AMERICAN BACH SOLOISTS – What Sweeter Music – Notes and Texts JOHN RUTTER is one of several highly successful living composers ROBERT LUCAS PEARSALL was a barrister by profession, but had an whose styles meld contemporary and traditional harmonies in a way that is intense and ultimately overwhelming interest in heraldry, history, at once accessible and memorable. He studied at Clare College, Cambridge, genealogy, painting, and music. He composed madrigals in the Renaissance and later became its Director of Music before leaving to pursue his idiom of Thomas Morley, but extended the stylistic parameters to great composing and conducting careers. He formed the Cambridge Singers, a success. professional chamber choir, and has composed a significantly extensive ZOLTÁN KODÁLY brings an innate native style and sonority to his catalogue of works. arrangement of A Christmas Carol, a setting of a traditional Hungarian tune. The English choral tradition has thrived within the artistically Chromaticism imposed on repetitive parallel intervals and ambiguous fertile confines of England’s greatest cathedrals and college chapels. Their meters create a mood of reverent mystery. choirs have handed down the repertory and performance styles of MORTEN LAURIDSEN, born in 1943 in Colfax, Washington, is Chair generations past; the most famous of these choirs is, of course, that of of the Composition Department at the University of Southern California King’s College, Cambridge. DAVID WILLCOCKS was an organ scholar at King’s School of Music in Los Angeles, a faculty he joined in 1967 following his College in 1939-40, and later, in 1957, was appointed organist and studies in advanced composition with Ingolf Dahl and Halsey Stevens. He choirmaster at there. His dozens and dozens of recordings with the choir has emerged as one of America’s finest and most-beloved composers. His are still considered to be benchmark standards. Several of his arrangements music has garnered a permanent place in the standard vocal repertoire, and of traditional carols are presented on this recording. is performed regularly by choruses and vocal artists through the world. BORIS ORD had been an organ scholar at Corpus Christi College In the bleak mid-winter is a poem by Christina Rosetti, the (in Cambridge), and spent just one year away from the university in 1927 at daughter of Gabriele Rosetti, a political exile who became a professor of the Cologne Opera before accepting the position as choirmaster at King’s in Italian at King’s College, London. The author of several volumes of poetry 1928. In the thirty-eight years under his direction, the King’s College Choir and devotional texts, she wrote these words in response to a request for a became known around the world as the very best of its genre. He published Christmas poem from Scribner’s Monthly magazine. Gustav Holst’s setting just one composition: Adam lay ybounden. is well known to many, but there are problems in confining Rosetti’s free BENJAMIN BRITTEN, RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, and WILLIAM rhythm to the restraints of a hymn-tune. HAROLD DARKE, a British organist, WALTON were each prolific composers of music that, although meant for filled in for Boris Ord at Cambridge while he was serving in the armed liturgical use, typically sounded anything but sacred. All three wrote in forces. He subsequently became a Fellow at King’s, and was well respected styles—each one thoroughly unique and pervasive throughout their as an organist (although it is said that his performances of Bach were not at works—that transcended the sacred or profane nature of their chosen all elucidated by modern advancements in performance practice). His texts. Vaughan Williams’ characteristic waves of parallel chromaticism, setting of the poem is ultimately more successful, as its phrase lengths Britten’s use of close dissonance, and Walton’s distinctive rhythmic energy more willingly accommodate the text. are abundant in their works on this recording. JOHN GOSS, at the age of eleven, became a chorister at the CECIL ARMSTRONG GIBBS, first educated at Cambridge, studied Chapel Royal. After his days as a boy soprano, he joined the chorus at composition with Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music. Primarily Covent Garden, before devoting much of his time to composition and a composer of exquisite songs, he wrote an ample quantity of music for teaching (Sir Arthur Sullivan was one of his students). His life-long choirs, of which While the shepherds were watching is among the most well understanding of the singing voice enabled him to compose melodies known. characterized by mellifluousness and perfectly fitting word settings. And Lord of all this reveling. Greet the morrow, WHAT SWEETER MUSIC 1 Christ the Babe was born for you! (What sweeter music can we bring, What sweeter music can we bring, Than a carol, for to sing Polish carol, transl. by Edith M. Reed Than a carol, for to sing The birth of this our heavenly King?) OXFORD UNVERSITY PRESS, INC. The birth of this our heavenly King? Awake the voice! Awake the string! Robert Herrick (1591-1675) OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC. Dark and dull night, fly hence away, ADAM LAY YBOUNDEN 3 And give the honour to this day That sees December turned to May. Adam lay ybounden, 2 INFANT HOLY, INFANT LOWLY Bounden in a bond; Why does the chilling winter’s morn Four thousand winter Smile, like a field beset with corn? Infant holy, Thought he not too long. Or smell like a meadow newly-shorn Infant lowly, Thus, on the sudden? Come and see For his bed a cattle stall; And all was for an apple, The cause, why things thus fragrant be: Oxen lowing, An apple that he took, Little knowing As clerkes finden ‘Tis he is born, whose quickening birth Christ the Babe is Lord of all. Written in their book. Gives life and lustre, public mirth, Swift are winging To heaven, and the under-earth. Angels singing, Ne had the apple taken been, Nowells ringing, The apple taken been, We see him come, and know him ours, Tidings bringing, Ne had never our lady Who, with his sunshine and his showers, Christ the Babe is Lord of all. Abeen heavené queen. Turns all the patient ground to flowers. Blessed be the time The darling of the world is come, Flocks were sleeping, That apple taken was, And fit it is, we find a room Shepherds keeping Therefore we moun singen, To welcome him, to welcome him. Vigil till the morning new; Deo gracias! Saw the glory, The nobler part, Heard the story, Words anon. 15th century Of all the house here, is the heart, Tidings of a gospel true. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC. Which we will give him; and bequeath Thus rejoicing, This holly, and this ivy wreath, Free from sorrow, To do him honour; who’s our King, Praises voicing, 4 A BOY WAS BORN 7 ALL THIS TIME 9 WHAT CHEER? A boy was born in Bethlehem; All this time this song is best: What cheer? Good cheer! Rejoice for that, Jerusalem! ‘Verbum caro factum est.’ Be merry and glad this good New Year! Alleluya. He let himself a servant be, This night there is a child yborn ‘Lift up your hearts and be glad That all mankind he might set free: That sprang out of Jesse’s thorn; In Christ’s birth’, the angel bade, Alleluya. We must sing and say thereforn, Say each to other, if any be sad: Then praise the Word of God who came All this time this song is best: ‘What cheer?’ To dwell within a human frame: ‘Verbum caro factum est.’ Alleluya. Now the King of heav’n his birth hath take, Jesus is the childes name, Joy and mirth we ought to make; Anon. 16th century German; translated by Percy And Mary mild is his dame; Say each to other for his sake: Dearmer All our sorrow shall turn to game: ‘What cheer?’ OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC. All this time this song is best: ‘Verbum caro factum est.’ I tell you all with heart so free: Right welcome, welcome, ye be to me; It fell upon high midnight: Be glad and merry, for charity! THE BLESSED SON OF GOD 5 The stares shone both fair and bright; What cheer? Good cheer! The angels sang with all their might, Be merry and glad this good New Year! The blessed son of God only All this time this song is best: In a crib full poor did lie; ‘Verbum caro factum est.’ from Richard Hill’s Commonplace Book (16th With our poor flesh and our poor blood Now kneel we down on our knee, century) Was clothed that everlasting good. And pray we to the Trinity OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC. Kyrieleison. Our help, our succour for to be; All this time this song is best: The Lord Christ Jesu, God’s son dear, ‘Verbum caro factum est.’ Was a guest and a stranger here; SUSSEX CAROL bl Us for to bring from misery, Anon. 16th century That we might live eternally. On Christmas night all Christians sing, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC. Kyrieleison. To hear the news the angels bring, News of great joy, news of great mirth, All this did he for us freely, News of our merciful King’s birth. For to declare his great mercy; 8 WHILE THE SHEPHERDS WERE WATCHING All Christendom be merry therefore, Then why should men on earth be so sad, And give him thanks for evermore. While the shepherds were watching, were Since our Redeemer made us glad, Kyrieleison. watching their sheep, When from our sin he set us free, An angel came to them and woke them from All for to gain our liberty? Miles Coverdale; after Martin Luther sleep, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC.