Ian Venables: Requiem | Howells: anthems for choir & orchestra

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CHOIR OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD OXFORD CONTEMPORARY SINFONIA BENJAMIN NICHOLAS

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O pray for the peace of Jerusalem**

[6:54]

Herbert Howells

Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks**

[6:27]

orchestrated Howard Eckdahl

Eppie Sharp soprano

Herbert Howells

The House of the Mind**

Ian Venables (b. 1955)

Requiem, Op. 48**

Herbert Howells (1892–1983) orchestrated Jonathan Clinch

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CHOIR OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD OXFORD CONTEMPOR ARY SINFONIA Benjamin Nicholas conductor, solo organ

[9:14]

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I. Introit (Requiem aeternam)

[5:37]

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II. Kyrie

[3:20]

Aine Smith soprano, LucyAnne Fletcher alto 6

III. Offertorium

[6:13]

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IV. Pie Jesu

[3:17]

Aine Smith soprano 8

V. Sanctus

[4:32]

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VI. Agnus Dei

[3:13]

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VII. Libera me

[8:11]

Edmund Saddington bass

VIII. Lux aeterna

[4:40]

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Ian Venables

God be merciful, Op. 51*

[6:24]

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Ian Venables

Rhapsody ‘In memoriam Herbert Howells’, Op. 25 for solo organ

[9:19]

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Sponsored by The Morris-Venables Charitable Foundation God be merciful, Op. 51 was commissioned by Gary Morris in 2020 to celebrate Robert Venables Q.C. being elected to an Honorary Fellowship of St Edmund Hall, Oxford Recorded on 27-29 June 2021 in the Chapel of Merton College, Oxford Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter 24-bit digital editing: Jack Davis 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Design: John Christ

Booklet editor: Henry Howard Cover: Philip Wilson Steer (1860–1942), Painswick Beacon 1915. Photo: Tate Session photography: Matthew Johnson Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.com

@ delphianrecords @ delphianrecords @ delphian_records

Total playing time * premiere recording ** premiere recordings in their orchestral versions

[77:30]

Notes on the music Herbert Howells saw himself in a long tradition of English composers who found their initial love of both music and language within the Anglican church, and in writing for that church he was continuing the work of his own composition teacher, Sir Charles Stanford.

Howells often said that Stanford taught him two things: poetry and music. In reality, he was a passionate autodidact from a much younger age and his exposure to the ‘immemorial prose’ of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible at his local parish church in Lydney, Gloucestershire, along with his close friendship with the poet-composer Ivor Gurney, led to a lifelong passion for setting words to music in a variety of forms. He loved to recite poetry aloud to his students and one can imagine him, like an actor, exploring all the different ways in which a single line might be interpreted. Many have pointed to Howells’ period during the Second World War as acting choirmaster at St John’s College in Cambridge (from October 1941), and the influence of the Dean of King’s College, Eric Milner-White, who encouraged him to write the celebrated ‘Collegium Regale’ Te Deum. However, it was really in the years before this that Howells forged a unique style with Hymnus Paradisi and the Four Anthems, which formed the basis for his musical language for the rest of his career.

The sudden death of his nine-year-old son Michael in 1935 was the defining tragedy of his

life, but the depth, pathos and sophistication of the writing in his 1932 Requiem shows that Howells had already been drawn to writing church music and developing a highly original style. After Michael’s death, Howells reworked the unaccompanied Requiem into Hymnus Paradisi for soloists, chorus and orchestra, sketching the majority of his masterpiece in the late thirties, but not orchestrating it until a decade later. His daughter Ursula commented that the family ‘lived in church’ after her brother’s death and Howells spent days inside the church at Twigworth (where Michael was buried), eventually having to be physically dragged away by friends. This was a highly traumatic period for the family, and this was compounded by the additional anxiety of the Second World War. In September 1940 disaster struck once again when an aerial bomb destroyed their London home in Barnes.

Fortunately, the family were away at the time, but this further attack on domestic life, and the resulting sense of his own mortality, had a profound effect on the composer.

In the wake of all these tensions, Howells began a frenzied period of composition in the New Year of 1941 when heavy snow prolonged a stay with his in-laws in Cheltenham. At the heart of this were the anthems which he initially called In Time of War, later amending it to Four Anthems on the realisation that they represented emotions that were always

present in life. Today the lush modal harmonies and smooth melodic lines of the two most celebrated of these, O pray for the peace of Jerusalem and Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks, may strike us as masterpieces in a very English form of understatement, but in their original context they form part of a set of anthems which concentrate on fear, pain, violence, vengeance and retribution.

The dramatic setting of verses from Psalm 44 in We have heard with our ears (the second anthem) and Psalm 68 in Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered (the fourth) are amongst Howells’ most angry music. In contrast, the first and third anthems, O pray for the peace of Jerusalem and Like as the hart (setting Psalm 122, verses 6–7, and Psalm 42, verses 1–3), are significantly more reserved and only hint at an underlying devastation; however, this sense of unease is always there.

Both O pray for the peace and Like as the hart use a simple ABA structure to form an arch where the return of the opening melody is gently intensified in the final section, whilst at the same time drawing out their tranquil endings to fade into silence, leaving an indelible impression of calm. It is this elongation of time, with slow tempos, long melodic lines, expressive melismas and the near constant use of gentle dissonance in the accompaniment which give these anthems their hypnotic quality of ‘quiet intensity’.

Howells wrote at considerable speed and both anthems were completed in single sittings.

In Like as a hart the chromatic dissonance on ‘desireth’ is often commented upon as a blueslike moment, but Howells detested all forms of popular music (taking particular aim at jazz in some radio talks around this time), and the dissonance here really comes from his love of false relations in English renaissance music, where a clash is formed between two different voice parts which have the same note in close succession, but with different accidentals.

Howells uses this device in the second bar of the organ introduction as well. Overall, it establishes this immediate mood of unease; of the need for God in the face of suffering. In the context of his own personal struggles, the whole anthem can be heard as a cry for faith from a man who always stated privately that he didn’t believe in God, but was now desperate for the catharsis that faith might provide. Some have suggested that the solo voice in the final section could represent Michael, soaring above. Ultimately, the anthem only asks questions, but the richness of his setting of the final words, ‘the presence of God’, is enough to suggest emotional resolution. O pray for the peace has a similar protracted intensity which is developed into a sense of ecstatic warmth when Howells moves to the major mode for ‘Peace be within thy walls’, building through repetition into a brief ecstatic climax at the thought of ‘plenteousness’. In Howells’ own

Notes on the music orchestral writing, Christopher Palmer likened the effect of his string accompaniments to the use of back-lighting on beautiful stainedglass windows, illuminating and intensifying the overall experience. The arrangement of ‘Like as the hart’ is by the American scholar Howard Eckdahl, who focused on being ‘as true as possible’ to the original organ part and, in doing so, to ‘yield a new clarity’ on Howells’ ‘masterful and personal style’. In contrast, O pray for the peace was freely arranged by the present author for solo viola, string quartet, string orchestra and organ, taking inspiration from Howells’own scoring in the Elegy for solo viola, string quartet, and string orchestra (1917), and The House of the Mind.

This later anthem, dating from 1954, is a setting of words by the seventeenth-century English cleric, Joseph Beaumont, imploring the reader to look inward for the presence of God. For Howells, this focus on the inner self triggers a quiet state of ecstasy, reminiscent of the Coronation anthem Behold, O God our Defender (1952), but which reaches new levels of harmonic richness in the six-part writing towards the end of the first verse: ‘There alone dwells solid rest’. The year 1954 saw, perhaps, Howells’ greatest achievement in the vast choral symphony that is the Missa Sabrinensis, and although this anthem is its antithesis in scale and interiority, it nevertheless manages to distil a similar sense of restless

intensity. The anthem was written for the Incorporated Society of Musicians who were dedicating a new memorial chapel and book of remembrance at the London city church of St Sepulchre. Howells scored the anthem for choir, organ and string orchestra, but made an organ and choir reduction at the request of the publisher, by which the piece is mostly known.

This is the first recording of all three orchestral versions of these Howells anthems. © 2022 Jonathan Clinch Jonathan Clinch is Lecturer in Academic Studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London. He has worked extensively on the music of Herbert Howells, including a completion of the Cello Concerto (2014) and an edition of his piano works (2021).

When the fifteenth-century Franco-Flemish composer Johannes Ockeghem began writing his polyphonic setting of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass, the Missa pro defunctis, little could he have known that nearly 600 years later, composers would still be using that liturgical form to express thoughts and feelings on the ineffable nature of existence.

Ian Venables’ Requiem, Op. 48 came about as the result of a commission from Bryce and Cynthia Somerville in memory of their parents, Thomas and Doreen, and was written especially for Adrian Partington and the Choir of Gloucester Cathedral, who gave the first liturgical performance in 2018. The orchestration, made for this recording, was commissioned by Patrick and Kate Aydon.

Venables studied composition with Richard Arnell at Trinity College of Music, London and later with John Joubert, Andrew Downes and John Mayer at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Described as ‘Britain’s greatest living composer of art song’ (Musical Opinion) and ‘a song composer as fine as Finzi and Gurney’ (BBC Music Magazine), he has written over 70 works in this genre, including eight song cycles. Beyond the world of art song he has written many chamber works that include a Piano Quintet, Op. 27 and a String Quartet, Op.32, as well as smaller pieces for solo instruments and piano. The Requiem is

his largest choral work to date, and critics have seen in it a confirmation of this composer’s distinctive voice, building on the pastoral traditions exemplified by Herbert Howells, but modern and original, while still melodic.

Two significant ideas in the Introit, one melodic (in the strings), the other more motivic (for the choir), reappear at seminal points throughout the whole work. At ‘et lux perpetua’ the music builds in rhythmic and harmonic intensity, leading to ‘et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem’ where the prevailing contrapuntal texture is now replaced by emphatic choral homophony.

True uplift is achieved at the climax (‘Exaudi orationem meam’), after which the opening music returns, only this time supported by mournful strings.

A sustained chord links to the Kyrie. Here, the tripartite structure has allowed the composer to flank a dramatic and uplifting setting of ‘Christe eleison’ with two plaintive statements of the ‘Kyries’ – the first for sopranos, the second for soprano and alto solos.

The Offertorium – described in The Organ as ‘quite simply, a masterpiece of setting and of vocal writing’ – consists of several short sections. Joyous monody on ‘O Domine, Jesu Christe’ is then taken up by full choir.

Chromatic intrusions at ‘libera animas’ create a more anguished state, building to a dramatic

Notes on the music outburst on ‘de profundo lacu, de ore leonis’, where a savage false relation shatters any sense of spiritual calm. After a reflective instrumental interlude, dramatic ‘Hostias’ are intoned, followed by an implacable, slow march-like figure in 6/4 (‘hodie memoriam facimus’). The opening music returns, crowned by an expressive fourfold Amen.

subsides into a ruminative passage, where buoyant thirds are passed between altos and sopranos. A breathtaking modulation heralds a return to the ‘Agnus Dei’ chant, this time heard against a melodic fragment from the Introit. The coda ends the movement in the sombre tones of B flat minor.

In the luminescent world of the Sanctus we hear music of great charm and tranquility.

A gently oscillating organ accompaniment is supported by a melody of childlike innocence which is then taken up by upper voices (‘Sanctus, Dominus’). This mood is sustained until the central section, where full choir and orchestra join together in rapt exaltation on ‘Hosanna in excelsis’. The sudden reappearance of the opening material leads to a sumptuous climax and a return to the hushed tones in which the movement began.

A dramatic cri de coeur opens the Libera me, after which music from the Agnus Dei and Kyrie is heard. More urgent music reaches an ecstatic outpouring (‘Domine’); however a more dissonant motif on ‘de morte’ is introduced. The Requiem’s opening music reappears, with hushed choir supported by a solitary pedal note. A new idea for bass solo is taken up by full basses before an outburst on ‘Tremens factus’. This peroration plunges straight into the setting of ‘Dies illa, dies irae’ where lower voices chant a menacing, dirgelike melody. Agitated upper voices add to the unease (‘calamitatis et miseriae’), leading to the movement’s main climax (‘dies magna et amara valde’). Here the ‘de morte’ motif is heard three times, ending on a highly dissonant chord over which can be heard the everpresent music from the Introit, only this time gnarled and tormented. The movement ends in a mood that is consolatory rather than hopeful.

The Agnus Dei begins with a mournful, chant-like motif, the sopranos adding a soaring melody (‘Agnus Dei qui tollis’). This music

Unlike Fauré and Duruflé, who set the In Paradisum, Venables finishes his Requiem with the Lux aeterna, using light as a metaphor

The death of a dear friend, Gina Wilson, halted Venables’ work on the Sanctus. Instead, he found succour in the touching words of the Pie Jesu, setting it for voices doubled by strings: the repetition of a simple but moving melody adding much to the profundity of this movement.

for the soul’s journey. Gently oscillating semiquavers cushion a long-breathed melody, evoking an iridescent and impressionistic landscape. Now taken up by upper voices (‘Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine’), it leads to an outpouring on ‘aeternam, quia pius es’. This is followed by a restatement of the opening ‘Requiem aeternam’ words, using music from the Agnus Dei. The movement’s recapitulation leads to an arresting modulation to B major, which allows upper voices to bask in radiant repetitions of the words ‘Lux aeterna’. This joyful return to the opening ‘key’ (having finally ‘resolved’ its tonality after its ambiguous genesis) acts as a poignant metaphor on the spiritual journey taken during this Requiem’s musical span.

mirroring this with gentle homophony); praises him (buoyant counterpoint and syncopated rhythms) and gives thanks that ‘the earth shall bring forth her increase’ (the introductory string music metamorphosed into glorious vocal counterpoint). This music also acts as the work’s coda, only this time suspended over a pedal note, ultimately resolving onto an unexpected chord of B major. Acting as a metaphor for optimism and hope, it closes a work which not only serves as a special gift from one person to another, but also one which may give balm to those in the present and the gift of remembrance to those who are yet to come.

Venables’ Rhapsody ‘In memoriam Herbert Howells’, Op. 25 was written in 1996 and It is often said that creative artists are the true commissioned by John Wilderspin. A motivic barometers of history and that whilst politicians cell, fragmentary in nature, presages the affect the present, it is musicians who capture work’s two principal ideas: one chromatic, it and immortalise it for future generations. the other a long-breathed melody, the second The pandemic of 2020 affected all people, half of which invites canonic dialogue with many severely, and Ian Venables’ response to the pedals. The first of three structurally it was inevitably a creative one. Its genesis important climaxes leads to the dark hues came in the form of a commission from of the opening music, only this time pedal Gary Morris to celebrate his partner, Robert notes removing some of the earlier harmonic Venables Q.C. – no relation of the composer – ambiguity. The music becomes more intense becoming an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund and chromatic, as we hear a restatement Hall. A search for a text took the composer of the second of the three ideas from the to the Psalms, in particular No. 67: God be opening material. However, after only three merciful, Op. 51. By contrasts, the psalm asks bars, a dramatic silence ushers in the third God to return health to the nations (Venables melody: the earlier innocence now replaced

Notes on the music by an heroic statement placed firmly in the pedals. Intensity is maintained as the third climax follows on directly from the second.

The tranquil coda (a restatement of the opening music now tinged with Lydian F sharps) brings the music to a close, any previous drama now a distant memory.

In writing a work in memory of Herbert Howells, Venables pays homage to a composer who has played a significant part in his creative life. Whilst he is often regarded as a ‘direct descendent’ of both Vaughan Williams and Finzi, the present writer considers the harmonic and emotional language of Howells to be a closer ally: one reviewer going so far as to suggest that Venables takes Howells’ shifting, refracted harmonies and generates something significantly new from them. In his chamber music, songs and latterly his choral works, there is a tangible debt to a composer who, although highly regarded, should really be considered as one of the titans of English music.

© 2022 Graham J Lloyd Graham J Lloyd is a pianist, orchestrator, arranger and writer who has recorded many of Ian Venables’ compositions, with artists including Roderick Williams, Andrew Kennedy and Allan Clayton. As a performer he has worked with numerous singers and chamber musicians and has been privileged to give the premieres of many works written by his partner.

Texts and translations 1

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O pray for the peace of Jerusalem

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The House of the Mind

O pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within they walls: and plenteousness within thy palaces.

As earth’s pageant passes by, Let reflection turn thine eye Inward, and observe thy breast; There alone dwells solid rest.

Psalm 122: 6–7 (Book of Common Prayer)

That’s a close immurèd tower Which can mock all hostile power: To thyself a tenant be, And inhabit safe and free.

Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God. My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God: when shall I come to appear before the presence of God? My tears have been my meat day and night, while they daily say unto me, Where is now thy God? Psalm 42: 1–3 (Book of Common Prayer)

Requiem 4

Say not that this house is small, Girt up in a narrow wall; In a cleanly sober mind Heaven itself full room doth find.

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Th’ infinite Creator can Dwell in it, and may not man?

Here content make thy abode With thyself and with thy God.

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Joseph Beaumont (1616–1699)

I. Introit (Requiem aeternam) Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion. et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.

Exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis caro veniet.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

A hymn befits you, O God, in Zion, and to you shall a vow be repaid in Jerusalem.

Hear my prayer, to you shall all flesh come.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.

II. Kyrie Kyrie eleison.

Christe eleison.

Kyrie eleison.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Christ, have mercy upon us.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

III. Offertorium O Domine, Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de paenis inferni et de profundo lacu, de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum.

Hostias et preces tibi, Domine laudis offerimus, tu suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam facimus.

Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam.

O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell and the bottomless pit, from the jaws of the lion, lest hell engulf them, lest they be plunged into darkness.

We offer thee, O Lord, sacrifices and prayers of praise, accept them on behalf of those whom we remember this day.

Lord, make them pass from death to life eternal.

Texts and translations 7

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IV. Pie Jesu Pie Jesu, Domine, dona eis requiem.

Dona eis requiem sempiternam.

Merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest.

Grant them eternal rest.

V. Sanctus Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth!

Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua.

Hosanna in excelsis!

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts!

Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.

Hosanna in the highest!

VI. Agnus Dei Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona eis requiem.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona eis requiem sempiternam.

Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant them rest.

Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant them eternal rest.

VII. Libera me Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda: quando caeli movendi sunt et terra, dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.

Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira.

Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.

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Deliver me, O Lord, from death eternal on that awful day: when the heavens and the earth shall be moved, when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.

Dread and trembling have laid hold on me, And I fear exceedingly, because of the judgment and of the wrath to come.

O that day, that day of wrath, of sore distress and of all wretchedness, that great day and exceeding bitter.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.

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VIII. Lux aeterna Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis, quia pius es.

Et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Let everlasting light shine upon them, Lord, with thy saints for ever, for thou art merciful.

Grant them eternal rest, Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them, for thou art merciful.

And let perpetual light shine upon them.

God be merciful God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us.

That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.

Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.

O let the nations rejoice and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth.

Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.

Then shall the earth bring forth her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.

Psalm 67: 1–6 (King James Version)

Biographies The Choir of Merton College, Oxford is known internationally through its tours, recordings and broadcasts. In 2020, the choir won the ‘Choral Award’ at the BBC Music Magazine Awards for its recording of Gabriel Jackson’s The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ (Delphian, DCD34222). The choir’s discography on the Delphian label has seen numerous five star reviews and a number of recordings have been Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’.

Merton College Choir has appeared at The Three Choirs Festival and the Cheltenham Music Festival, and recent London appearances include the concert series at St John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall and The Temple Church. The choir is regularly heard in concert with orchestra, and recent collaborations have seen the choir perform with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Elgar’s The Apostles), Instruments of Time and Truth (Bach’s St Matthew Passion) and Oxford Baroque (Bach’s Mass in B minor).

The Passiontide at Merton festival has an established place in Oxford’s musical calendar, and has led to exciting collaborations with such groups as The Cardinall’s Musick and The Marian Consort.

Merton College Choir regularly tours overseas, and has recently visited the USA, Hong Kong and Singapore, France, Italy and Sweden.

In 2017, the choir sang the first Anglican Service in St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

The choir’s commitment to contemporary music has seen numerous composers write for the choir. In recent years the choir has premiered works by Kerry Andrew, Birtwistle, Chilcott, Dove, Ešenvalds, Kendall, MacMillan, McDowall, Rutter, Tabakova and Weir. In July 2021, the choir gave the world premiere of a new work by Daniel Kidane.

Benjamin Nicholas is Director of Music at Merton College, Oxford and Music Director of The Oxford Bach Choir. As a conductor, he has appeared with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players, The BBC Singers and The Holst Singers. At Merton he has developed the work of the College Choir through tours to USA, Singapore and Hong Kong, Sweden, France and Italy, and numerous recordings and broadcasts. In 2016 he founded the

College’s Girls’ Choir, and in 2010 founded the Passiontide at Merton Festival. He was elected a Bodley Fellow of Merton in 2018.

Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia was founded by Benjamin Nicholas in 1998 while he was still an undergraduate. It is a flexibly constituted ensemble dedicated to the performance of new and recent music for choir and ensemble, and premieres by the group include John Caldwell’s Good Friday and Gabriel Jackson’s The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ which they recorded with The Choir of Merton College, Oxford (DCD3422).

Benjamin was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral before holding organ scholarships at Chichester Cathedral, Lincoln College, Oxford and St Paul’s Cathedral. After a period as Director of Music of St Luke’s Church, Chelsea, he was Director of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum and Director of Choral Music at Dean Close School. From 2011 to 2016 he served the The players of Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia Edington Music Festival, firstly as conductor are all experienced performers of new music of the Schola and then as Festival Director. and the current line-up includes members of Southbank Sinfonia, Chroma, the Ruisi Quartet As an organist, Benjamin has given recitals and Ensemble Bash. across the UK, in the USA and in Europe.

Recent engagements include Munich Dom, Bath Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral. Benjamin’s recording of Elgar’s organ music (on Delphian, DCD34162) was an Organists’ Review Editor’s Choice and his debut disc (DCD34142) received five stars in Choir & Organ.

Choir of Merton College, Oxford

Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia

Sopranos Eleanor Bufton-Lowe Katie Diss Francesca Hamilton Charlotte Kilpatrick Anna Mullock Imogen Otley Agatha Pethers Verity Peterken Isobel Sanders Eppie Sharp Aine Smith Amalia Wardle

Tenors Tom Castle Clement Collins-Rice Ben Crossley Henry Le Feber Robertson Guy Smith

Violin 1 Natasha Sachsenmeier Florence Cooke Ellen Bundy Emma Purslow Coco Inman

Basses Max Cheung Thomas Herring Joe Morford Matthew O’Connor Adam Le Poidevin Joseph Rhee Benedict Roose Edmund Saddington Alexander Smith Will Thomson

Violin 2 Jens Lynen Emma Lisney Elizabeth Nurse Joanna Watts

Altos LucyAnne Fletcher Alice Hilder Jarvis Rhiannon Harris Matthew Holland Joy Sutcliffe Luca Wetherall

Viola Triona Milne Thomas Kirby Kate Skeet Daichi Yoshimura Cello Henry Hargreaves Hugh Mackay Juliet Tomlinson Silvestrs Kalninš Double bass Elizabeth Harre

Flute Thomas Hancox Oboe Amy Roberts Clarinet Sacha Rattle Trumpets Tom Freeman-Attwood Louis Barclay Jacob Rosenberg Harp Catrin Meek Timpani Matthew Turner Organ Kentaro Machida (tracks 3–7) Simon Hogan (tracks 1, 8–11)

Also available on Delphian Gabriel Jackson: The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ Emma Tring soprano, Guy Cutting tenor; Choir of Merton College, Oxford; Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia; Benjamin Nicholas conductor DCD34222

Strikingly coloured and richly imaginative, Gabriel Jackson’s re-telling of the age-old story of Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion interweaves biblical narrative, English poetry and Latin hymns, culminating in a rare setting of poetry by T.S. Eliot – himself an alumnus of Merton College, Oxford, which commissioned the present work as part of its extensive Merton Choirbook project. Shorter items from the Choirbook have featured on previous Delphian releases by the choir; now, The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is revealed as one of the project’s crowning glories. Under the direction of longtime Jackson collaborator Benjamin Nicholas, and with soloists and instrumentalists hand-picked by the composer, it receives here a performance to match the work’s own harrowing drama and dark ecstasy.

Holst: The Cloud Messenger The Choir of King’s College London, The Strand Ensemble / Joseph Fort DCD34241

In 1910, after seven years of work, Gustav Holst completed his choral–orchestral masterpiece, The Cloud Messenger. But following a disappointing premiere in 1913 the piece fell into obscurity, and has received only a handful of performances. This crowning glory from the composer’s Sanskrit period deserves to be much better known.

Telling the powerful fifth-century story of an exiled yaksha who spies a passing cloud and sends upon it a message of love to his distant wife in the Himalayas, it is rich in its harmonic language and ingenious in its motivic construction, and points the way to Holst’s next major work, The Planets. This colourful chamber version by conductor Joseph Fort lends the more tender passages a new intimacy and clarity, while retaining much of the force of the original.

‘This outstanding recording bursts with energy’ — BBC Music Magazine, June 2019, CHORAL & SONG CHOICE

‘[Fort’s arrangement shows] sensitivity, skill and an evident love for Holst’s visionary, rapturously romantic score … The singing, too, has a lovely sweetness and purity of tone’ — Gramophone, July 2020

The Merton Organ: the new Dobson organ of Merton College, Oxford Benjamin Nicholas organ

Viri Galilaei: Favourite Anthems from Merton Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips

DCD34142

DCD34174

In a golden age of organ-building, Merton College’s new Dobson instrument stands out as exceptional. It is only the third American-built organ sent to the UK since the Second World War, a bold commissioning choice by Benjamin Nicholas and his colleagues in Merton’s recently established choral foundation. From Bach and Stanley to Messiaen and Dupré Nicholas combines flair and intelligence as he presents the stunning instrument he helped mastermind.

The choir’s fifth Delphian recording in five years again showcases the talents of its joint directors, with Peter Phillips’ love of polyphony complemented by Benjamin Nicholas’s flair and commitment in some of the twentieth century’s major choral works. Bookending these ‘favourites’ are Patrick Gowers’ now iconic Ascension Day anthem Viri Galilaei and Jonathan Dove’s newly minted Te Deum.

‘lithe, supple and pleasingly nuanced performances … Delphian’s characteristically clear, focused and framed recording’ — Choir & Organ, May/June 2014

‘captivating … deliciously expansive … The choir’s singing is notable for its clarity, and [Nicholas and Phillips] bring to these performances a warm-hearted fondness which is as indefinable as it is apparent’ — Gramophone, April 2016

Also available on Delphian Richard Allain: choral music Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas

The Merton Collection: Merton College at 750 Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips

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Celebrating ten years since the inception of Merton College’s choral foundation, the choir’s seventh Delphian recording follows the themed anthologies which brought it such immediate critical acclaim with what will be the first in a series of close collaborations between the choir and individual living composers. Richard Allain writes music across a wide spectrum of genres; he and Benjamin Nicholas have put together a programme showcasing his oeuvre – from a setting of the Evening Canticles, animated then impassioned, to a sumptuous reimagining of the spiritual Don’t you weep when I am gone and Allain’s most performed work, the wedding anthem Cana’s Guest.

In 2014, the University of Oxford’s Merton College celebrates its 750th year. Benjamin Nicholas and Peter Phillips’ specially conceived journey through seven centuries of choral repertoire provides a bird’s-eye view of some important moments in musical history, and features two composers personally associated with the College – John Dunstaple and Lennox Berkeley – as well as three new works commissioned for the anniversary celebrations. The choir, a relatively recent addition to this illustrious college’s complement of treasures, gives stylish and committed performances in the famous acoustic of Merton’s thirteenth-century chapel.

‘beautifully-shaped performances by a finely constituted and fearless mixed choir … The sound is rich and full, allowed to breathe in an ideal acoustic’ — BBC Music Magazine, October 2018

‘fine musicianship, commitment and versatility’ — Choir & Organ, January/February 2014

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

Kenneth Leighton/Frank Martin: Masses for Double Choir The Choir of King’s College London / Joseph Fort

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For his final recording with the men and boys of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, Benjamin Nicholas chose to celebrate Britain’s bestloved living composer. Rather than simply sticking to familiar classics, this programme explores the full range of Rutter’s output, from The Lord is my shepherd and Lord, thou hast been our refuge to his most recent piece, This is the day, written for the wedding of Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

In the 1920s Frank Martin, a Swiss Calvinist by upbringing, created a radiant Latin setting of the Mass for double choir, only to return it to the bottom drawer, considering it to be ‘a matter between God and myself’.

It was finally released for performance forty years later, around the same time that the Edinburgh-based composer Kenneth Leighton made his own double-choir setting – a work with moments of striking stillness, delightful to choral singers and yet rarely recorded. Contrasts and comparisons abound at every point in this fascinating pairing of Masses from the supposedly godless twentieth century, and are brought out to the full

by The Choir of King’s College London’s impassioned performances.

‘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

‘a performance of astonishing intensity and musicality’ — Gramophone, May 2019

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