the Son; who with the Father and the Son Father, have mercy upon us. and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour. to be a light to lighten the gentiles, together is worshipped and glorified; who For he hath regarded the lowliness of his and to be the glory of thy people Israel. spake by the prophets. For thou only art holy; thou only art the Lord; handmaiden. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art For behold, from henceforth all generations the Holy Ghost. And I believe one holy Catholick and apostolick most high in the glory of God the Father. Amen. shall call me blessed. As it was in the beginning, and is now, Church; I acknowledge one baptism for the For he that is mighty hath magnified me, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection and holy is his name. of the dead, and the life of the world to come. And his mercy is on them that fear him Amen. 8 By the waters of Babylon throughout all generations. By the waters of Babylon we sat down and He hath shewed strength with his arm, 11 O Lord my God wept, when we remembered thee, O Sion. As he hath scattered the proud in the O Lord my God, why hast thou forsaken me, for our harps, we hanged them up, upon the imagination of their hearts. and art so far from my health and from the 6 Sanctus trees that are therein. For they that led us away He hath put down the mighty from their seat, words of my complaint? Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts, heaven captive required of us then a song, and melody and hath exalted the humble and meek. and earth are full of thy glory, glory be to God in our heaviness. He hath filled the hungry with good things, I am poured out like water, all my bones are out on high. Amen. and the rich he hath sent empty away. of joint, my heart also in the midst of my body Sing us one of the songs of Sion. He remembering his mercy hath holpen his is even like melting wax. servant Israel, How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham But be not thou far from me O Lord, thou art 7 Gloria land? and his seed for ever. my succour, haste thee to help me. Glory be to God on high, and in earth peace, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and good will towards men. We praise thee, we If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my tongue to the Holy Ghost. For many dogs are come about me, and the bless thee, we worship thee, we glorify thee, cleave to the roof of my mouth, yea, if I prefer As it was in the beginning, and is now, counsel of the wicked layeth siege against me. we give thanks to thee for thy great glory, not Jerusalem in my mirth. and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father They pierced my hands and my feet; I may tell Almighty. Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, in the all my bones, they stand staring and looking day of Jerusalem: how they said, Down with it, upon me, they part my garments among them, O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesu Christ; O down with it, even to the ground. O daughter of 10 Nunc dimittis and cast lots upon my vesture. Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that Babylon, wasted with misery: Blessed shall he Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in takest away the sins of the world, have mercy be that taketh thy children, and throweth them peace, But be not thou far from me O Lord, thou art upon us. Thou that takest away the sins of the against the stones. according to thy word. my succour, haste thee to help me. world, have mercy upon us. Thou that takest For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Psalm 137: 1–5a, 6b–8a, 9 (Book of Common Prayer) Psalm 22: 1, 14, 19, 16–18 (Book of Common Prayer) Biographies The Choir of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal Joseph McHardy has been the Director of Countertenor Alexander Chance was a Bremen; and toured a programme of became fully established in the reign of Henry Music of HM Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace Choral Scholar reading Classics at New songs with lutenist Toby Carr in Germany and V (1413–1422), who took his choir with him to since 2017. Born in Scotland to Congolese College, Oxford. As a student he enjoyed the Holland, featuring works by John Dowland, Agincourt, and its duties today are essentially and English parents, he moved to London to many opportunities for solo performances that John Danyel and Thomas Campion. 2020 the same as they have been for six hundred study at the Royal Academy of Music, having came his way, including singing projects include a return to Musikfest years and more: to sing the regular services graduated from the University of Edinburgh. the alto arias in Bach’s St John Passion in Bremen with a programme of lute songs; in the chapel of the monarch’s home, and Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. He made a recital with tenor Guy Cutting and pianist to attend the monarch at services and other At the Royal Academy of Music, his teachers a number of recordings with New College Roger Vignoles in Norfolk; and touring Bach’s events elsewhere as commanded. Almost all included Laurence Cummings, Terence Charlston Choir, including solos for the Symphony B Minor Mass with Masato Suzuki and Bach of the principal in English music and Carole Cerasi. On graduating from there with Anthems by John Blow. At university he Collegium Japan. from the Tudor to the Georgian period were Distinction, a last-minute vacancy on a production also developed a love of ensemble singing, members of the Chapel Royal, including Tallis, of Handel’s Alcina at the Komische Oper, Berlin, particularly Renaissance works, and he still Byrd, Gibbons, Humfrey, Purcell and Handel. led Joseph to a decade of involvement with devotes part of his concert schedule to this The Chapel Royal Choir has been based at St opera as a keyboard player and conductor, repertoire with groups such as The Tallis Born in Liverpool, Nicholas Mulroy studied James’s Palace since 1702 and today consists working with companies such as English National Scholars, Vox Luminis and The Gesualdo Six. at Clare College, Cambridge and the Royal of ten full choristers and six adult singers. Opera, Glyndebourne, Teatro Real (Madrid), Academy of Music, London. He has sung at Joseph McHardy has been Director of Music Garsington Opera and English Touring Opera. Recent solo appearances include Handel’s many of the world’s leading concert halls, since 2017. As a continuo and organist, he Triumph of Time and Truth with Edward opera houses and festivals, including New appears on several award-winning recordings, Higginbottom and The Instruments of Time and York’s Carnegie Hall, the Salzburg Festival, and has performed with Chineke!, La Nuova Truth; Purcell’s King Arthur with Mark Deller; the BBC Proms and Boston’s Symphony Musica, Gabrieli, La Serenissima, the Royal at Cathedral with Richard Hall. He has worked closely with conductors Gentlemen-in-Ordinary of the Choir of Her Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and Royal Cooke; St John Passion with Vox Luminis including Sir , Jordi Majesty’s Chapel Royal Scottish National orchestras, amongst others. and Café Zimmermann; Christmas Savall, John Butt, Lars-Ulrik Mortensen, Prior to his appointment to HM Chapel Royal, at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre; Bach’s Paul McCreesh and Laurence Cummings, Michael McGuire countertenor he was Organist of Christ Church, Chelsea, Magnificat with Edward Higginbottom at and ensembles such as BBC Philharmonic, James Henshaw countertenor where he played a leading role in the rebuilding Kings Place; St Matthew Passion at Hereford the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Peter Davoren tenor of its historic organ by Flentrop Orgelbouw. He Cathedral; ‘Micah’ in Handel’s Samson at Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, Concerto Thomas Herford tenor is currently involved in editing Vicente Lusitano’s Stour Music; Bach’s B Minor Mass at Utrecht Copenhagen, Bachakademie Stuttgart and Stephen Whitford bass 1555 collection of motets, which represents the Early Music Festival; works by Arvo Pärt Britten Sinfonia. Toby Hession bass earliest known music published in Europe by a at Nargenfestival in Tallinn; and regularly person of African descent. in Oxford with the Oxford Bach Soloists. Nicholas Mulroy is renowned for his In summer 2019, Alexander performed performances of Baroque repertoire. solo songs by the twentieth-century Italian Notable performances include Evangelist in composer Giacinto Scelsi at the Salzburg Bach’s St John Passion at the Royal Albert Festival; a recital for solo countertenor by Hall for the Proms, Christmas Oratorio J C Bach, Schütz and others, at Musikfest in an Australian tour with the Australian Biographies Chamber Orchestra, and Monteverdi Chambre de Paris, Nieuwe Philharmonie, St La Damnation de Faust (Glyndebourne and Academy of Ancient Music under the Vespers throughout the USA and Europe. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia Festival); Claudio Agrippina (Grange Festival); world’s finest conductors: Esa-Pekka Salonen, Recordings include a Gramophone Award- Orchestra, Gabrieli Consort, BBC National Don Giovanni (title role) and Ibn-Hakia Iolanta Robin Ticciati, Richard Egarr, Sir John Eliot winning Messiah with Dunedin Consort on Orchestra of Wales, Ensemble Pygmalion, (Opera Holland Park); and Count Almaviva Gardiner, Sir , Christophe Rousset Linn, and releases with Exaudi on NMC, Les Talens Lyriques, Concerto Köln and in Tokyo. and Sir Roger Norrington. His recordings include King’s Consort on Hyperion and I Fagiolini on Les Violons du Roy. Operatic roles have Chansons Gaillardes with Graham Johnson for Chandos. He has also featured on versions included Amphinomus Il ritorno d’Ulisse in In concert, he has appeared with the Hyperion, a solo disc of Shakespeare Sonnets of the St John Passion for both Polyphony patria for the Royal Opera House, Lysander Philharmonia Orchestra, Les Talens Lyriques, set to music by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and Linn. For Delphian he has recorded A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Aldeburgh Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, St John Passion with Bach Camerata for Piazzolla’s remarkable ‘tango operita’ María Festival, Prologue The Turn of the Screw and Gabrieli Consort, Berlin Philharmonic, London Chandos, St Matthew Passion with English de Buenos Aires with Mr McFall’s Chamber Ferrando Così fan tutte for Opera Holland Symphony Orchestra, Monteverdi Orchestra Baroque Soloists under Sir John Eliot Gardiner and bandoneón player Victor Villena Park, Matthew in Mark Simpson’s Pleasure and Haydn Paukenmesse with the Royal (DCD34186) and Stravinsky’s Cantata with for Opera North, Henry Crawford in Jonathan Philharmonic Orchestra. the Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh Dove Mansfield Park at The Grange Festival, (DCD34164). Acis Acis and Galatea at the London Handel Festival, Telemaco The Return of Ulysses for English Touring Opera, and Tamino Die Violin (Bojan Čičić): Roland Ross, Hampshire 2001, after Stradivarius Zauberflöte for Irish National Opera. Violin (Elin White): Jan Pawlikowski, Kraków 2015, after Groblicz, Kraków early 17th c. Nick Pritchard read music as a choral scholar Viola: Jacob Rayman, London c.1640, kindly loaned by Ben Hibbert at New College, Oxford and studied at the Cello: Thomas Smith, London c.1740 Theorbos: Jönsson (2011) and Jacobsen (2019), after French models Royal College of Music International Opera Organ: Henk Klop, Garderen 2015 School. A renowned performer of early music, British bass-baritone Ashley Riches he was awarded the London Bach Society studied at the University of Cambridge where Keyboards supplied and tuned by A Wooderson and E Pickering Singer’s Prize in 2013 and has been a Samling he was a member of the Choir of King’s Pitch standard: A = 465 Hz Artist and a member of the Orchestra of the College. He subsequently studied at the Temperament: circulating 1/6 comma Age of Enlightenment’s ‘Rising Stars’ scheme. Guildhall School of Music and Drama and In 2017, he won the Whatsonstage Opera Poll was a BBC New Generation Artist until award for Breakthrough Artist in UK Opera. December 2018. A former Jette Parker Young Artist, he has sung Morales Carmen, He has worked with a number of eminent Mandarin Turandot, Baron Douphol La Traviata conductors including Christophe Rousset, and Officer Les Dialogues des Carmelites Christian Curnyn, Paul McCreesh, Harry for the Royal Opera House, and for English Bicket, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, John Butt, National Opera, Escamillo Carmen, Count David Hill, Emmanuelle Haïm, Jonathan Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro, Schaunard Cohen and Laurence Cummings, and La Bohème, Pirate King The Pirates of with ensembles including L’Orchestre de Penzance. Elsewhere, he has sung Brander

An Emerald in a Work of Gold: Music from the O How Glorious is the Kingdom: Favourite Anthems The Marian Consort, Rose Consort of Choir of St George’s Chapel, / Timothy Byram-Wigfield DCD34115 DCD34048 For their second Delphian recording, The Marian Consort leafed through the The Choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle offers a sumptuous beautifully calligraphed pages of the partbooks compiled in Oxford between programme of jewels from the anthem tradition whose repertoire spans five 1581 and 1588 by the Elizabethan scholar Robert Dow. Sumptuous motets, centuries. The beautiful surroundings of St George’s Chapel provide an acoustic melancholy consort songs and intricate, harmonically daring fantasies are both immediate and luxurious, and the choir responds to Timothy Byram- seamlessly interwoven – all brought to life by seven voices and the robust Wigfield’s direction with a sound which is at once arresting and awe-inspiring. plangency of the Rose Consort of Viols in the chapel of All Souls College, Oxford, where Dow himself was once a Fellow. ‘There are many choral groups performing cathedral music on CD and in the concert hall, but no matter how polished their singing nothing quite matches ‘cleanly and calmly delivered … the concluding Ave Maria by Robert Parsons the experience of hearing our greatest church choirs singing their own is superb, the final “Amen” attaining to genuine emotion but without the repertoire on their own territory. So it is with this splendid CD: surely the next saccharine reverence that this much-recorded piece can attract’ best thing to being present in the sumptuous surroundings of St George’s — Gramophone, February 2013 Chapel, Windsor Castle’ — Organists’ Review, August 2006

William Mundy (c.1529–1591): Sacred Choral Music William Turner (1651–1740): Sacred Choral Music Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh / Duncan Ferguson Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge; Yorkshire Baroque Soloists DCD34204 Geoffrey Webber conductor ’s music was at the heart of the Marian Catholic revival and DCD34028 then, just a few years later, made a vital contribution to the development of It is easy to forget that our great English choral tradition was once silenced by the Elizabethan . The present programme centres on Mundy’s two Act of Parliament. The subsequent restoration of the monarchy in 1660 ushered most extended festal compositions, possibly sung to Queen Mary on the in one of the finest periods of English music, and William Turner, in 1660 a eve of her coronation in 1553 – the celebrated Vox patris caelestis and, newly precocious nine-year-old, went on to become one of the best-known composers reconstructed, the little-known Maria virgo sanctissima. Two further premiere and singers of his day. This disc presents a cross-section of his sacred music, recordings feature alongside the remarkable collaboration of Mundy, Sheppard including several premiere recordings. and a young on music for the Easter procession to the font, In exitu Israel. Combining powerful music on a ceremonial scale with shorter ‘invigorating and highly persuasive … a reminder of the still unknown riches of liturgical works, this recording conveys the choir’s sheer joy as ambassadors of English ’ sixteenth-century polyphony. — Gramophone, October 2007 ‘Ferguson secures a rich, purposeful tone … All-Mundy recitals are a considerable rarity, and this one can be confidently recommended’ — BBC Music Magazine, October 2018 DCD34237