Sir Peter Maxwell Davies: Sacred Choral Works

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Sir Peter Maxwell Davies Sacred Choral Works

Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh Matthew Owens Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis* Three Organ Voluntaries O magnum mysterium

*World premiere recording

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Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (b. 1934) Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Sacred Choral Works Edinburgh Matthew Owens Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis ‘The Edinburgh Service’

O magnum mysterium 6 Carol: O magnum mysterium

World premiere recording

Peter Innes treble

[1:47]

7 Carol: Haylle, comly and clene

[1:24]

8 Sonata I: Puer Natus

[5:11]

9 Carol: O magnum mysterium

[2:04]

10 Carol: Alleluia, pro Virgine Maria

[2:31]

11 Sonata II: Lux fulgebit

[7:34]

12 Carol: The fader of Heven

[2:16]

[3:27]

13 Carol: O magnum mysterium

[2:12]

[2:14]

14 Organ Fantasia on

1 Magnificat Rosha Fitzhowle treble

[14:14]

2 Nunc Dimittis Rosha Fitzhowle treble; Andrew Stones alto; Ashley Turnell tenor; Ben Carter bass

[8:27]

Three Organ Voluntaries 3 Psalm 124 (after David Peebles) 4 O God Abufe (after John Fethy) 5 All Sons of Adam (after an anon. sixteenth-century motet)

‘O magnum mysterium’

[15:24]

Total Playing Time:

[71:22]

[2:34]

Michael Bonaventure solo organ (tracks 3-5, 14) Simon Nieminski organ accompaniment (tracks 1 & 2) RSAMD Ensemble (tracks 10 & 12)

Producer: Paul Baxter Engineer: Adam Binks 24-Bit digital editing: Adam Binks 24-Bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter

Design: Margareta Jönsson Photography: Gary Baker (www.gbphotography.com) Cover image: Madonna of the Veil, Noel White

Publishers: Schott (Three Organ Voluntaries, Chester Music) Organ Scholar: Ruaraidh Sutherland Console Assistant: Thomas Spencer

With thanks to The University of Edinburgh and the Capital Commissions Scheme of St Mary’s Cathedral.

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Notes on the music Perhaps great religion has this in common with great art: it is not there primarily to offer comfort, but, pace King Lear, to make manifest ‘the mystery of things’.

Peter Maxwell Davies, Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture, April 2005 Could this insight come from the same mind as the operatic vision of a stuffed dummy which is transformed into the Antichrist?

Only through a volte-face or renunciation, you might think. Yet the overtly religious music on this disc and the angry, anti-clerical, anti-establishment succes de scandale that is Resurrection1 sprang from the same creative mind, and it is entirely characteristic of the music and ideas of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies that such passionate convictions do not preclude thoughtful and complex attitudes.

Max – as he is known – is no conventional believer, but at the same time is too sensitive to the universal and unifying potential of Christian thought, architecture, iconography and (of course) music not to contribute to the riches that its tradition continues to offer; these three groups of works show how he has done that over the course of 40 years and more.

1 Resurrection, an opera in one act with a prologue was composed by Maxwell Davies between 1986 and 1987.

In 1959 Max returned to England following eighteen months of study with the Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi in Rome. His grant was up and he needed a job.

Cirencester Grammar School was looking to recruit a music teacher and they engaged the 25 -year-old composer, undoubtedly without realising what they had let themselves in for.

Max felt that a rich musical education could not be had through the individual disciplines of listening, analysing, or even simply playing, but through a broader context of musicmaking. Ensembles and orchestras flourished within the school and the children were given a grounding in musical grammar and syntax to facilitate the formulation of their ideas just as they might in an English lesson.

It is difficult to appreciate what a radical policy this was, given that ‘outreach’ and ‘self-expression’ are words that are regularly heard in today’s educational environment.

The three years that Max spent at Cirencester had far-reaching and positive consequences for the teaching of music, not just in the UK but across Europe; the acclaimed ‘Zukunft’ project spearheaded by Sir Simon Rattle and Richard McNicol in Berlin – where schoolchildren have been taught to enjoy, study and dance to The Rite of Spring – is one of the brightest flowers to bloom from the rootstock that Max set down in Cirencester.

O magnum mysterium evolved as a vehicle to challenge and enhance the growing musical expertise and confidence of his pupils and received its first performance during Max’s second Christmas in Cirencester, in 1960. Its theme is the awe and wonder mingled, with terror, that the Christmas story tells and inspires. Its musical germ is heard in the interval of a semitone followed by a tone that opens the ancient plainsong text of the title.

This exposition precedes a medieval-style sequence of carols and instrumental interludes, each of which adds another layer of meaning to both the musical and the textual narrative.

Haylle, comly and clene focuses on the humanity in the Christ child; the voices hocket back and forth conveying much merriment, with frequent changes of time signature imitating the rhythmic variety and irregular accents of a medieval carol.

What sounds like chromatic colouring in the carols is actually the dialectic between serialism and plainsong-influenced modal melody that has become the most distinctive and enduring feature of Max’s musical language. The instrumental sonatas, on the other hand, more evidently owe their economical counterpoint to the example of Webern. Far more influential in death than he had been in life, Webern was a musical father figure to the Italian serialists from whom Max had learned (not just Petrassi but also Luigi

Nono, in works such as Polifonica – monodia – ritmica of 1951, and others). Europe’s new generation of composers saw in Webern’s music a means of imparting the intensity of expression that they desired whilst leaving behind the Romantic musical language that had become unfashionable amongst them.

The Puer Natus sonata parses the O magnum mysterium melody through refraction and fragmentation, suggesting a limitless reach to the power of the melody and, by extension, to that of the Nativity. Lux fulgebit reflects that power in a series of accumulating crescendos.

The six percussion players are instructed to improvise within the time-frame of each crescendo, generating a fresh intensity with each performance.

There is a marked change in style in the move from the lively and approachable carols to the slower progress of the Fantasia which crowns the sequence. Max’s sleeve notes for the first recording of O magnum mysterium describe the carols and the sonatas as a ‘huge upbeat’ to the point where children (the choir) cede to an adult (the organist) in a more sophisticated exploration of the Christmas mystery. For all its Schoenbergian density of harmony, the Fantasia can be listened to with a Lisztian, nineteenth-century understanding of the genre: each section increases in speed and virtuosity and introduces ever more allusive digressions from its basic, plainsong subject matter.

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Notes on the music The semitone and tone intervals of the opening have augmented to sevenths and ninths, but the leaps are key to the character of the recurrent theme; movement of energy from heaven to earth and back again.

As a teenager Max absorbed the plainsong material that was to influence his later ideas from volume after volume of then rarely-heard scores in Manchester’s Henry Watson Library.

His music then concurred with the spirit of the age in bypassing the two hundred years of Western music commonly referred to as ‘classical music’ in turn seeking inspiration from the work of earlier composers. In 1974, newly preoccupied with things Scottish in the wake of his famous move to the Orkneys, he was inspired by Kenneth Elliott’s collection of Early Scottish Music, 1500-1750 to compose three organ voluntaries. None is virtuosic, and all retain the restrained counterpoint of their models while making full use of the potential weight of the instrument.

The first voluntary is based on a four-part setting of Psalm 124 (Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth) by David Peebles (c.1530 -1579), a canon of the Augustinian Priory of St Andrews. Max translates this into a steady and tightly wrought two-part canon over which flutes dance around concordance, embroidering the plain plaid of the lower parts. No. 2 is named

O God Abufe after a partsong by another Scottish priest composer from the same era, Sir John Fethy. The partsong inspires a different kind of rhythmical game, with a ground bass and an ostinato middle part over which an unhurried melody of ‘regal’ character unfolds. The third voluntary may sound more complex, but it is derived from two ascending lines which intertwine like an early-Renaissance canon – and indeed it is entitled All Sons of Adam after an anonymous sixteenthcentury motet.

Max continued to write music on religious themes throughout the eighties and nineties, but it was not until the end of the nineties that, for various reasons, he started in earnest to compose religious music – that is, for use within liturgy. While it is hard to imagine Max writing a Mass for church performance in the 1960s, it is equally difficult to imagine anyone commissioning him to do so. Times have changed, however. As Max has become an unofficial elder statesman among British composers, and more recently Master of the Queen’s Music, his music has struck a productive truce with the established church against which it used to rail so vehemently.

The Edinburgh Service demonstrates that Max, like Vaughan Williams before him, does not have to be a conventional Christian to make a lasting contribution to the riches of the Anglican musical heritage.

These are the first canticles Max has written for Anglican Evensong. They were commissioned

by Matthew Owens and the Choir of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh – who are also the dedicatees – under the auspices of the Cathedral’s Capital Commissions Scheme.2 It is striking to note how Max satisfies the conventions of the genre while remaining true to his own lights; this is commonly observed throughout Max’s output. There are neither attention-grabbing subventions nor any impossible demands; rather – as in the finest canticle settings – Max has responded directly to their poetry. This is not to say that there are no striking inspirations. After the strong, rolling 3/4 opening of the Magnificat, the organ creates a breathtaking effect, like angels walking on tiptoes, with a series of chords marked staccato, luminoso, beneath ‘For he hath regarded’.

The preponderance of Andante tempo markings and the frequent opportunities taken to dwell on the more meditative aspects of the text reveal Max to be more interested in the peace of Mary’s divine vision than in its justice-dealing parts. The hushed awe of ‘For He that is mighty’ shows that even now there remains room for a fresh and engaging response to this most time-honoured of sacred texts, and there 2 The Capital Commissions Scheme, founded by Matthew Owens in 2001, invites members of the community to patronise financially its commissioning activities, which included liturgical works from composers such as Gavin Bryars, Arvo Pärt and Howard Skempton.

is a characteristic lack of thunder to both settings of the ‘Gloria’, which after brief flares withdraw into extended, quiet contemplation, eventually settling on resolution.

The Nunc Dimittis opens in the major key that was found so tentatively at the end of the ‘Gloria’ of the Magnificat, and brings some of the most openly ravishing music for choir that Max has written hitherto. A long organ solo, in the rising and falling arch that shapes much of the work, dwells on the Scotch snap rhythm, and introduces another happy marriage of convention and innovation. A bass solo plays the part of Simeon longing for rest, and as he glimpses the salvation promised to him, the choral texture opens out into eight parts, with a solo on each line, to create a striking evocation of heavenly peace, before a brighter and louder vision of light and glory sweep it away. In the same lecture quoted at the head of this note, Max discussed ‘the increasing distance between composer, performer and audience’, but a salutary common denominator between the two choral works on this disc is the sureness of touch with which they narrow that gap. © 2006 Peter Quantrill Peter Quantrill is a freelance music journalist with special interests in Bach, historic performers and new music. He is a frequent contributor to The Gramophone, Choir and Organ and www.maxopus.com.

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Photographs taken during the composer’s visit to the Cathedral during the 2004 Edinburgh Festival, when the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis were first broadcast.

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Texts and translations 1 Magnificat

My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded: the lowliness of his hand-maiden.

For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is his Name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him: throughout all generations.

He hath shewed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel: as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever.

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

Amen

St Luke Ch 1 vv 46-55

2 Nunc Dimittis

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen: thy salvation.

Which thou hast prepared: before the face of all people.

To be a light to lighten the gentiles: and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

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

St Luke Ch 2 vv 29-32

6, 9 & 13

O magnum mysterium O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum,ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio.

Oh, great mystery, and marvellous sacrament, that the beasts should have seen our Lord lying in a manger!

7 Haylle, comly and clene

Haylle, comly and clene: haylle, yong child!

Haylle maker, as I meyne of a madyn so mylde.

Thou was waryd, I weyne, the warlo so wylde, The fals gyler of teyn, now goys he begylde.

Lo! he merys!

Lo! he laghys, my swetyng.

A welfare metyng, I have holden my hetyng, Have a bob of cherys.

Hail, comely and pure; hail, young child!

Hail, creator, as I believe, of a maiden so mild!

Thou hast, I believe, warded off the fiend so wild; The false worker of evil, now he is defeated.

Lo, he is merry!

Lo, he laughs, my sweetheart, A welcome meeting!

I have given my greeting.

Have a bunch of cherries?

Haylle, sufferan savyoure, for thou hast us soght: Haylle, freely foyde and floure, that alle thyng has wroght.

Haylle, fulle of favoure, that made alle of noght!

Haylle! I kneylle and I cowre. A byrd have I broght to my barne.

Haylle! lyttylle tyne mop.

Of oure crede thou art crop: I wold drynk on thy cop, lyttylle daystarne.

Hail, sovereign saviour, for thou hast sought us!

All hail, leaf and flower, who has created all things!

Hail, full of grace, who createdst everything out of nothing!

Hail! I kneel and I cower. A bird have I brought To my bairn!

Hail, little tiny pate, Of our creed thou art the crop!

I would drink of thy cup!

Little day-star.

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Texts and translations Haylle, derlyng dere, fulle of godhede, I pray the be nere when I have nede.

Haylle! swete is thy chere: my hart would blede To se the sytt here in so poore wede With no pennys.

Haylle! put furthe thy dalle, I bryng the bot a balle: Have and play the with alle.

And go to the tenys.

Hail, darling dear, full of divinity!

I pray thee, be near when I have need.

Hail! Sweet is thy air: my heart would bleed To see thee sit here in such poor clothes, With no pennies.

Hail! put forth thy hand!

I bring thee only a ball.

Take it and play with it, And have a game of tennis.

12 The Fader of Heven

Alleluia, alleluia, pro virgine Maria,

Alleluia, alleluia for the Virgin Mary.

Diva natalicia Nostra purgat vicia, Nedemur supplicia.

The holy birth purges our sins Lest we be given to torment.

Nato sacrificia Reges dant triplicia, Herodis post convicia

The kings give triple offerings to the babe After the reproaches of Herod.

Mortis vincla trucia Solvit die tercia, Resurgentis potencia.

On the third day the power of the risen Christ Loosed the grim bonds of death.

10 Alleluia, pro Virgine Maria

The fader of heven, God omnypotent, That sett alle on seven, his son has he sent: My name couthe he neven, and lyght or he went.

The Father of Heaven, God omnipotent, Who set all things in order, His son has He sent.

My name he could tell, and he laughed as if he knew all about it.

I conceyvd hym full even thrugh myght as he ment.

And now he is borne.

I conceived him, through God’s power, just as He intended, And he is just new-born.

He kepe you fro wo: I shalle pray him so; Telle furth as ye go, And myn on this morne.

May he keep you from woe: I shall pray him so; Make his birth known, And remember this morning.

Translations by Leslie Sherwood

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The Choir of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh Treble Alto Keiran Baker Robert Colquhoun Sophie Boyd Simon Rendell Andrew Bull Daniel Saleeb Katherine Carr Andrew Stones Alexander Fitzhowle Wayne Weaver Rosha Fitzhowle (Head Chorister, Cantoris) James Hardie Tenor Calum Heath Alex Cadden Peter Innes (Head Martin Hurst Chorister, Decani) Ashley Turnell Adam Lagha Aonghas Maxwell Alexander McCleery Bass Gordon Robertson Ben Carter Ben Robinson Colin Heggie Caitlin Spencer Daniel Ross Jennifer Sterling Peter Smith (Deputy Head Jamieson Sutherland Chorister)

The Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the BT Scottish Ensemble, The Royal College of Music and the Dunedin Consort. The choir tours extensively; in recent years it has been to Hungary, Norway and Ireland. It also plays a major part in the Edinburgh Festival.

The Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, is regarded as one of the UK’s finest cathedral choirs. It is unique in Scotland in maintaining a daily choral tradition and singing over 250 services every year. The choristers are educated at St Mary’s Music School, which acts as the choir school for the cathedral, again unique in Scotland. St Mary’s Cathedral became the first in the UK to offer girls scholarships to sing with the boys as trebles in 1978. The lay clerks of the choir consist of undergraduate choral scholars reading a diverse range of subjects at The University of Edinburgh, alongside more experienced singers.

The choir broadcasts frequently on BBC Radios 3 & 4, and on television, and has a made a number of highly acclaimed recordings on the Blackbox, Delphian, Herald and Lammas labels. It has a busy schedule of concerts and has worked recently with

An innovation in 2005 has again placed Edinburgh at the forefront of sacred choral music with the commencement of The Bach Cantata Project under the presidency of Sir John Eliot Gardiner: a Bach Cantata is performed on the first Sunday of every month – incorporated within and forming a devotional part of the liturgy. This often involves the Orchestra of St Mary’s Music School which frequently performs other major works within services such as Viennese masses and Fauré’s Requiem each Remembrance Sunday.

Many leading composers have written for the choir. Under Matthew Owens it premiered works by Richard Allain, Gavin Bryars, Dave Heath, Francis Jackson, Gabriel Jackson, James MacMillan, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Arvo Pärt, Howard Skempton, Philip Wilby and Hungarian composer János Vajda, among others.

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RSAMD Ensamble

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

The players were drawn from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Scotland’s International Academy: http://www.rsamd.ac.uk/

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is universally acknowledged as one of the foremost composers of our time. He lives in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland where he writes most of his music. He has written across the widest gamut of musical genre, and in many styles. The power to communicate forcefully and directly with his audiences manifests itself whether it be in his profoundly argued symphonic works, whether it be in the delightful music-theatre works written to be performed by non-specialist children or whether it be in his sometimes outrageous witty light orchestral works.

Flute Jessica Quiñones Oboe Kenny Sturgeon Clarinet Gemma Carlin Bassoon Victoria Scott Horn Sarah Maxwell Viola Ronan Watson Cello Jamie Barclay Percussion June Binnie Kenny Carlyle Chris Edwards Phil Hague Nicola Miles James Swan

As the critic in the Wiener Zeitung wrote following a concert of all Maxwell Davies works at the Musikverein in Vienna “A great and significant occasion on the Vienna concert scene and the public took full advantage of it: the Musikverein was almost fully booked and scarcely anyone left in the interval. I know of no other living composer who could bring that off with a programme consisting entirely of his own works”.

His major theatrical works include the operas Taverner, Resurrection, The Lighthouse and The Doctor of Myddfai; the full-length ballets Salome and Caroline Mathilde, and the music-theatre works Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss

Donnithorne’s Maggot. His huge output of orchestral works include fourteen concertos, several light orchestral works, including An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise and Mavis in Las Vegas five large-scale works for chorus, including the oratorio Job and eight symphonies, hailed by The Times as being “the most important symphonic cycle since Shostakovich”.

Maxwell Davies is also active as a conductor and has recently finished ten years as Conductor/Composer of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, the Composer/Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, and is the Composer Laureate of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He guestconducts orchestras both in Europe and in the United States including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Russian National Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Philharmonia.

Maxwell Davies is now concentrating his compositional efforts on chamber music, and future commissions include the cycle of ten string quartets commissioned by the CD company Naxos, which are being launched and performed in entirety at the Wigmore Hall in London by the Maggini Quartet over a period of five years.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music in March 2004.

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Matthew Owens Matthew Owens (Conductor) was appointed Organist and Master of the Music at St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, in 1999; a post which he held until the age of 33 when he became Organist and Master of the Choristers of Wells Cathedral in January 2005. He is also Conductor of The Exon Singers, one of the UK’s leading chamber choirs, and the Wells Cathedral Oratorio Society.

Born in Manchester, he studied at Chetham’s School of Music and was subsequently Organ Scholar at The Queen’s College, Oxford. As a postgraduate he received the highest award for performance, the Professional Performance Diploma, with distinction, and the college Bach prize at the Royal Northern College of Music; gained a Master’s Degree from the University of Manchester; won thirteen prizes in the diplomas of the Royal College of Organists and was awarded the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. He then studied at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam and was appointed Sub Organist of Manchester Cathedral in 1996. His major organ studies were with Gordon Stewart, David Sanger, Margaret Phillips and Jacques van Oortmerssen. From 1994 - 99, he was

Michael Bonaventure and Simon Nieminski Tutor in Organ Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music and Chetham’s and worked for BBC Religious Broadcasting.

Matthew worked extensively with Michael Brewer as Assistant Conductor of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain from 1993 -1999; he has also conducted the BT Scottish Ensemble, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Ludus Baroque Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St Mary’s Music School and the Sarum Orchestra. With the Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, he made ten recordings, which met with considerable critical acclaim.

Matthew has given recitals in France, Ireland, Switzerland and throughout the UK, including festival appearances at Carlisle, Lichfield, Newbury, Oxford and Peterborough and at venues such as St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Cathedral and St John’s Smith Square. As a conductor and solo organist he has premiered many works by leading composers including Richard Allain, Gavin Bryars, Dave Heath, Francis Jackson, Gabriel Jackson, Naji Hakim, George Lloyd, James MacMillan, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Arvo Pärt, Howard Skempton and Giles Swayne. He is increasingly active as a composer and some of his works have been recorded for commercial release and broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Michael Bonaventure, born 1962 in Edinburgh, UK, was an organ pupil of Herrick Bunney and a composition student of Judith Weir. An indefatigable exponent of new music, he has to date premiered over fifty new works for the organ by composers including Judith Weir, Avril Anderson, David SuttonAnderson, Lyell Cresswell, Edward McGuire, Geoffrey King, James MacMillan, Laurence Crane, Ian McQueen, Paul Patterson, Yumi Hara Cawkwell, Gabriel Jackson, Jean-Pierre Leguay, Tommy Fowler, Ornette D. Clennon and James Douglas. Several of these works involved the organ with other forces.

He has twice given recitals in Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, at the invitation of JeanPierre Leguay, several of whose organ works he has performed and broadcast for the first time in this country.

From 1980 -1997 he appeared regularly as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, presenting new works and unusual repertoire for the organ, and he was twice presented in recital by ECAT (Edinburgh Contemporary Arts Trust) at St Giles’ Cathedral: these performances included a critically-acclaimed rendering of Messiaen’s "Livre d’Orgue" in 1994 and a joint recital with Jean-Pierre Leguay in 1996. In addition to this, he has performed throughout the UK, including regularly in all of London’s major City churches and Cathedrals, and in recital trips to Sweden, France and the USA; he has also broadcast programmes of contemporary music on BBC Radio 3, Radio Scotland and Swedish Radio.

Simon Nieminski Simon Nieminski was Organ Scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge and York Minster, before holding assistantships at Dundee Cathedral, The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great in London and St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh. He has recorded a number of discs as an accompanist and soloist, the most recent of which features transcriptions of works inspired by Shakespeare. Simon was appointed Organist and Master of the Music at St Mary’s in January 2005.

His first solo CD entitled 2000 NAILS, showcasing contemporary British organ works, was released by Delphian Records in 2005 (DCD34013).

He is currently based in south London, where he is Organist of All Saints Church, Blackheath. Also active as a composer, he has produced works for organ, piano, voices & electronics, and is currently at work on a new piece for the contemporary music ensemble Sounds Positive.

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More new music on Delphian

St Mary’s on Delphian

2000 Nails: contemporary works for solo organ Michael Bonaventure, Organ World premiere recordings DCD34013

Gabriel Jackson: Sacred Choral Works Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh; Matthew Owens Susan Hamilton, Soprano, Michael Bonaventure, Organ DCD34027

Bonaventure’s longstanding position as proponent of new music for the organ is recognised here, on disc, for the first time. Composers featured are Avril Anderson, Lyell Cresswell, Eddie McGuire, Ian McQueen, Peter Nelson, Judith Weir and Bonaventure himself.

The culmination of a four-year association between the Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral and British Composer Award winner Gabriel Jackson, this disc presents eight world premiere recordings. Whether gentle and meditative, brilliantly exuberant, or soaring in ecstatic contemplation, Jackson’s vividly communicative music is brought thrillingly to life by a choir at the peak of its powers.

‘This fine player has commissioned more than 50 works in 25 years.

Here are eight of them, recorded on the organ of Edinburgh University’s McEwan Hall – at once meditative and turbulent.’

– The Sunday Times, May 2005

Richard Allain: When I’m Gone John Harle, Soprano saxophone National Youth Choir of Great Britain Laudibus Mike Brewer, Conductor DCD34026 Allain has developed a unique musical dialect malleable enough to cover the gamut of liturgical purposes represented on this disc.

Whether refracted through the facets of spiritual, carol, motet or Mass setting, his is a music that can only be added to the list of languages from which we should all take inspiration. ’One of the hits of the week for me … startlingly impressive.’

– BBC Radio 3 CD Review, July 2004

‘Owens has trained this choir to an exceptionally high level and the sound can only be described as luxurious.’

– Gramophone, December 2005

Ascension Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh; Matthew Owens DCD34017 The powerful imagery of the Ascension has been a potent inspiration to generations of composers. This recording presents a Choral Evensong of contemporary works associated with St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, leading up to Messiaen’s meditative organ work L’Ascension. The disc features premiere recordings of works by James MacMillan and Richard Allain.

‘A shining service of contemporary works … The choir sings withtremendous fervour, clarity, and power’ – Gramophone, February 2004

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Madonna of the Veil The image on the cover of this disc was painted by artist Noel White, whose works were exhibited in St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, 2004. The artist first drew the outlines for a Madonna from a three-inch stained glass fragment from the early fourteenth-century that had lain hidden since the violence of the Reformation. White sought to represent the dangers that beset modern culture, pay homage to individuals of worth and dignity from the passing century, and represent the effort and sacrifice of two world wars.

Here lies the need for Mary and for the renewal of her image. Her hands knew the feel of our growing bodies and her touch remembers all.

She is the mother at Gogotha.

The accompanying emblems of the veil tell a story of the interweaving associations White means to depict: soldiers from different eras; the drama unfolding from Satan’s perspective; figures from the London Blitz; firefighters, and representatives of today’s modern family arching over the skies above a parish church.

The veil is a symbol of protection: full light should fall neither on the wearer nor on us who perceive her.

Our feeling for the figure of Mary is close to our feeling for the living Earth. Our lives are stitches in the crochet of her veil, our stories patterns in an

unending fabric softly folded about her. The title ‘Mother of God’ given to Mary stretches human understanding, pushing the mind to the limit of its power. How strange this should be so when mental capacity can explore space or threaten the existence of the world. How strange that a picture should have anything to say at all when everything seems to have been said and done. The strange thing indeed is that if you turn to the Madonna tradition, you find yourself a beginner, but not alone.

Born in London in 1939, Noel White studied at Weston-super-Mare School of Art under Warren Storey, the West-of-England College of Art and Aarhus University, Denmark.

Living in London in his early twenties, he met the painter and poet David Jones and was profoundly moved by his ideas. It was, however, his meetings with the Danish artist Maar Julius Lange that seemed finally to unite him with the task of painting for life.

He has exhibited in the UK and in Europe as far as Volgograd and in Israel. He taught part-time at the Central School of Art and Design, the University of Aarhus and at Maidstone College of Art and today lives in East Sussex.

Recorded on 11, 12 October and 17 December 2004 (choir), 20 December 2004 (solo organ) and 23 November, 2004 (instrumental ensemble) in St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, by kind permission of the Provost. This recording was made possible with help from the Friends of St Mary’s Music Society.

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