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WAR & PEACE 9 Elegy George Thalben-Ball (1896-1987) [4.43] Robert Dixon organ MUSIC FOR REMEMBRANCE 0 Blahoslovy dushe moya hospoda Kirill Stetsenko (1882-1922) [2.58] College Choir 1 Crossing the Bar Charles H. H. Parry (1848-1918) [2.40] q Justorum animae Matthew Martin (b.1976) [2.38] Combined Choirs College Choir 2 Nunc dimittis Charles Wood (1866-1926) [2.54] w The souls of the righteous Geraint Lewis (b.1958) [7.47] College Choir Combined Choirs 3 The Beatitudes Arvo Pärt (b.1935) [6.56] Benjamin Morris organ College Choir e Faire is the heaven William H. Harris (1883-1973) [5.24] Benjamin Morris organ College Choir 4 A Child’s Prayer James MacMillan (b.1959) [3.51] r For the Fallen Douglas Guest (1916-1996) [1.17] Combined Choirs Chapel Choir Alasdair Austin treble Samuel Fitzgerald treble t Kontakion of the Dead Traditional Kiev Melody [3.51] 5 Greater love hath no man John Ireland (1879-1962) [6.02] Combined Choirs Chapel Choir y Lord, thou hast been our refuge Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) [9.21] Dominic Hill treble College Choir Michael Mofidian baritone Harriet Flower soprano Sophie Hytner alto Robert Dixon organ Edward Leach tenor Max Cockerill bass 6 There is an old belief Charles H. H. Parry [4.00] Robert Dixon organ Rebecca Crawshaw trumpet College Choir Total timings: [74.48] 7 September 1914: For the Fallen Mark Blatchly (b.1960) [5.00] Choristers Rebecca Crawshaw trumpet THE CHOIR OF JESUS COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE Robert Dixon organ ROBERT DIXON & BENJAMIN MORRIS ORGAN 8 Geistliches Lied Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) [5.24] REBECCA CRAWSHAW TRUMPET MARK WILLIAMS DIRECTOR College Choir Benjamin Morris organ www.signumrecords.com WAR & PEACE superbly written for unaccompanied voices; the six-voice unaccompanied Nunc dimittis of ceaselessly-cycling scales which is one of Music for Remembrance in their contrapuntal mastery and harmonic in B flat is his only Latin setting. This was his trademarks, and which he developed from richness they must be ranked among the commissioned for the Choir of Westminster 1977 onwards, other works are distinguished Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry has always masterpieces of English choral music. For the Cathedral by Richard Runciman Terry and by their precise and consummate handling of been paid at least lip-service as one of the fourth of these There is an old belief, Parry completed on 25 March 1916; Terry’s choir first different choral textures: his feeling for what founding fathers of the English Musical chose words by the Scottish poet, novelist and performed it there during an Easter service of the human voice may achieve in majestic Renaissance. For a long time, although his biographer John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854) Compline in 1916. Richly-textured, the setting and intimate euphony is outstanding among memory was kept green through such fine which declare that a better world lies ‘beyond rises to a climax at ‘Lumen ad revelationem’; present-day choral composers. His setting of the works as the choral song Jerusalem and the the sphere of Time and Sin, and Fate’s control’. the ‘Gloria Patri et Filio’ begins in unison but Beatitudes for chorus and organ dates from 1990 coronation anthem I was glad, his large output Serenity is the distinguishing characteristic of the textures open out again for the final and is one of the few works he has composed in of music was largely forgotten and unregarded. this motet, expressed by Parry in a sonorous triumphant ‘Amen’. English. It is a work of great restraint, in which Another exception to this neglect is his setting six-part polyphonic texture. After a unison Pärt sets the verses from Christ’s Sermon on the of Tennyson’s famous poem Crossing the Bar, reference to the plainsong of the Credo at The Estonian Arvo Pärt has become one of the Mount in his tintinnabular fashion, but within which was written in 1903 – the year in which the words ‘that creed I fain would keep’, the most celebrated of living composers on account an unusually chromatic harmonic structure Parry was created a Baronet – for Novello’s motet ends with majestic and beautifully-crafted of the beauty, simplicity and spiritual aura of provided by the ascending pedal line in the Parish Choir Book and had its first performance choral writing. his works, most of which are religious in organ, against which rocking triadic chords at the Hereford Festival. Starting with the revised inspiration. Born in Tallinn, under Soviet rule descend. The piece is a harmonic palindrome, with Hymns Ancient and Modern, it has since found Born in Armagh in Northern Ireland, Charles Wood, Pärt survived largely by working as recording the tenor and bass lines inversions of the treble its way into many hymn books and collections who studied with Parry and Stanford, became an director for Estonian national radio and writing and alto. After the final six chords of the ‘Amen’, of inspirational music. Tennyson is thought to important teacher in his turn (his pupils included film scores. His religious leanings led to a the organ’s dramatic entry, with fiery arpeggios, have written the poem as his own elegy, and it Vaughan Williams). He wrote a large number strong interest in plainchant, medieval and eventually arrives back at the tonality of the is an extended metaphor for the transition from of works for use in Anglican church services – Renaissance music, and this in turn had a opening, closing a circle of keys. life to death. anthems, Communion service settings, psalm profound effect on his own works, leading him settings and so on – as well as songs, cantatas, to cultivate a quasi-archaic idiom whose The Scottish composer James MacMillan Recent years have seen the beginning of a stage works and orchestral and chamber principal effect is one of timelessness. Eventually composed A Child’s Prayer, for two treble soli revaluation of Parry’s orchestral and choral pieces. He was also an accomplished organist, he left the USSR in 1980, and has since lived and chorus, in 1996. It was in fact a tribute piece works, foremost among which is his noble series and ended his career as Professor of Composition in Austria and Germany. Pärt is often thought of composed in the aftermath of the harrowing of motets collectively entitled Songs of Farewell. at Cambridge University. Wood made several as a minimalist, but though many of his slaughter of 16 young primary school children Composed between 1913 and 1915, they are settings of the Nunc dimittis in English, but works employ the ‘bell-like’ tintinnabuli idiom and an adult teacher gunned down at Dunblane - 4 - - 5 - High School in Scotland. The words – a text from the famous Remembrance Day poem alto, with tranquil organ interludes and a glowing of the Ministry of Education of the short-lived (traditional) text that he remembered from his by Laurence Binyon. His setting, composed in canonic ‘Amen’ to conclude. Ukrainian People’s Republic. Though his life was childhood – have a piercing simplicity. The Oxford in October 1980 for voices and organ, comparatively short (he died of typhus while lamenting harmonies of the opening section, was written for performance at the British Though born in Sydney, Australian George attending to the sick during a famine) he was a underpinned by deep bass notes, seem imbued Legion’s 1980 Festival of Remembrance at Thalben-Ball was brought back to England by prolific composer, especially of church music. with a terrible sorrow. The high voices of the the Royal Albert Hall and is dedicated to his Cornish parents at the age of four and was Blahoslovy dushe moya hospoda (Bless the two trebles eventually soar up, like the souls Barry Rose and the Choristers of St Paul’s a star pupil at the Royal College of Music. In Lord O my Soul) is a lyrical and effective piece of the murdered children, and the piece builds Cathedral. At the words ‘At the going down of 1923, he succeeded Walford Davies as Organist opening in unison but expanding to five-part to a climax before subsiding to a quiet ending the sun …’ the music includes a part for solo of the Temple Church Choir, a post he held harmony, with some typically Russian deep bass for the trebles on their own. trumpet playing ‘The Last Post’. for nearly 60 years. Under his direction, the writing towards the end. choir achieved international fame. Thalben-Ball John Ireland composed Greater love hath no Johannes Brahms’s Geistliches Lied is one of composed several anthems and organ works, Matthew Martin studied at Magdalen College man in 1912 for the Choristers of St Paul’s his earliest surviving choral works, and comes of which the best known is his meditative Elegy Oxford and the Royal Academy of Music and is Cathedral, London, selecting the text from various from a period in the later 1850s when Brahms, for organ, which was played, for example, at considered a rising star among British church passages of Scripture. Although described as feeling himself deficient in technique, had the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. The music composers. As a performer, he has held ‘a Motet for Passiontide and other seasons’ it embarked on a course of study in strict piece started life during World War II at the close positions at New College, Oxford, Canterbury has come to be sung most often in services counterpoint, especially canon. Canons with of a BBC live broadcast of a religious service Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral, and commemorating the victims of war, and the words had more intrinsic interest, and a reason which had ended a few minutes early, leaving since 2001 has been involved with the annual composer produced a version of the work to be more expressive, than purely instrumental a gap to be filled, and Thalben-Ball as organist Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy with orchestra in 1924.