Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2024 i Choir & Organ

For many of us, the Advent season is marked by an element of reflection and waiting, though this can be difficult to find amid the busyness of London in December. Music and words for Advent allow us to sink back from the tumult and into this subliminal space of waiting and anticipation. The words of the ‘O Antiphons’ and their settings used in the eight days before Christmas have recently felt close to me for providing space in the lead up. James MacMillan’s iconic setting of ‘O Radiant Dawn’ is a personal favourite, though so is the plainchant, sung especially beautifully on Advent Live 2 from Andrew Nethsingha and St John’s College, Cambridge. But when so much music, planning and stress go into rehearsing and performing concerts, how do we…

STUDENTS FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY HAVE announced the foundation of The Cambridge University Schola Cantorum – a cross-college ensemble of Cambridge’s most talented singers and an elite group of vocalists from the university. The Cambridge University Schola Cantorum will be run by award-winning cellist and conductor Graham Walker, the director of music at Emmanuel College and former director of the recently disbanded St John’s Voices choir. The St John’s Voices were widely known on a local and international level, with broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, albums on the Naxos label and numerous concerts and tours. The Cambridge University Schola Cantorum aims to step into the role of this predecessor. Schola will perform weekly services of candlelit Compline in a different chapel or church each Monday, as well as concert performances each…

COMPOSER ROXANNA PANUFNIK IS RAISING money for refugee charity Three Peas through her arrangement of the Maronite Syriac Christmas carol Glory be to the Word. The carol, also suitable for Epiphany, is being sent to choral directors, who will donate £3 for every copy they print, if their choir wishes to perform it. Illustrator Alex Scheffler of The Gruffalo and The Snail and the Whale, has drawn an illustration to go alongside the carol which the public can bid on until 10 December at 8pm BST. Proceeds of this will also go towards Three Peas’ work. Three Peas is a charity aimed at helping refugees (including many from the Middle East) stranded in camps on Greek Islands. The charity said of the initiative: ‘Thanks to their generosity and commitment we…

When F H Browne & Sons was established in 1871, there was a great expansion in church building, not least among the Non-Conformists. The business quickly grew and in its first 35 years many organs were built for churches and chapels, in the UK and for destinations as diverse as Egypt and Canada. Several of F H Browne’s sons joined Frederick in the business which also included a general music shop selling sheet music, pianos, American organs and other musical instruments. In 1906 the premises in Deal were sold and the company moved to Canterbury. By this time Frederick’s eldest son, William, was managing the business, with Frederick continuing to take an active part until his death in 1933. Sadly, William died six months after his father. The company continued…

David Fontanesi: Four Organ Sonatas Andrea Albertin, Tamburini/Bonato organ, S Lorenzo Cathedral, Abano Terme, Padua DA VINCI CLASSICS C00786 Italian composer David Fontanesi composed his four sonatas for organ in 2021. Somewhat unusual, they feature much densely woven (mostly fugal) counterpoint, sometimes based on lively themes, but so firmly grounded in tonal, if occasionally tortuous, harmony that they might well have been composed in the second half of the 19th century (and then in Germany). The odd Gigout-like scherzo (Sonata II) or slightly vapid toccata (Sonata IV) provides contrast. However, even if all the ingredients of the cake are present, the result is somehow unconvincing, as if the composer wants to show us his technical skill without taking us on any kind of journey. Indeed, it’s rather like listening to…

Rebecca Tavener rounds up the latest releases How much should we concern ourselves with acoustic ‘authenticity’? Is a craving for ‘churchy’ resonance indulgent and intellectually lazy? Should we be challenged by other ideas about recorded sound? Scaramella [Hyperion CDA68460] from the six-voice Binchois Consort does just that with an enclosed acoustic, deliberately evoking a type of private, tapestry-hung chapel. Here is vigour and intelligence and nowhere to hide, with outstanding voices working very hard on interpretational quality for a craftily reconstructed Missa Scaramella by Obrecht, with motets by Brumel and Agricola and gung-ho eponymous songs by Josquin and Compère. Too dry? Discuss. With the religious life so often the context of early choral music recordings, one might take a corresponding acoustic bloom for granted. The Brabant Ensemble seeks to immerse…

Frank Martin: Messe pour double Choeur a cappella, ed. Michael Ostrzyga, SATBSATB Bärenreiter BA 11315, €13.95 Frank Martin’s Mass for double choir is an interesting source study. When it was first published by Bärenreiter (in 1972) that was all we knew; indeed, that was all we thought we needed to know. The edition was overseen by Frank Martin himself and it was reprinted 22 times: it’s now out of print. Over the years the cover changed colour from the original grey-beige striped design, through purple-violet, to the iconic Bärenreiter blue. In 2014 a new edition was commissioned from the German organist and conductor Antje Wissemann, in a larger format – good for directors and rehearsal accompanists, less handy for singers. But in addition to the composer’s manuscript and the supervised…

IAN KEATLEY 1982-2024 Ian Keatley, organist and director of music at Southwark Cathedral, died suddenly on 6 August aged 42 while on holiday in Austria. Keatley was born in Belfast and his love of church music began early in his life, singing in choirs, such as St George’s Belfast, and later at Methodist College Belfast, where in 1996 he was appointed organ scholar. He became a counter-tenor vicar choral at Wells Cathedral, and, in 2000 moved to Croydon Minister as assistant organist. He was appointed organ scholar at Southwark Cathedral from 2002 to 2004, and while there he founded the Merbecke Choir, which gave former choristers the opportunity to continue singing at a high level. He combined all this with his organ studies at the Royal College of Music. He…

‘For those of us who really know her stuff,’ composer Grace Williams wrote of her friend Elizabeth Maconchy, ‘there is more sense of beauty in her little finger than there is in lots & lots of contemporary composers put together.’ Her letter was an appeal to the conductor Clarence Raybould, to ask whether he would consider performing Maconchy’s music. Sadly, Raybould’s answer was negative. ‘Your remarks have fallen on rather stony ground,’ he replied, ‘as I have yet to see anything of this charming musician which appeals to me.’ This exchange was typical of attitudes to Maconchy’s music throughout the 20th century. Those who supported Maconchy did so avidly, and were convinced that she was among the most significant musical voices of the period. In many ways they were proved…

A meeting between Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1904 was crucial to the history of the carol in the 20th century. Without that meeting, Vaughan Williams wouldn’t have been engaged as musical editor of the English Hymnal, and without the success of that venture Vaughan Williams wouldn’t have later worked on the Oxford Book of Carols. So it’s all the more surprising that Vaughan Williams initially turned down the offer to work on the English Hymnal. But Dearmer knew exactly how to goad Vaughan Williams into accepting the assignment: Dearmer told Vaughan Williams that if he didn’t take the job, then Henry Walford Davies would jump at the chance. Although Walford Davies was three years older than Vaughan Williams, the young men had entered the Royal College of…

Upcoming releases The Latvian Radio Choir and conductor Sigvards Klava are releasing an album entitled Alethia on 1 November profiling the choral works of Lithuanian-American composer Žibuokle Martinaityte (b 1973) on the Ondine Label. Kammerchor Stuttgart under Frieder Bernius is releasing an album on 1 November on Carus of songs by Richard Strauss arranged by Clytus Gottwald alongside works by Schoenberg and Mahler. Signum is releasing an album of Joanna Marsh’s choral music on 31 January. Called A Plastic Theatre, it is a co-commissioned work for choir and orchestra to a topical text by Katie Schaag. Leon Berben has recorded the complete organ works by Matthias Weckmann (1616-74) for the Aeolus label on two of the most famous early baroque organs in Germany: the Hans Scherer organ (1624) in St…

Voices of Thunder Romain Bornes, Edward Byrne, Alexander Pott (org), Eule organ (2023), Magdalen College Chapel, Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford/Mark Williams (dir) Coro COR16209 A debut on disc for Eule’s first UK organ makes its own claim for attention, deftly accompanying characterful, beautifully rounded singing by Magdalen College’s choir. The IV/45 Eule’s German romantic accent suits the wide-ranging programme. There’s a magical quality to Dove’s Seek him that taketh the seven stars, magnificent eloquence in Balfour’s Evening Hymn, and colour aplenty in Malcolm Boyle’s Thou, O God, art praised in Zion. Contemporary pieces by MacMillan, Tabakova, Weir, Larsen and Pärt (The Beatitudes bursting out of simple homophony into a blaze of organ arpeggios) sit comfortably alongside Haydn’s virtuosic summoning of a storm (Insane et vanae curae), Stanford’s For lo,…

THE NORTHERN IRELAND INTERNATIONAL ORGAN Competition (NIIOC) has announced German competitor Jan Liebermann as its 2024 winner. The competition final, which took place in August, saw 13 organists compete at St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral in Armagh. Liebermann achieved success in the Senior category of the competition, aimed at post-Grade 8 players aged 21 and under. The 18-year-old organist received a trophy presented by Neiland & Creane Organ Builders and a cash prize of £4,000 awarded by the John Pilling Trust, plus five international recitals. Liebermann said: ‘It is such a great honour to be awarded the first prize at this wonderful competition. I experienced the competition as very open minded, and it was so great to have this cultivating exchange with all the different participants from all over…

THE BBC SINGERS AND NATIONAL Youth Choir have announced a three-year partnership between the two organisations to open the pathway for the next generation of young voices. The partnership will focus on helping young singers gain experience of performing and recording, centring on education initiatives to provide opportunities for students from across the country to gain experience singing. It will encompass work involving National Youth Choir’s oldest singers, aged 18-25, its chamber ensemble National Youth Voices, and the Emerging Professional Artists programme, its professional development scheme for singers, conductors and composers. Jonathan Manners, director of BBC Singers, said: ‘The BBC Singers continue to thrive on building strong working relationships with National Youth Choir, and together we have the opportunity to build a significant development pathway, not just for the musicians…

‘I tell you what – if you want Christmas …’ says Dr Jeremy Filsell pouring over his shelves of recordings in his wooden-clad office at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York City – ‘That’s fantastic.’ Filsell arrives at what he was looking for, points enthusiastically at a purple Resonus Christmas CD entitled Dancing Day and puts it in front of me. ‘It was John Scott’s last disc here.’ Organist and director of music at St Thomas Fifth Avenue from 2004 until his untimely death from a heart attack in 2015, Scott would never see his Christmas album released. Key festive repertoire for the boys appears on this album from 2015, including Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and John Rutter’s Dancing Day, both of which are central to the…

David Hill: What were your first encounters with music? Simon Johnson: I grew up in a clergy family, so hymns were always there. I particularly remember Lift High the Cross as a youngster, and used to bellow each refrain, much to the amusement of everyone. It must have sounded awful, but luckily didn’t prevent me from joining the church choir alongside my brother, Tim (now precentor and director of music at Eton College). The choir did a visiting evensong at Peterborough Cathedral and that was it for me. I came home to tell my parents that that was what I wanted to do every day, and promptly joined the cathedral choir. A huge memory from my chorister time was when my friend got a medal and I didn’t. I was…

Through his schooling – Interlochen Academy, Mannes School, Curtis Institute – Bryan Dunnewald placed equal emphasis on playing, composing and conducting, the latter both choral and orchestral. But all along he was drawn to the organ’s technical side, which led to summers at Schoenstein, in Benecia, California, for a kind of fast-track apprenticeship. For some, this might have quenched the thirst for good, but for Dunnewald the experience only solidified an intent to focus his career in that direction. This precociousness seems built into the man. Dunnewald grew up in Denver, where the organ bug bit early. ‘Through elementary and middle school,’ he recalls, ‘my grandmother would drive me across the state to play organs. We found a warm welcome everywhere.’ By the age of 12, he had already played…

In the Midst Sansara, United Strings of Europe Platoon PLAT24493 Newly into its second decade, Tom Herring’s Sansara continues to redefine what choral music can say and do. Backed by United Strings of Europe, In the Midst is a thoughtful, moving meditation on sanctuary in a world increasingly in need of safety and security. Caroline Shaw’s cantata To the Hands is delivered with consummate feeling for meaning and mood, Lebanese Houtaf Khoury’s The Journey for violin and string ensemble, achingly beautiful. Hildur Guðnadóttir’s reflection on the plight of refugees, Fólk fær adlit, is affecting in Peter Stanley Martin’s arrangement for choir and string drone, Piers Connor Kennedy’s delicate, deft arrangement of Shaw’s and the swallow seeming to metamorphose Sansara into two choirs. There’s much unavoidable pain here, but the promise…

Rupert Gough suggests a selection of festive music for choirs to explore A large pile of early Christmas gifts recently arrived on my doorstep in the form of newly published Christmas carols. A number of pieces caught my eye this year and I’m pleased to say, most of them are by women composers. Two pieces are by the Bristol-based composer Esther Bersweden. O magnum mysterium is a text that has inspired many a composer. The influence of Lauridsen’s popular setting pervades many and yet Bersweden’s new setting, O magnum mysterium (SATB; Encore), whilst also very homophonically driven, paints its own picture, with the recurring opening phrase always growing out of a single note – light and life emerging out of the Christmas story. Lullaby, oh, lullaby (SATB; Encore) is similarly…

Three Choirs Festival in 10 concerts Simon Carpenter Logaston Press ISBN 978-1-910839-75-1 p/b ‘It is difficult to be sure in what frame of mind one should approach the Three Choirs Festival,’ mused William Mann, music critic of The Times, in 1967. Was it a mere ‘local jollification’, a chance for the organists of the three host cathedrals (Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester) to have a go at conducting professional symphony orchestras in large-scale repertoire? Should England’s oldest music festival be judged according to the same standards as Edinburgh or Glyndebourne, as an event of national cultural importance, or as a ‘respectable shop window for all that is most worthwhile in choral and orchestral music of all countries and periods’? Or was it an anachronism that should be ‘replaced or retired’? The…