Advent at Merton

advent Choir of Merton College, Oxford Benjamin Nicholas, Peter Phillips

At Merton

Advent at Merton Choir of Merton College, Oxford Peter Phillips & Benjamin Nicholas conductors Anna Steppler organ

1 Matthew Martin (b. 1976)

Ecce concipies

[2:10]

2 14th-c. German

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming

[3:26]

3 William Byrd (1539/40–1623)

Rorate caeli desuper

[4:13]

4 James MacMillan (b. 1959)

Advent Antiphon

[5:40]

arr. David Blackwell (b. 1961)

Christopher Watson tenor 5 Judith Weir (b. 1954)

Drop down, ye heavens, from above

[1:47]

6 Michael Praetorius (1571–1621)

Alvus tumescit virginis

[1:49]

Seven Advent Antiphons commissioned by the Revd Dr Simon Jones

7 Howard Skempton (b. 1947)

O Sapientia

[1:24]

8 John Tavener (b. 1944)

O Adonai

[1:20]

9 Rihards Dubra (b. 1964)

O Radix Jesse

[2:25]

10 Gabriel Jackson (b. 1962)

O Clavis David

[3:36]

11 Cecilia McDowall (b. 1951)

O Oriens

[4:26]

12 Matthew Martin

O Rex Gentium

[3:45]

O Emmanuel

[2:29]

ˉ riks Ešenvalds (b. 1977) 13 E

Jeremy Kenyon alto Recorded on 14-16 April 2012 in Merton College Chapel, Oxford Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter 24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Choir photograph: Lee Atherton Photography Design: John Christ Booklet editor: John Fallas Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk

With thanks to the Warden and Fellows of the House of Scholars of Merton College, Oxford

14 Anton Heiller (1923–1979)

Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen

15 William Byrd

Ecce Virgo concipiet

[1:35]

16 Michael Praetorius

Es ist ein Ros entsprungen

[4:29]

17 Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611)

Ave Maria

18 James MacMillan

O Radiant Dawn

arr. Jan Sandström (b. 1954)

Total playing time

[3:18]

Emily Tann soprano

[4:17] [3:59] [56:21]

Notes on the music The Advent Carol Service at Merton College, Oxford is enjoyed by over 600 people each year. So popular has it become that the College now offers two, in order to accommodate everyone who wishes to attend. With its twin focus on preparation for the birth of Christ and for his second coming, Advent provides exciting liturgical and musical possibilities which, at Merton, are enhanced by the beautiful setting of the thirteenth-century chapel and its outstanding acoustics.

The movement from darkness to light is an important theme within the Christian tradition.

The Advent Carol Service begins in darkness, while the College Choir sings an introit from the ante-chapel. A taper is carried into the chapel to light the first candle on the Advent Wreath while a distant voice reads the opening verses of the account of creation from Genesis 1. As the choir processes into the chapel, the light is shared amongst members of the congregation, their hand-held candles gradually filling the building with the light of Advent hope.

After a sequence of readings, carols and hymns, the climax of the Merton rite is the proclamation of the Gospel of the Annunciation (Luke 1: 26–38). The settings of the seven ‘O Antiphons’ were commissioned by the College Chaplain to be sung, one each year, before and after the Annunciation Gospel.

Traditionally performed either side of the

Magnificat at Evening Prayer on the last seven days of Advent, their use at Merton explores the identity of the one who, according to Gabriel’s message, ‘will be holy … will be called Son of God’. Drawn from passages from the Old Testament and Apocrypha, they each celebrate one of the names of the coming Christ. He is ‘Wisdom’, ‘Adonai’, ‘Root of Jesse’, ‘Key of David’, ‘Morning Star’, ‘King of the Nations’, each antiphon intensifying the anticipation of Christ’s birth until he is finally proclaimed as ‘Emmanuel’, God with us.

The Merton carol service moves from the repetition of the ‘O Antiphon’ to a motet which reflects on the Virgin Mary’s unique place within the drama of salvation. The programme designed for this disc recognises that the twin figures of Christ and his mother, depicted together in the fifteenth-century stained glass of the Chapel’s east window, have inspired some of the most intense and evocative works of the Advent repertoire.

Whether sung in English as Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming or in its original German form as Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen, few anthems can match the beauty of this traditional Advent carol, celebrating the two flowers of Christ and the Virgin Mary. The chorale melody dates back to the fourteenth century, but has proved continuingly popular among composers, who since Michael Praetorius first re-harmonised

it in 1609 have continued to revisit and rework it. The simplest but in many ways the most effective of these reworkings, Jan Sandström’s double-choir arrangement, cradles the melody within glowing cluster chords. Hummed in all voices, these chords offer a pulsing pianissimo web through which the chorale (in Praetorius’s original four-part harmonisation) is distantly heard. Folk-like directness is here transformed into something altogether more charged, more tantalisingly elusive.

David Blackwell’s arrangement, by contrast, frames the melody within the familiar soundworld of the Anglican choral tradition. The chordal texture of the original surrenders to ornamentation and embellishment; countermelodies, descants and harmonic changes surround and fragment the melody as it is passed between voices, retaining its shape while developing its character. In a particularly striking gesture, the closing section sees the chorale twice transposed to distant keys, highlighting the idea of transfiguration celebrated in the natural imagery of the text.

Revered as one of the great organists of the twentieth century, Anton Heiller was following in the footsteps of Brahms among others when he composed his fantasia on Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen for organ. Each of the work’s three sections represents a self-contained miniature variation, moving progressively further away

from the original. The first treats the melody as a cantilena, distorting and adorning it over a flowing accompaniment. The second subjects the theme to an imitative, fugal treatment, while the third closes this ‘little partita’ in a dense cluster of harmonic uncertainty that only resolves itself on the final chord.

In Alvus tumescit virginis, meanwhile, Praetorius (whose harmonisation of Es ist ein Ros we will hear distantly in Sandström’s choral arrangement) steps forward into the spotlight. Best known for his many choral works, this is one of only ten surviving organ pieces by the composer. It is based on a chorale whose text, taken from the Advent Hymn Veni, redemptor, dwells on the miracle of the Virgin birth. The scalic melody is simple but lyrical in its unexpectedly extended phrases, and Praetorius preserves this fluid elegance in his restrained treatment.

The keening ornaments and elegiac melody of James MacMillan’s Advent Antiphon are steeped in the Scottish folk tradition – a central part of the composer’s musical heritage. Later reconceived and integrated in MacMillan’s anthem A New Song, here the two main musical ideas are presented in responsorial contrast: the simpler opening phrase is given to the unison congregation (accompanied by sustained chords in the choir) and the more elaborately embellished chant to a solo cantor.

Notes on the music There is contrast of language too, with the congregation taking English text (the composer supplies eight variants according to liturgical use during Advent; one is used here) and the cantor singing a verse of Psalm 25 (‘Show me your way, O Lord’) in Latin.

Taken from the Prophecy of Isaiah, the Advent Prose condenses the Advent experience into a single responsory encompassing both the longing of the Church for a saviour and the promise of God to deliver him. Judith Weir’s arrangement of the traditional plainsong – set in English as Drop down, ye heavens, from above – reflects the contrasting characters of these two sections, giving the versicle opening a stark, almost modal colouring, all exposed intervals and organum-like simplicity, while the music of the response thickens and warms its harmonies in affirmative celebration.

Yet this fulfilment is denied us until Christmas Day, and the work closes with a return to the music of its opening.

William Byrd’s Latin setting of the same text, Rorate caeli desuper, demands justice from the heavens with declamatory urgency in its rising opening motive. The imitative outer sections pulse with rhythmic energy, animated by syncopation and ornamented rhythms. These frame a central verse section (‘Benedixisti’) characterised by reduced forces and longer, more sustained lines. Both this and

Ecce Virgo concipiet come from Gradualia I, the first of two collections of Catholic motets the recusant composer published towards the end of his life in 1605 and 1607. Possibly intended for performance at private Catholic devotions, these two Advent motets share more than just their five-voice texture. Both achieve lively polyphonic complexity despite limited forces. Yet while Rorate lingers over its subject matter, gaining stature through repetition, Ecce Virgo addresses the miracle of the Virgin birth with unusual brevity. Musically cogent, the tightly-wrought polyphony gives the motet a muscularity that contrasts with its companion’s flightier semiquaver ecstasies.

Merton College’s set of ‘O Antiphons’, commissioned from seven different contemporary composers, opens with the charged simplicity of Howard Skempton’s O Sapientia. The rhythmic unison of this chorale-like setting is tempered by harmonic colouration, shaded by suspensions and chromatic gestures, before arriving at a sudden close on the D flat major chord with which it began. John Tavener’s O Adonai sets out from an angular chant in the sopranos that becomes the basis for a starkly modal treatment, giving more than a glance to medieval organum, while a dominant pedal spreads through the texture and persists unresolved. Balancing Tavener’s gaunt textures, Rihards Dubra’s O Radix Jesse inhabits rather more familiar harmonic territory,

his shifting time signatures bringing fluidity to a setting whose largely diatonic chords move in steady crotchet motion throughout. Yet Dubra denies us the full G major cadence we expect, leaving his voices perpetually aspiring upwards – true resolution is still to be found.

The bright, electric rhythmic flourishes of O Clavis David could belong to no composer but Gabriel Jackson, while his characteristic melodic ornamentation speaks softly through this glowing movement. Once again the text takes the lead, guiding us through episodic sections that grow to an insistent climax at the exhortation to Christ to ‘lead the prisoners from captivity’. The fifth antiphon, Cecilia McDowall’s O Oriens, looks to the East in more than just title. Thickening the harmonic textures and muddying them with added clashes and clusters, it is only at ‘aeternae’ that McDowall allows her morning star to shine bright and clear. We are reminded right through to the final chord, with its lurking harmonic doubt in the basses, that this brightest of stars has still to dispel the ‘shadow of death’.

Matthew Martin’s O Rex Gentium looks back to the unaccompanied motets of Bruckner in its declamatory style, giving its central invocation – ‘veni, et salva hominem’ (‘come and save mankind’) – weight through varied insistence, the cry lingering and echoing ever more faintly. The cycle reaches its close with

Eˉriks Ešenvalds’ O Emmanuel, returning the antiphon to its plainchant origins. The chant, heard throughout in a solo voice, is intensified and thickened by the harmonic web in which it is caught, at times cocooned and at others tugging against the melody’s own colour and direction.

Tomás Luis de Victoria was both priest and composer, and while it may be dangerous to trace an artist’s personal faith through his work, the sheer number of Marian works Victoria produced – setting popular antiphons such as the Alma Redemptoris and Ave Regina multiple times, with four different surviving settings of the Salve Regina – leaves little doubt as to the significance the composer placed upon the figure of the Virgin. These works span a wide emotional range, exploring the many different facets of their subject, and the Ave Maria a8 included here finds the composer at his most austere and refined. Far from an ecstatic hailing of the Queen of Heaven, the opening phrases – passed in traditional fashion between the two choirs – are deliberately kept simple, the homophony creating a sense of rapt collective awe. It is this almost mystical portrayal of the Virgin that lends the work particular resonance at Advent, when her dual role as mortal and divine mother is at its most potent. The music does unbend a little at the mention of Mary’s motherhood (‘benedictus fructus ventris’), but it soon returns to simplicity, almost starkness,

Notes on the music for the crux of the verse (‘O Mater Dei’). Even the triple-time section at ‘ora pro nobis’ is more of a stately processional than the dance its 3/4 time signature might suggest.

The Advent passage from darkness to light is nowhere more keenly felt than in the antiphon ‘O Oriens’, where Christ is hailed as the Morning Star. Heard already on this disc as part of the complete sequence of ‘O Antiphons’, it now appears in an English setting by James MacMillan – O Radiant Dawn, whose opening phrase makes more than a nod to Tallis’s O Nata Lux, another great anthem of light. Written in the same concise style as all of MacMillan’s Strathclyde Motets (of which this is one), the piece gains impact through vivid word-painting: the repeated invocation ‘come’ builds urgency in a rising sequence of suspensions, while the wandering of the people ‘in darkness’ finds expression in the literally rootless setting for upper voices, suddenly stripped of a bass line.

And the anthem’s construction as a series of discrete phrases reflects the significance of silence in MacMillan’s work, allowing the music ‘to resonate’, as the composer has said, ‘not just in the building, but in the ears and minds of listeners’.

Texts and translations We begin, though, with the words of the Angel Gabriel from St Luke’s Gospel, in setting which Matthew Martin’s Ecce concipies pictures an annunciation of singular urgency, even terror.

A chattering rhythm is set up from a simple rhythmic cell, with the work growing organically outwards from divided soprano and alto parts.

In these clipped quaver patterns we hear surely the beating of wings: a pulsing that dies away as suddenly as it arrives, leaving only wonderment, and the memory of this musical visitation. © 2012 Alexandra Coghlan, (introduction) Simon Jones Alexandra Coghlan is the classical music critic for the New Statesman and formerly Performing Arts Editor at Time Out, Sydney.

She has written on the arts for The Times, The Guardian, Prospect and Gramophone.

The Revd Dr Simon Jones is Chaplain and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.

1 Ecce concipies

Ecce concipies et paries filium.

Hic erit magnus et Filius Altissimi vocabitur.

Alleluia.

Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son.

He shall be great and shall be called the son of the Most High. Alleluia.

Luke 1: 31–32 (adap.)

2 Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming

A Rose e’er blooming, a lovely Rose, From tender root hath sprung: Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming From tender root hath sprung!

Of Jesse’s lineage coming As men of old have sung.

Brought forth a flower bright, Amid the cold of winter, And in the dark midnight.

A Rose e’er blooming, a lovely Rose, Whereof Isaiah told: The Rose, which I am singing, Whereof Isaiah told, Is Mary, purest maiden, Who bears the holy child.

At God’s eternal will, She bore to us a Saviour, Yet stays a virgin still.

O flower, whose fragrance tender With sweetness fills the air, Dispel in glorious splendour The darkness ev’rywhere; True man, yet very God, From sin and death now save us, And share our ev’ry load.

A Rose e’er blooming.

16th-c. (vv. 1 & 2) and 19th-c. (v. 3) German, trans. Theodore Baker (v. 1, adap.), Catherine Winkworth / David Blackwell (v. 2), Harriet R. Spaeth (v. 3)

Texts and translations 3 Rorate caeli desuper

5 Drop down, ye heavens, from above

Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant justum: aperiatur terra, et germinet salvatorem.

Drop down, O heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open and bring forth a Saviour.

Benedixisti, Domine, terram tuam: avertisti captivitatem Jacob.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto: sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper: et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Lord, you were gracious to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Introit for Mass of Our Lady in Advent

Drop down ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people; my salvation shall not tarry.

I have blotted out as a thick cloud, thy transgressions:

From the Advent Prose

Seven Advent Antiphons 7 O Sapientia

4 Advent Antiphon

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviter que disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

I lift my soul to you, I trust you, Lord my God. No one who waits for you will ever be put to shame.

Magnificat Antiphon for 17 December

Vias tuas, Domine, demonstra mihi: et semitas tuas edoce me.

Make me to know your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto.

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Introit for First Sunday of Advent

Fear not, for I will save thee; For I am the Lord thy God, the holy one of Israel, thy redeemer.

Drop down ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other mightily, and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

8 O Adonai

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

Magnificat Antiphon for 18 December

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

Texts and translations 9 O Radix Jesse

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, iam noli tardare.

Magnificat Antiphon for 19 December

12 O Rex Gentium

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples; before you kings will shut their mouths, to you the nations will make their prayer: Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

10 O Clavis David

O Clavis David et sceptrum domus Israel; qui aperis, et nemo claudit, claudis, et nemo aperuit; veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris et umbra mortis.

Magnificat Antiphon for 20 December

Magnificat Antiphon for 21 December

O King of the nations, and their desire, the cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay.

Magnificat Antiphon for 22 December

13 O Emmanuel

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel; you open and no one can shut; you shut and no one can open: Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, exspectatio gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos Domine Deus noster.

O Emmanuel, our King and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

Magnificat Antiphon for 23 December The English translation of the O Antiphons from Common Worship: Daily Prayer is © 2005 The Archbishops’ Council and is reproduced here by kind permission of Church House Publishing.

15 Ecce Virgo concipiet

11 O Oriens

O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol iustitiae: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris et umbra mortis.

O Rex gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.

O Morning Star, splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Ecce Virgo concipiet, et pariet filium: et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel.

Communion at Mass of Our Lady in Advent

Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a son: and His name shall be called Emmanuel.

Biographies

Texts and translations 16 Es ist ein Ros entsprungen

Es ist ein Ros entsprungen aus einer Wurzel zart, als uns die Alten sungen: von Jesse kam die Art und hat ein Blümlein bracht mitten im kalten Winter wohl zu der halben Nacht.

A rose has sprung up From a tender root, As the ancients’ song promised us: It was of Jesse’s lineage, And has brought forth a flower Amid the cold winter, And halfway through the night.

Traditional

17 Ave Maria

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.

Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.

Sancta Maria, Regina caeli, dulcis et pia, O Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, ut cum electis te videamus.

Antiphon of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.

You are blessed among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Queen of Heaven, sweet and good, O Mother of God, pray for us sinners that with the chosen we may see you.

18 O Radiant Dawn

O Radiant Dawn, Splendour of eternal Light, Sun of Justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Isaiah had prophesied, ‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.’

O Radiant Dawn, Splendour of eternal Light, Sun of Justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Amen.

Antiphon for 21 December

Benjamin Nicholas was appointed a Reed Rubin Director of Music at Merton College in 2008, and in September 2012 took up the full-time post of Reed Rubin Organist and Director of Music. From 2000 to 2012 he directed the choir of men and boys at Tewkesbury Abbey, and was largely responsible for the founding of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum when the Abbey School closed in 2006. He took the choir on thirteen overseas tours and made a series of recordings with them on Delphian. He was additionally Director of Choral Music at Dean Close School from 2005 until 2012. In 2011 he succeeded Andrew Carwood as Director of the Schola Cantorum at the Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy and in 2013 becomes Festival Director.

Benjamin Nicholas regularly works with large choral forces, having conducted such works as Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony and Verdi’s Requiem.

Other concert performances include the major choral works of Bach and a number of appearances in the Cheltenham Music Festival.

He has given organ recitals in many major venues in the UK, including St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and York Minster, and in the USA.

Benjamin was a chorister in the Choir of Norwich Cathedral before holding organ scholarships at Lincoln College, Oxford and St Paul’s Cathedral. As an undergraduate he was conductor of The Oxford Chamber Choir, and in 2000 held the post of Director of Music of St Luke’s Church, Chelsea.

Peter Phillips was educated at Winchester College and St John’s College Oxford, where he was Organ Scholar between 1972 and 1975.

He founded the Tallis Scholars in 1973. He taught at the Royal College of Music until 1988, after which he devoted himself to concertgiving and recording. He became Reed Rubin Director of Music at Merton College in 2008.

Peter has written a music column in the Spectator since 1983, and became the publisher of the Musical Times in 1995. He first worked in Merton College Chapel in 1974, since when, along with the Tallis Scholars and the BBC Singers, he has returned to make many broadcasts and recordings.

The Choir of Merton College, Oxford The Choir of Merton College, Oxford was established in its current form in October 2008, when Benjamin Nicholas and Peter Phillips became the Reed Rubin Directors of Music. It consists of 30 undergraduates and postgraduates, many of whom hold choral scholarships at Merton College. The choir has already toured in France (2009, 2010 and 2011) and in the USA (2011), as well as giving numerous concerts in the UK. Recent performances have included Tallis’s Spem in alium in the Beaujolais Festival, Mozart’s Requiem in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris and Orff’s Carmina Burana in the St Jude’s Proms.

The main focus of the choir’s work is the singing of the services in Merton College Chapel where, in addition to Choral Evensong, special services such as the Advent, Christmas and Epiphany Carol Services and the Requiem Mass for All Souls have built up a large following. The ‘Passiontide at Merton’ festival was established in 2010 and provides the choir with a further platform in the College.

The choir’s first broadcast for BBC Radio 3 was from the College Chapel in October 2011, and it has an important recording relationship with Delphian; its debut CD In the Beginning (DCD34072) features music by Gombert, Weelkes, Holst, Copland and Gabriel Jackson, and was named a Gramophone Choice in the December 2011 edition of that magazine.

The College has begun a significant commissioning project in the build-up to the 750th anniversary celebrations in 2014, of which the newly-commissioned antiphons on the present disc form an important part. The Merton Choirbook will stand as one of the most comprehensive collections of liturgical music from the early twenty-first century.

Reed Rubin Organist & Director of Music Benjamin Nicholas Reed Rubin Director of Music Peter Phillips Organ Scholar Anna Steppler

Sopranos Harriet Asquith Katherine Coleman Esther Drabkin-Reiter Anna Graebe Sarah Hewlett Catriona Hull Katie McKeogh Emily Meredith Lucy Pinching Charlotte Robinson Emily Tann Altos Molly Brown Theodora Dickinson Rachel Fright Georgina Hildick-Smith Rosalind Isaacs Jeremy Kenyon Meghan Quinlan

Tenors Timothy Coleman Aidan Hampton Zakiy Manji Domhnall Talbot Christopher Watson Ronald Yip Basses Nicholas Ashby William Bennett John Brazier Jonathan Burr William Gunson Richard Hill Stephen Hyde Fergus McIntosh Robin Price Benjamin Stewart

Also available on Delphian In the Beginning Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas, Peter Phillips DCD34072

Mozart: Coronation Mass, Vespers, Ave verum corpus Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum & Charivari Agréable Benjamin Nicholas director DCD34102

The new Choir of Merton College, Oxford is rapidly emerging as a major force in collegiate choral music. Its debut recording, bookended by Gabriel Jackson’s ravishing version of the rarely set Johannine Prologue and Copland’s glowing account of the first seven days of creation, offers a themed sequence of Renaissance and modern classics that reflects the range and reach of the choir’s daily repertoire – all captured in sumptuous sound in the radiant acoustic of Merton’s famous chapel.

Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum and Charivari Agréable come together for the first time in vividly communicative interpretations of three of Mozart’s sacred masterpieces. The forces are very much as Mozart intended – a period orchestra, an all-male chorus and soloists (including 2009 BBC Chorister of the Year Laurence Kilsby) drawn from the choir.

Under Benjamin Nicholas’s spirited direction these performances bristle with energy and the invigorating freshness of youth.

‘… will undoubtedly establish them as one of the UK’s finest choral ensembles. Listening to their superb performances and seamless blending of voices, it’s hard to believe that the choir is only four years old’ — Gramophone, December 2011

‘The young trebles of Tewkesbury Abbey are a force to be reckoned with.

They sing musically and fearlessly with excellent diction and a mature, warm tone’ — Choir & Organ, September 2011

John Rutter: The Tewkesbury Collection Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum / Benjamin Nicholas

Judith Weir: Choral Music Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge / Geoffrey Webber

DCD34107

DCD34095

For his final recording with the men and boys of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, Benjamin Nicholas has chosen to celebrate Britain’s bestloved living composer, John Rutter. Rather than simply sticking to familiar classics, this programme explores the full range of the composer’s output from The Lord is my shepherd and Lord, thou hast been my refuge to his most recent piece, This is the day, written for the wedding of TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Rutter’s rare communicative gifts are given a special glow by the refulgent acoustic of Tewkesbury Abbey and by the choir’s luminous singing.

This first recording devoted entirely to Judith Weir’s choral music comprises her complete works to date for unaccompanied choir or choir with one instrument. Tracking her evolving relationship with the medium from her earliest liturgical commission to the most recent, premiered in 2009, it also includes several secular pieces and her two organ works, which are now established classics of the repertoire. The athleticism, intensity and clarity that are hallmarks of the choir’s singing are ideally suited to Weir’s strikingly original, approachable and fascinating music.

‘beautifully scented performances from the boys and men […] augmented variously by gorgeous solo contributions on oboe, cello and trumpet, and from organist Carleton Etherington’ — The Scotsman, August 2012

‘Delphian’s recording is ideal, with the resonance never drowning the detail ... The singing of Geoffrey Webber’s choir is faultless’ — The Arts Desk, October 2011

DCD34122