In Praise of Saint Columba: The Sound-world of the Celtic Church by Delphian Records

In pra I se of s a I nt Columba

The sound world of T he cel T ic church

Cho I r of Gonv I lle & Ca I us Colle G e c ambridge (tracks 1–2, 4–14)

Geoffrey Webber director

b arnaby b ro W n triplepipes (tracks 1, 5, 8, 11, 13, 15) & lyre (track 12)

sI mon o ’D W yer medieval Irish horn (tracks 3, 12) & bodhrán (track 11)

m ala C hy f rame medieval Irish horn (tracks 3 & 12)

lI am Cran G le bell (track 3) & crotal (track 11)

Triplepipes by Luciano Montisci & Barnaby Brown (www.triplepipe.net) after Sardinian tradition

Horns by Simon O’Dwyer (www.ancientmusicireland.com) after an 8th-c. original found in the River Erne, near Enniskillen, Ireland

Lyre (anonymous) after 7th-c. fragments found at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England, with bridge by Simon Chadwick after a 4th-c. BC original found at High Pasture Cave, Skye, Scotland; strung in solid gold, silver, brass and iron

Bodhrán by Charlie Byrne after Irish tradition

Crotal by Simon O’Dwyer after a Bronze Age original found near Birr in Co. Offaly, Ireland

Recorded on 16-18 July 2013 in St Peter’s Church, Horningsea, Cambridgeshire

Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter

24-bit digital editing: Paul Baxter

24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter

Cover image: Fibula (bronze), Celtic, 5th c.

BC / Musée Municipal d’Archéologie, Epernay, France / Photo © Dario Bertuzzi / The Bridgeman Art Library

Design: John Christ

Booklet editor: John Fallas

Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk

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1 Os mutorum, lux cecorum — Office of St Columba Inchcolm Antiphoner, c.1340

Accompaniment: Lethendy triplepipe [3:06]

2 Loquebar de testimoniis tuis — Mode 5 Introit soloist: Catharine Baumann

Einsiedeln MS 121, c.965 [3:09]

3 River Erne horn duet — Improvisation by Malachy Frame & Simon O’Dwyer [4:30]

4 Adiutor laborantium — Alphabetic hymn Text ?by St Columba (d. 597) Melody from Lausanne, 13th c., with polyphony after 12th-c. treatises and Georgian tradition [3:26]

5 Sanctorum piissime Columba — Office of St Columba Inchcolm Antiphoner, c.1340 Accompaniment: Iona triplepipe [3:19]

6 Lauda anima mea Dominum — Mode 8 Alleluia soloist: Edward Button

7 Noli Pater — Prayer for protection soloists: Susannah Bagnall, Catharine Baumann

Einsiedeln MS 121, c.965 [1:43]

Text attributed to a 7th-c. Iona author Music by Barnaby Brown after the Gaelic psalm-singing of Murdina and Effie MacDonald, Isle of Harris, 1965 [4:53]

8 Carne solutus pater Columba — Antiphon with Psalm 100 Inchcolm Antiphoner, c.1340 Accompaniment: bass Iona triplepipe [4:41]

9 Amen dico vobis — Mode 1 Communion soloist: Philip Kennedy

Einsiedeln MS 121, c.965 [3:23]

10 Liberasti nos Domine — Mode 7 Gradual soloist: John Gowers St Gallen MS 359, c.924 [3:24]

11 Cantemus in omni die — Hymn

Text by Cú Chuimne of Iona, c.700

Melody from Santiago di Compostela, c.1280s

Accompaniment: bodhrán, crotal and bass Iona triplepipe with Lethendy chanter [3:38]

12 Altus prosator — Alphabetic hymn soloists: Edward Button, Imogen Gardam, Malachy Frame, Stephen Fort

13 Volens Ihesus linire — Office of St Columba soloist: Katie Braithwaite

14 Laudate Dominum — Psalm 150 soloists: Philip Kennedy & James Robinson

Text attributed to a 7th-c. Iona author Music by Barnaby Brown, weaving Hebridean tradition with the Welsh ground ‘Koraldan’ and medieval sequences from Germany [25:05]

Inchcolm Antiphoner, c.1340 Accompaniment: Ardchattan triplepipe [3:49]

Music by Barnaby Brown after the Gaelic psalm-singing of Murdina and Effie MacDonald, Isle of Harris, 1965 [3:30]

15 The Desperate Battle of the Birds — Solo for Lethendy triplepipe Barnaby Brown, 2010 [4:30] Total playing time [76:15]

The great sixth-century Irish saint, Columba, is perhaps best known today for his leading part in the spread of Christianity from Ireland to Scotland, where he founded the monastery at Iona. He was a scholar as well as a missionary, having studied at the major theological centre at Clonard Abbey, though no surviving texts can be ascribed to him with any certainty. His reputation in Scotland grew over the centuries, and the earliest surviving music that makes mention of him is found in the Inchcolm Antiphoner, a fourteenth-century manuscript now in Edinburgh University Library; this comes from Inchcolm Abbey, sometimes called the Iona of the East, situated in the Firth of Forth. But the influence of Irish monks like Columba extended not just to Scotland but also to mainland Europe, where monasteries were founded by them as far south as Switzerland and northern Italy. In Praise of Saint Columba explores the sound-world both of Columba’s time and of the period of his far-reaching influence over subsequent centuries, most of which predates what we would recognise as modern musical notation on staff lines.

Within this broad period, the programme focuses on three distinct imagined soundworlds: seventh-century hymns from Iona, tenth-century chants from Irish foundations in Switzerland, and fourteenth-century antiphons from Inchcolm in honour of St Columba. The performances explore these three areas in

experimental ways inspired by oral traditions and early music notation, and are the result of a collaboration between Barnaby Brown and the Choir of Gonville & Caius College which began in 2004 in Sardinia. Very little about the final manner of performance was anticipated in advance. The freedom of experience that this approach fostered was both testing and liberating for all concerned, and although the final results have no claim to being anything other than imaginative speculations, based as much on intuition as on reason, an overriding aim was to counter the modern conception of plainsong as being ‘plain’: a single melodic line sung unornamented and unaccompanied by large groups in generous Gothic acoustics.

Instead, the project’s ethos was to respond in a practical way to historical information, exploring styles of singing and accompaniment unfamiliar to us but perhaps more consistent with the evidence. This includes the persistent condemnation of piping within Christian ritual by church leaders between the second and eighth centuries AD, and the physical context of ecclesiastical buildings, smaller and less resonant than their later medieval counterparts. In this spirit of investigation, we present an array of possible approaches, while acknowledging that many performance questions are insoluble and that early medieval practice was more diverse than in later periods.

Instruments

No music survives from what is sometimes loosely called the Celtic church. All we have to go on are silent footprints of musical activity: stone carvings, manuscript illuminations, stories in prose, and words that were sung. We drew inspiration from ‘living fossils’ in the spirit of experimental archaeology, putting flesh onto tantalising evidence in contrasting ways. This description is perhaps most apt when considering the instruments used in the performances, notably the triplepipe, lyre and horns.

The revival of the ‘northern’ triplepipe was prompted by ten magnificent representations dating from between the eighth and thirteenth centuries: five in England, three in Scotland and two in Ireland. Some of the finest are found in the burial places of kings – Iona, Clonmacnoise (see image overleaf) and Westminster – and in the five earliest carvings, the pipers appear to be monks. In a text very close in date to these carvings, ‘The Monastery of Tallaght’, there is an intriguing passage:

Also, Maelruain did not approve of listening to music. There was a certain piper, Cornan, who lived in Descert Lagen, and he was an anchorite. They called him Cornan of the Glen (that is, of Glen Essa), a man of grace. Presents used to be sent to him from Maelruain. He said once to Maelruain’s monks: ‘I would crave a boon,’ said he, ‘to play a tune to the cleric.’ Then Maelruain made answer:

‘Say to Cornan,’ said he, ‘these ears are not lent to earthly music, that they may be lent to the music of Heaven.’ [trans. E.J. Gwynn & W.J. Purton]

This illustrates beautifully the two sides of the question: on the one hand, the real situation on the ground may well have been that instruments such as reed-pipes (cuislenn ) were indeed occasionally played by clerics or, as in this case, by hermits; on the other hand, the behaviour more consonant with the prescriptions of the Church Fathers would have been to shy away from instruments and instrumental music as much as possible. Taking a longer historical view, we could imagine that piping in the centuries after Columba was as diverse in form and function as in the antique world: funeral laments, wedding dances, music competitions, collective labour like rowing and harvesting, inciting men to feats of valour, victory marches, entertainment, and religious rituals at both ends of the spectrum, sober and orgiastic. All of these activities involved piping in Greek and Roman culture, and all but the last involved piping in Gaelic culture before the 1700s.

Many early bagpipes had two chanters, one for each hand, like the Graeco-Roman aulos. The triplepipe sits halfway between these instruments, being effectively an aulos plus a drone, or a bagpipe minus the bag. Like aulos players, triplepipers used their cheeks as a reservoir, sustaining a continuous sound by means of ‘circular breathing’; and puffed-

out cheeks are clearly visible on four of the carvings. The northern triplepipe revival was initiated by John Purser and Hamish Moore in 1992, and Barnaby Brown began working with Luciano Montisci, a leading maker of Sardinian triplepipes, in 2001. Since then, the two have been experimenting with moving the hole positions in order to translate a Sardinian sound into something possibly more medieval or Hebridean. In the absence of any surviving instruments or written music, inspiration is drawn partly from the living piping traditions of Sardinia and Scotland, and partly from notations of Welsh harp music, a courtly tradition akin to Highland piping. Moving finger holes and drone pitches created exciting new musical possibilities. The Desperate Battle of the Birds, which ends this disc, is a recomposition of a well-known pibroch, built on a cycle of harmonic contrasts which Welsh harpers would have notated as ktkk ttkk tktt kktt, in which k is consonant and t is dissonant against the drones. (Another such pattern, ‘Koraldan’, informed our realisation of the Altus prosator : see under ‘Iona hymns’, below.)

The use of lyre and two horns for the project was inspired by an illustration in the eighthcentury Vespasian Psalter (see inside front cover of booklet). The lyre is a reconstruction of an instrument from the Sutton Hoo site, using a bridge reconstructed from the High Pasture Cave lyre fragment found a few years ago on

the Isle of Skye; the bridge fragment is about 2400 years old, and is probably the remains of the earliest string instrument known in Western Europe. The two horns are based on an original discovered as drainage work was being conducted on the River Erne, four miles south of Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. This horn, made of the toxic but sacred yew wood, is banded with metal bindings and is conical, 58cm long with a metal mouthpiece. Simon O’Dwyer made a reproduction in 2001 and, prompted by the remarkable similarity of its appearance to one of the pairs of horns in the Vespasian Psalter, made a second reproduction specially for this recording. Circular breathing is used (as for the triplepipe), inspired by didjeridu tradition, and the improvisation included here explores some ways in which the pitch and timbre of the instruments can be manipulated.

Voices and pronunciation

For the vocal side of the project, a variety of influences was brought to bear. Fresh interpretations were made in connection with the performance of music written in neumes (pre-staff music notation developed in the ninth century during the period of Carolingian ecclesiastical reform and intellectual revival), and the two main oral traditions employed were traditional Hebridean psalm-singing and Georgian polyphony. The ‘antediluvian warbling’ of traditional singers in the Outer Hebrides is often compared to vocal styles of

(left) Cross of the Scriptures (detail), Clonmacnoise, Ireland, c.914

[Photo: John Purser]

(above) Bronze bands on the original River Erne horn, showing a motif similar to the borders of the Vespasian Psalter image of King David

[Photo: Maria Cullen O’Dwyer. By courtesy of the Fermanagh County Museum]

North Africa and the Middle East. Might this be closer to the vocal style for which tenthcentury neumes are a shorthand? A decision was taken to embark on a complementary experiment, stretching our voices and minds with oral material from the Columban heartland which might guide us in the right direction. Barnaby Brown transcribed two recordings made on the Isle of Harris in 1965 and adapted these for Laudate Dominum and Noli Pater The idea was to recreate a practical affinity with what the sisters Murdina and Effie MacDonald did effortlessly and naturally. Listening closely to their singing of psalm verses to the tunes ‘Coleshill’ and ‘Walsall’ (available at www.kistofriches.co.uk), we were dazzled by how their filigree of ornamentation transfigures a simple tune, concealing any connection. Verses that would take ten seconds to recite fill two and a half minutes, each syllable embroidered into a melismatic meditation. A joyful, spiritual creativity magnifies the words, and the unbroken interlace of their breathing – akin to the circular breathing of the triplepipe and horns – adds to the otherworldly, uplifting effect. Noli Pater is attributed to St Columba in the eleventhcentury Irish Liber Hymnorum, but only six lines are stylistically consistent with this claim. A profuse, Hebridean treatment seemed appropriate for this short prayer. Initially, the ornamentation is pared back, only reaching the full magnificence of Murdina and Effie’s style

in the third stanza: ‘The pathless heights of heaven laud you amid the lightning’.

For the Latin pronunciation on the recording, modern Italianate church Latin was suppressed in favour of historical dialects suited to the project’s three main areas of focus, reconstructed on the basis of numerous non-Classical spellings used by medieval scribes. Our principal guide in these matters was Jacopo Bisagni of the National University of Ireland, Galway. A surprising amount of evidence survives for the historical pronunciation of Latin, though reconstructing the actual phonetics of seventhcentury Hiberno-Latin is basically impossible. Consonants are relatively straightforward, but vowels and stress patterns are much more complicated. Firstly, Irish monks speaking among themselves may have pronounced Latin in a slightly different way than, say, when performing liturgy or reciting poetry. Secondly, in the late eighth century Alcuin promoted a standardising reform of Latin pronunciation. Given the heavy involvement of Irish scholars in the Carolingian renaissance, this reform may have weakened local features partly inherited from pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain and partly influenced by Old Irish phonology. The widespread confusion of o/u and e/i is due to a transformation of the Latin vocalic system which took place in the first few centuries AD. The fact that so many scribes confused these

letters points to a merger of vowel quality: as in the English word ‘medium’, the ‘e’ and the ‘i’ sound identical. We therefore paid attention to source spellings, and forms like ergastolorum and tonicam are not emended to their Classical equivalents, ergastulorum and tunicam.

Not being native Latin speakers, we had to learn to distinguish between long and short vowels and to identify the stressed syllables. This entailed marking up our texts with macrons and word stress, thus avoiding potential confusions such as liber and l īber (a ‘book’ and a ‘free man’ respectively), as well as adopting phonetic spellings to help us with the varied pronunciation being attempted. As an example, here is our performing text of the Altus prosator refrain, the bold font indicating stress and the macrons the long vowels:

Kis potest De o placere nowis simō in tempore fariātis insignibus ferit ātis ordinibus exceptis contemptoribus mund ī presentis is tīus?

Iona hymns

Many of the hundreds of hymn tunes which survive in medieval manuscripts are conveniently transcribed by Bruno Stäblein in Hymnen (1956). We selected no. 177 for Adiutor laborantium, and no. 167 for Cantemus

in omni die, without too much regard for where in Europe the tunes were notated. The second sons of Gaelic chieftains were often sent to Rome, destined to become abbots, and the movement of scholars between the continent and the ‘maritime culture province’ of Ireland and Scotland was considerable, particularly before the eleventh century.

For the Altus prosator, we had to think more carefully. Scholars describe this as ‘the finest poem of the first five hundred years of the Hiberno-Latin tradition’, or indeed ‘the greatest of them all’. They discount the eleventhcentury attribution to St Columba but agree that it was produced in a Columban monastery, most probably Iona, in the seventh century. David Howlett suggests that it was composed by Virgilius Maro Grammaticus, ‘the James Joyce of the seventh century’. The Irish Liber Hymnorum states that the verses came in pairs:

Let this then be the ordinance for the recitation huius hymni, that ‘Quis potest Deo’ be recited between every two capitula; and it is thence its grace would be upon it, for thus they sang it prius

This is cantus antiphonus, a method of psalmody in use by the end of the fourth century in which verses are chanted alternately by two demi-choirs and the refrain by the whole group. To the ebb and flow from side to side and from full to solo we add a third layer of interlace,

alternating men and women. There is no historical evidence for alternating voices in this way, except perhaps a sixth-century mosaic in San Vitale, Ravenna, which shows men on the north side and women on the south. By the 1480s, the harmonic pattern ‘Koraldan’ had canonical status among Welsh musicians, being one of the cycles of consonance and dissonance which they believed to have been established by a council of musicians summoned by the king of Munster, Muirchertach Ua Briain (d. 1119). We used it for the refrain of Altus prosator because it has twelve units, fitting the text better than any of the hymn melodies collected by Stäblein.

We don’t know how rhythmically hymns were sung, and so present a spectrum of solutions which might reflect different times and situations. Noli Pater (as described above) is performed in an unmeasured, ornate style, using 5-15 notes per syllable; Adiutor

laborantium (in which elements of Georgian polyphony are introduced) has 1-4 notes per syllable and a detectable beat, relaxing at the end of each line; Altus prosator flows faster with only 1-2 notes per syllable; and Cantemus in omni die dances along with the help of crotal and bodhrán.

It is clear that many Christian groups carried into their worship the Jewish or local pantheistic traditions in which dancing played a vital part.

A widely disseminated text, the Acts of John, was banned at the Second Council of Nicaea, in part because it describes how Christ led a dance after the Last Supper:

… he commanded us to make a circle … he then began to sing a hymn … and we circling him said, ‘Amen.’ … ‘I will pipe, dance all of you!’ ‘Amen.’

Early Church leaders were anxious to distance Christians from the wild, drunken, ecstatic

behaviour associated with competing religious traditions and, after 787 (the year of the Nicaean edict), the Acts survived only in clandestine copies. Dignified circle dancing after Mass, however, persisted in Sardinia into the 1930s, with the piper playing at the centre of a human chain. Before the 1600s, this dancing took place inside the church, and there is a long tradition of accompanying liturgical items like the Kyrie with the triplepipe. We applied the 6/8 tempo of a Sardinian ballu to Cantemus in omni die and gave our recording engineer a headache by processing around the church, but stopped short of recreating the dance after the Last Supper. The ‘Cantemus’ text is a joyful hymn of praise to Mary, and is notable for its opening stanzas which specifically mention singing in twofold chorus from side to side, describing the typical monastic choir.

The extended length of the Altus prosator is far from uncommon in Latin poetry of the early medieval period, but what set it apart are its ambitious subject (exploring the whole history of time and space), its literary sophistication, and its depth of learning, encompassing classical as well as Christian scholarship. Like the many poems that extol the lives of the saints, it was perhaps used as a form of instruction or meditation. It begins by setting out some basic truths of Christian theology in a 14-line stanza (with eight syllables per line) and then proceeds in 12-line stanzas (with

paired rhymes) designed with an alphabetical acrostic. The first letter of each stanza gives out the whole Latin alphabet from A to Z, reflecting the overall shape and meaning of the poem as it proceeds from the story of creation through to the Day of Judgment and the Last Things. The hymn invites its listeners to contemplate the mysteries of existence and the wonders of time and nature, but it also leaves them in no doubt as to their precarious place in the cosmos, while the interrogative refrain continually entreats them to reject all that is worldly in order to avoid damnation.

Despite the consistent nature of the line lengths and rhymes in the poem, the stresses of the Latin words do not follow regular patterns. In our rendition we highlight these continually shifting stress patterns and allow them to fall in and out of phase with the rhythmic patterns presented in the chordal accompaniment on the lyre. The continually shifting rhythmic patterns and vocal combinations thus give structure and momentum to the performance, with the entrance of the horns at stanza T (‘Tuba primi archangeli’) to signal the Day of Judgment providing a dramatic change of sound for the final stanzas. The horns are heard in turn and then combine for the refrain.

Mass propers

The Abbey of St Gall was built on the site of a hermitage founded, around 613 AD,

Koraldan ‘kkkt kttk tttk’: a cycle of consonance (k) and dissonance (t) from a Welsh music syllabus of c. 1480

AB MS Peniarth 54, p. 3 courtesy of the National Library of Wales

by an Irish monk named Gallus. For the performance of propers from St Gall and Einsiedeln manuscripts we have chosen a voice-only approach, based on the tradition of virtuoso professional solo and small-group singing. The cantors had vocal training from childhood and these extraordinary chants were expected to underline the Pope’s or local abbot’s magnificence and status. The different versions of several chants in manuscripts of roughly the same time point to local musical variations but also perhaps to a tradition where performers may have extended or contracted chants spontaneously by lengthening or shortening melismas, with an eye on the liturgical action, in order to finish exactly when the celebrant was ready to proceed.

The concept of this being a highly developed and virtuosic musical world is enhanced by the appearance of performance indications that exist alongside the neumes, with abbreviations of words such as celeriter (fast) or expectare (wait), and the possibly suggestive neume shapes themselves such as the quilisma (a shaky line). Occasionally, the notation is highly prescriptive, as in Loquebar de testimoniis tuis, where for instance at the words ‘et meditabar’ there are notations indicating equaliter (repeat the same pitch), tenere (hold it longer), mediocriter (don’t rush) and sursum (a higher pitch).As well as singing as

far as possible from the original notation, we also introduced different styles of organum (movement in parallel fourths or fifths). In the Mass propers, this was limited to a vocal drone, bridging the gap between the soundworlds of voices with and without instrumental accompaniment. Other styles of organum are heard in Carne solutus pater Columba, where the canticle is sung in parallel fourths, and in Adiutor laborantium, which explores parallel fifths and three-part polyphony.

Antiphons for the Feast of St Columba

The Columba antiphons survive in four-line plainchant square notation, and these are performed with triplepipes in contrasting tonalities, named after carvings at Iona, Ardchattan Priory, and Lethendy Tower in Perthshire. The texts of the antiphons suggest composition on the island of Inchcolm, literally ‘Columba’s Isle’. The melody of Carne solutus was known across Europe with the text ‘Media vita in morte sumus’. It survives in over forty medieval antiphoners, the earliest of which was written in about 995 by the St Gall monk Hartker. The repeated ‘Sanctus’ invocations offer a dramatic highpoint to this melody, outlining the minor seventh from G to F. We added the canticle ‘Iubilate Deo’ to reflect the original liturgical use of these antiphons either side of a chanted psalm.

The melody of Volens Ihesus linire is found in two English manuscripts dating from about 1230. These carry a similar text, ‘Volens Noe’, which translates as:

Noah, wishing to know if the waters had now receded, sent forth a dove [columba ] which returned to the ark bearing a green olive branch in her mouth.

With a delight in word-play typical of the medieval mind, this text was refashioned as follows to commemorate the saint:

Jesus, wishing to relieve sighing through song, called forth Columba who returned to the ark from holes of rock, from hollows of building material; moreover, Columba was carrying the sign of God’s mercy in his mouth.

2014

Barnaby Brown & Geoffrey Webber

Thanks are due to several scholars who responded generously to queries during the development of this project, especially Sam Barrett, Jacopo Bisagni, Warwick Edwards, Cally Hammond, David Howlett, Graeme Lawson, Gilbert M árkus, Henry Parkes, John Purser, Susan Rankin and Tessa Webber. Barnaby is deeply grateful to Eleanor Murray and the AHRC project ‘Bass culture in Scottish musical traditions’ for funding his research. Thanks also go to Frank Hopkirk, the Revd Michael Bowers, Fr Thomas McCarthy and especially to John Chumrow for his generous financial support.

1 Os mutorum, lux cecorum

Os mutorum, lux cecorum, pes claudorum: porrige lapsis manum, firma vanum et insanum corrige.

O Columba, spes Scotorum, nos tuorum meritorum interventu beatorum fac consortes angelorum. Alleluia!

2 Loquebar de testimoniis tuis

Loquebar de testimoniis tuis in conspectu regum et non confundebar et meditabar in mandatis tuis quæ dilexi nimis.

Beati immaculati in via qui ambulant in lege Domini.

Psalm 118: 46-47 & 1

4 Adiutor laborantium

Adiutor laborantium, Bonorum rector omnium, Custos ad propugnaculum, Defensorque credentium,

Mouth of the dumb, light of the blind, foot of the lame: stretch out a hand to the fallen, strengthen the unreliable and cure the mad.

O Columba, hope of the Scots, by the intervention of your kindness make us colleagues of the blessed angels. Alleluia!

I spoke of thy testimonies before kings: and I was not ashamed. I meditated also on thy commandments, which I loved.

Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord.

O helper of workers, ruler of all the good, guard on the ramparts and defender of the faithful,

Exaltator humilium, Fractor superbientium, Gubernator fidelium, Hostis inpœnitentium,

Iudex cunctorum iudicum,1 Kasta vita viventium, Lumen et pater luminum, Magna luce lucentium,

Nulli negans sperantium, Opem atque auxilium, Precor ut me homunculum, Quassatum ac miserrimum,

Remigantem per tumultum

Sæculi istius infinitum, Trahat post se ad supernum, Vitæ portum pulcherrimum.

Xristus, [turbam canentium], 2 Ymnum sanctum in sæculum, Zelo subtrahas hostium, paradisi in gaudium.

Per te, Christe Iesu, qui vivis et regnas.

?St Columba (d. 597)

who lift up the lowly and crush the proud, ruler of the faithful, enemy of the impenitent, judge of all judges, pure life of the living, light and Father of lights, shining with great light, denying to none of the hopeful your strength and help, I beg that I – a little man, trembling and most wretched, rowing through the infinite storm of this age –be drawn after Him to the lofty most beautiful haven of life.

O Christ, lead the band of those who sing holy hymns for evermore from the envy of our foes into the joy of paradise.

Through you, Christ Jesus, who live and reign.

Translation © Gilbert Márkus

1 The source has two K lines; the first, ‘Kastigator errantium’, has been cut in order to fit the poem to a standard four-line hymn tune and because the doubling of K disrupts the alphabetic sequence.

2 The source has only six syllables here: ‘Xristus infinitum’. The present solution was suggested by Cally Hammond.

Office of St Columba

5 Sanctorum piissime Columba

Sanctorum piissime Columba, cuius ortum peplum premonstravit angelicum, globi minis solamine fratres reficis fessos itinere.

Celi fulmine romani iuris urbem predicis

Casinum. Mala amara dulcoras, mortuum vite redintegras, ventis imperas, aerem serenas et pestem fugas, de rupe limpham extricas.

Tu speculum ecclesie et patrie protector, chorum hunc invisere quin totius dignare sanctorum piissime. Locumque istum tibi deditum prece tua servet Cristi clementia.

Alleluia!

Office of St Columba

6 Lauda anima mea Dominum

Alleluia! Lauda anima mea Dominum laudabo Dominum in vita mea psallam Deo meo quamdiu ero.

Psalm 145: 2

Columba, most holy of saints, whose birth an angelic robe foretold, your solace restores travelweary brothers from the threats of the world.

You foretell [the burning of] Cassino, the city of Roman law, by a stroke of lightning from heaven. You sweeten bitter apples, you restore the dead to life, you give orders to the winds, you clear the air and put the plague to flight, you draw water from a rock.

You, O mirror of the church and protector of this land, look upon this choir, indeed consider it more completely worthy, most holy of saints. And may your prayer keep the mercy of Christ on this place dedicated to you. Alleluia!

Alleluia! Praise the Lord, O my soul, in my life I will praise the Lord: I will sing to my God as long as I shall be.

7 Noli Pater

Noli Pater indulgere tonitrua cum fulgore; ne frangamur formidine huius atque uridine.

Te timemus terribilem nullum credentes similem; te cuncta canunt carmina angelorum per agmina.

Teque exaltent culmina cæli vaga per fulmina O Iesu amantissime, O rex regum rectissime.

?author from Iona, 7th c.

8 Carne solutus pater Columba

Carne solutus pater Columba angelorum constipatus turma quibus conregnat perhenni premio in resoltante celo: sanctus, sanctus, sanctus proclamant Deo. Alleluia!

Iubilate Deo, omnis terra; servite Domino in lætitia. Introite in conspectu eius in exsultatione.

Scitote quoniam Dominus ipse est Deus; ipse fecit nos, et non ipsi nos.

Father, give no quarter to lightning and thunder; let us not be shattered by fear and the blast.

We tremble before you in dread majesty knowing you have no equal; through all the ranks of angels, all creatures sing your praise.

The pathless heights of heaven laud you amid the lightning O Jesu most loving, O king of kings most righteous.

Translation © Cally Hammond

Released from flesh, father Columba is pressed by the crowd of angels with whom he reigns as his eternal reward in heavens resounding: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’, they cry out to God. Alleluia!

Sing joyfully to God, all the earth; serve ye the Lord with gladness. Come in before his presence with exceeding great joy. Know ye that the Lord he is God; he made us, and not we ourselves.

Populus eius, et oves pascuæ eius; introite portas eius in confessione, atria eius in hymnis, confitemini illi. Laudate nomen eius, quoniam suavis est Dominus, in æternum misericordia eius; et usque in generationem et generationem veritas eius.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Office of St Columba with Psalm 100

9 Amen dico vobis

Amen dico vobis quicquid orantes petitis credite quia accipietis et fiet vobis.

Mark 11: 23-24

Deus, repulisti nos, et destruxisti nos; iratus es, et misertus es nobis. Commovisti terram, et conturbasti eam; sana contritiones eius, quia commota est. Ostendisti populo tuo dura; potasti nos vino compunctionis. Dedisti metuentibus te significationem, ut fugiant a facie arcus; ut liberentur dilecti tui, salvum fac dextera tua, et exaudi me.

We are his people and the sheep of his pasture; go ye into his gates with praise, into his courts with hymns, and give glory to him. Praise ye his name for the Lord is sweet, his mercy endureth for ever; and his truth for generations and generations.

Glory to the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning and is now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.

Deus locutus est in sancto suo: lætabor, et partibor Sichimam; et convallem tabernaculorum metibor.

God hath spoken in his holy place: I will rejoice, and I will divide Sichem; and will mete out the vale of tabernacles.

Amen I say to you: whatsoever you ask when ye pray, believe that you shall receive and they shall come unto you.

O God, thou hast cast us off, and hast destroyed us; thou hast been angry, and hast had mercy on us. Thou hast moved the earth, and hast troubled it: heal thou the breaches thereof, for it has been moved. Thou hast shown thy people hard things; thou hast made us drink wine of sorrow. Thou hast given a warning to them that fear thee that they may flee from before the bow: that thy beloved may be delivered. Save me with thy right hand, and hear me.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Psalm 59/60: 3-8

10 Liberasti nos Domine

Liberasti nos Domine ex affligentibus nos et eos qui nos oderunt confudisti.

In Deo laudabimur tota die et nomini tuo confitebimur in sæcula.

Psalm 43: 8-9

Glory to the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning and is now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.

Thou hast saved us, Lord, from them that afflict us and hast put to shame them that hate us.

In God shall we glory all the day long and in thy name we will give praise for ever.

St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 359, p.145 – Cantatorium www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/csg/0359

11 Cantemus in omni die

Cantemus in omni die concinentes varie

conclamantes Deo dignum ymnum sanctæ Mariæ.

Bis per chorum hinc et inde collaudemus Mariam ut vox pulset omnem aurem per laudem vicariam.

Maria de tribu Iudæ summi mater Domini oportunam dedit curam egrotanti homini.

Gabriel advexit verbum sinu prius paterno quod conceptum et susceptum in utero materno.

Hæc est summa hæc est sancta virgo venerabilis quæ ex fide non recessit sed exstetit stabilis.

Huic matri nec inventa ante nec post similis nec de prole fuit plane humanæ originis.

Per mulierem et lignum mundus prius periit

Let us sing every day, harmonising in turns, together proclaiming to God a hymn worthy of Mary.

In twofold chorus, from side to side, let us praise Mary, so that the voices strike every ear with alternating praise.

Mary of the tribe of Judah Mother of the Most High Lord gave fitting care to languishing mankind.

Gabriel first brought the Word from the Father’s bosom which was conceived and received in the Mother’s womb.

She is the most high, she the holy venerable Virgin who by faith did not draw back, but stood forth firmly.

None has been found, before or since, like this mother –not out of all the descendants of the human race.

per mulieris virtutem ad salutem rediit.

Maria mater miranda Patrem suum edidit per quem aqua late lotus totus mundus credidit.

Hæc concepit margaretam non sunt vana somnia pro qua sani Christiani vendunt sua omnia.

Tonicam per totum textam Christi mater fecerat quæ peracta Christi morte sorte statim steterat.

Induamus arma lucis loricam et galiam ut simus Deo perfecti suscepti per Mariam.

Amen, amen, adiuramus merita puerperæ ut non possit flamma pyræ nos diræ decepere.

Christi nomen invocemus angelis sub testibus ut fruamur et scripamur litteris celestibus.

By the power of a woman It has returned to salvation.

Mary, amazing mother, gave birth to her Father, through whom the whole wide world, washed by water, has believed.

She conceived the pearl –they are not empty dreams –for which sensible Christians have sold all they have.

The mother of Christ had made a tunic of a seamless weave; Christ’s death accomplished, it remained thus by casting of lots.

Let us put on the armour of light, the breastplate and helmet, that we might be perfected by God, taken up by Mary.

Truly, truly, we implore, by the merits of the Child-bearer, that the flame of the dread fire be not able to ensnare us.

Let us call on the name of Christ, below the angel witnesses, that we may delight and be inscribed in letters in the heavens.

By a woman and a tree

The world first perished;

Cú Chuimne of Iona (d. 747)

Translation © Gilbert Márkus

12 Altus prosator

Altus prosator vetustus

dierum et ingenitus

erat absque origine primordii et crepidine est et erit in sæcula

sæculorum infinita

cui est unigenitus

Christus et Sanctus Spiritus coæternus in gloria dietatis perpetua non tris Deos depromimus sed unum Deum dicimus salva fidei in personis tribus gloriosissimis.

Responsio :

Quis potest Deo placere novissimo in tempore, variatis insignibus veritatis ordinibus, exceptis contemptoribus mundi præsentis istius?

Bonos creavit angelos ordines et archangelos principatum ac sedium potestatum virtutium uti non esset bonitas otiosa ac maiestas trinitatis in omnibus largitatis muneribus sed haberet celestia

The High Creator, the Unbegotten Ancient of Days, was without origin of beginning, limitless. He is and he will be for endless ages of ages, with whom is the only-begotten Christ, and the Holy Spirit, co-eternal in the everlasting glory of divinity. We do not confess three gods, but say one God, saving our faith in three most glorious Persons.

Who can please God in the last time, the noble ordinances of truth being changed, except the despisers of this present world?

He created good angels and archangels, the orders of Principalities and Thrones, of Powers and of Virtues, so that the goodness and majesty of the Trinity might not be unproductive in all works of bounty, but might have heavenly beings

in quibus privilegia ostenderet magnopere possibili fatimine.

Cæli de regni apice stationis angelicæ claritate præfulgoris venustate speciminis superbiendo ruerat Lucifer quem formaverat apostatæque angeli eodem lapsu lugubri auctoris cenodoxiæ pervicacis invidiæ ceteris remanentibus in suis principatibus.

Quis potest Deo placere …

Draco magnus tæterrimus

terribilis et antiquus qui fuit serpens lubricus sapientior omnibus bestiis et animantibus terræ feracioribus tertiam partem siderum traxit secum in barathrum locorum infernalium diversorumque carcerum refuga veri luminis parasito præcipites.

Excelsus mundi machinam prævidens et armoniam cælum et terram fecerat

in which He might greatly show forth his favours by a word of power.

From the summit of the Kingdom of Heaven, where angels stand, from his radiant brightness, from the loveliness of his own form, through being proud Lucifer had fallen, whom He had formed, and the apostate angels also, by the same sad fall of the author of vainglory and obstinate envy, the rest continuing in their dominions.

Who can please God …

The great Dragon, most loathsome, terrible and ancient, which was the slippery serpent, more cunning than all the beasts and than all the fiercer living things of the earth, dragged down with him a third of the stars into the pit of infernal places and sundry prisons, fugitives from the true light, hurled down by the Parasite.

The Most High, planning the frame and harmony of the world, had made heaven and earth,

mare et aquas condidit herbarum quoque germina virgultorum arbuscula solem lunam ac sidera ignem ac necessaria aves pisces et pecora bestias animalia hominem demum regere protoplastum præsagmine.

Quis potest Deo placere …

Factis simul sideribus

ætheris luminaribus collaudaverunt angeli factura pro mirabili immensæ molis Dominum opificem cælestium præconio laudabile debito et immobile concentuque egregio grates egerunt Domino amore et arbitrio non naturæ donario.

Grassatis primis duobus seductisque parentibus secundo ruit zabulus cum suis satellitibus quorum horrore vultuum sonoque volitantium consternarentur homines metu territi fragiles non valentes carnalibus

hæc intueri visibus

had fashioned the sea and the waters, and also shoots of grass, the little trees of the woods, the sun, the moon and the stars, fire and necessary things, birds, fish and cattle, beasts and living creatures, and finally the first-formed man, to rule with prophecy.

Who can please God …

At once, when the stars were made, lights of the firmament, the angels praised for His wonderful creating the Lord of this immense mass, the Craftsman of the Heavens. With a praiseworthy proclamation, fitting and unchanging, in an excellent symphony they gave thanks to the Lord, not by any endowment of nature, but out of love and choice.

Our first two parents having been assailed and led astray, the devil falls a second time, together with his retinue, by the horror of whose faces and the sound of whose flying frail men might be dismayed, stricken with fear, unable to gaze with their bodily eyes on those

qui nunc ligantur fascibus ergastolorum nexibus.

Quis potest Deo placere …

Hic sublatus e medio deiectus est a Domino cuius aeris spatium constipatur satellitum globo invisibilium turbido perduellium ne malis exemplaribus imbuti ac sceleribus nullis unquam tegentibus sæptis ac parietibus fornicarentur homines palam omnium oculis.

Invehunt nubes pontias ex fontibus brumalias tribus profundioribus oceani dodrantibus maris cæli climatibus cæruleis turbinibus profuturas segitibus vineis et germinibus agitatæ flaminibus thesauris emergentibus quique paludes marinas evacuant reciprocas.

Quis potest Deo placere …

Kaduca ac tyrannica mundique momentania regum presenti gloria

who are now bound in bundles in the bonds of their prisons.

Who can please God …

Driven out from the midst, he was thrust down by the Lord; the space of air is choked by a wild mass of his treacherous attendants, invisible lest, tainted by their wicked examples and their crimes – no fences or walls ever concealing them –folk should sin openly, before the eyes of all.

Clouds bear wintry floods from the fountains of the Ocean, from the three deeper floods of the sea, to the expanses of the sky, in azure whirlwinds, to do good to the cornfields, the vines and the shoots; driven by the winds emerging from their treasuries which dry up the corresponding sea-marshes. Who can please God … The momentary glory of the kings of the present world, fleeting and tyrannical,

nutu dei deposita

ecce gigantes gemere sub aquis magno ulcere comprobantur incendio aduri ac supplicio Cocytique Carybdibus strangulati turgentibus Scyllis obtecti fluctibus eliduntur et scropibus.

Ligatas aquas nubibus frequenter crebrat Dominus ut ne erumpant protinus simul ruptis obicibus quarum uberioribus venis velut uberibus pedetentim natantibus telli per tractus istius gelidis ac ferventibus diversis in temporibus usquam influunt flumina numquam deficientia.

Quis potest Deo placere …

Magni Dei virtutibus appenditur dialibus globus terræ et circulus

abyssi magnæ inditus suffultu Dei iduma omnipotentis valida columnis velut vectibus eundem sustenantibus promontoriis et rupibus

is cast down at God’s whim. See, giants are shown to groan in great affliction beneath the waters, to be scorched by fire and in torment, and stifled by the swelling whirlpools of Cocytus, covered with rocks, they are destroyed by billows and sharp stones.

The Lord often sifts down the waters bound in the clouds, lest they should all at once break out, their barriers broken, from whose most plentiful streams, as if from breasts, slowly flowing across the tracts of this earth, freezing and warming at different times, the rivers flow everywhere, never failing.

Who can please God …

By the divine powers of the great God is hung the globe of the earth, and the circle of the great deep placed about it, held up by the strong hand of almighty God, with columns like bars supporting it, promontories and rocks

solidis fundaminibus velut quibusdam basibus firmatus immobilibus.

Nulli videtur dubium in imis esse infernum

ubi habentur tenebræ vermes ac diræ bestiæ ubi ignis solphorius ardens flammis edacibus

ubi rugitus hominum fletus ac stridor dentium ubi Gehennæ gemitus terribilis et antiquus ubi ardor flammaticus sitis famisque horridus.

Quis potest Deo placere …

Orbem infra ut legimus incolas esse novimus quorum genu precario frequenter flectit Domino quibusque impossibile librum scriptum revolvere obsignatum signaculis septem de Christi monitis quem idem resignaverat postquam victor extiterat explens sui præsagmina adventus prophetalia.

Plantatum a proœmio paradisum a Domino legimus in primordio

as their solid foundations, fixed firm, as if on certain immovable bases.

It seems doubtful to no one that there is a hell down below where there are held to be darkness, worms and dreadful animals; where there is sulphurous fire burning with voracious flames; where there is the screaming of men, weeping and gnashing of teeth; where there is the groaning of Gehenna, terrible and ancient; where there is the horrible fiery burning of thirst and hunger.

Who can please God …

Under the earth, as we read, we know there are inhabitants whose knee bends often in prayer to the Lord, but for whom it was impossible to open the written book sealed with seven seals according to the warnings of Christ, which he himself had unsealed after he had risen as victor, fulfilling the prophets’ foreseeing of his Coming. Paradise was planted from the beginning by the Lord, as we read in the most noble

Genesis nobilissimo

cuius ex fonte flumina

quattuor sunt manantia

cuius etiam florido

lignum vitæ est medio cuius non cadunt folia gentibus salutifera cuius inenarrabiles deliciæ ac fertiles.

Quis potest Deo placere …

Quis ad condictum Domini

montem conscendit Sinai?

quis audivit tonitrua supra modum sonantia quis clangorem perstrepere enormitatis bucinæ?

quis quoque vidit fulgora in gyro coruscantia

quis lampades et iacula saxaque collidentia

præter Israhelitici Moysen iudicem populi.

Regis regum rectissimi prope est dies Domini dies iræ et vindictæ

tenebrarum et nebulæ

diesque mirabilium tonitruorum fortium

dies quoque angustiæ

mæroris ac tristitiæ

in quo cessabit mulierum

amor ac desiderium

opening of Genesis, from whose fountain-spring four rivers flow, in whose flowery midst is also the Tree of Life whose leaves, bearing healing for the nations, do not fall; whose delights are indescribable and abundant.

Who can please God …

Who has climbed Sinai, the appointed mountain of the Lord?

Who has heard the immeasurable thunders sounding?

Who has heard the clamour of the mighty war-trumpet echoing?

Who has also seen the lightning flashing all around?

Who has seen the flashes and thunderbolts and crashing rocks, except Moses, the judge of the people of Israel?

The day of the Lord, most righteous King of kings, is at hand: a day of anger and vindication, of darkness and of cloud, a day of wonderful mighty thunders, a day also of distress, of sorrow and sadness, in which the love and desire of women will cease

hominumque contentio mundi huius et cupido.

Quis potest Deo placere … Stantes erimus pavidi ante tribunal Domini reddemusque de omnibus rationem effectibus videntes quoque posita ante obtutus crimina librosque conscientiæ patefactos in facie in fletus amarissimos ac singultus erumpemus subtracta necessaria operandi materia.

Tuba primi archangeli strepente admirabili erumpent munitissima claustra ac poliandria mundi præsentis frigora hominum liquescentia undique conglobantibus ad compagines ossibus animabus æthralibus eisdem obviantibus rursumque redeuntibus debitis mansionibus.

Quis potest Deo placere …

Vagatur ex climactere Orion cæli cardine derelicto Virgilio

and the striving of men and the desire of this world.

Who can please God …

We shall stand trembling before the Lord’s judgment seat, and we shall render an account of all our deeds, seeing also our crimes placed before our gaze, and the books of conscience thrown open before us. We will break out into most bitter weeping and sobbing, the possibility of repentance being taken away.

At the blast of the First Archangel’s wonderful trumpet, the strongest vaults and tombs shall break open, the chill of the men of the present world melting away, the bones gathering to their joints from every place, their ethereal souls meeting them, returning once more to their own dwelling places. Who can please God … Orion wanders from his turning point at the hinge of heaven –the Pleiades being left behind,

astrorum splendidissimo per metas Thetis ignoti orientalis circuli

gyrans certis ambagibus redit priscis reditibus oriens post biennium

Vesperugo in vesperum sumpta in proplesmatibus tropicis intellectibus.

Xristo de cælis Domino descendente celsissimo prefulgebit clarissimum signum crucis et vexillum tectisque luminaribus duobus principalibus cadent in terram sidera ut fructus de ficulnea

eritque mundi spatium ut fornacis incendium tunc in montium specubus abscondent se exercitus.

Quis potest Deo placere …

Ymnorum cantionibus sedulo tinnientibus tripodiis sanctis milibus angelorum vernantibus quattuorque plenissimis animalibus oculis

cum viginti felicibus quattuor senioribus coronas admittentibus

Agni Dei sub pedibus

most splendid of the stars –across the boundaries of the sea, of its unknown eastern rim. Vesper, wheeling in its fixed circuits, returns by its former paths, rising after two years in the evening. These things employed as types are understood figuratively.

When Christ, the most high Lord, comes down from the heavens, the brightest sign and standard of the Cross will shine forth. The two principal lights being obscured, the stars will fall to earth like the fruit of a fig-tree, and the face of the world will be like the fire of a furnace. Then armies will hide in the caves of the mountains.

Who can please God …

By the singing of hymns eagerly ringing out, by thousands of angels rejoicing in holy dances, and by the four living creatures full of eyes, with the twenty-four joyful elders casting their crowns under the feet of the Lamb of God,

laudatur tribus vicibus Trinitas æternalibus.

Zelus ignis furibundus consumet adversarios nolentes Christum credere Deo a Patre venisse nos vero evolabimus obviam ei protinus et sic cum ipso erimus in diversis ordinibus dignitatum pro meritis præmiorum perpetuis permansuri in gloria a sæculis in sæcula.

Quis potest Deo placere …

?author from Iona, 7th c.

13 Volens Ihesus linire

Volens Ihesus linire gementem pro cantu vocavit Columbam de foraminibus petre de cavernis materie qui ad arcem reversus est.

Deferens autem signum clementie Dei Columba in ore suo.

the Trinity is praised in eternal threefold exchanges. The raging anger of fire will devour the adversaries who will not believe that Christ came from God the Father. But we shall surely fly off to meet him straight away, and thus we shall be with him in several ranks of dignities according to the eternal merits of our rewards, to abide in glory from age to age.

Who can please God …

Translation

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.

Office of St Columba

Jesus, wishing to relieve sighing through song, called forth Columba who from holes of rock, from hollows of building material, returned to the ark.

Moreover, Columba was carrying the sign of God’s mercy in his mouth.

Glory to the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

14 Laudate Dominum

Alleluia!

Laudate Dominum in sanctis eius; laudate eum in firmamento virtutis eius.

Laudate eum in virtutibus eius; laudate eum secundum multitudinem magnitudinis eius.

Laudate eum in sono tubæ; laudate eum in psalterio et cithara.

Laudate eum in tympano et choro; laudate eum in chordis et organo.

Laudate eum in cymbalis bene sonantibus; laudate eum in cymbalis jubilationis. Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum.

Alleluia!

Praise God in his holiness; praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power; praise him according to his manifold greatness.

Praise him with the trumpet’s sound; praise him with psaltery and lyre.

Praise him with drums and dancing; praise him with strings and pipes.

Praise him with well-sounding cymbals; praise him with joyful cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Alleluia!

Where not otherwise credited, translations adap. by Barnaby Brown from the Douay-Rheims Bible and from an edition of the Office of St Columba in preparation by Warwick Edwards.

Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge

Sopranos

Susannah Bagnall

Caius Fund 2011 Choral Scholar

Catharine Baumann

Katie Braithwaite

Sir Keith Stuart Choral Scholar

Amelia Drew

Caius Fund 2012 Choral Scholar

Emily Kay

Billie Robson

Imogen Sebba

Alice Twomey

Altos

Edward Button

Daniel Chard

Imogen Gardam

Caius Fund 2010 Choral Scholar

Sophia Sosnina

Hannah Treis

Tenors

Louis Bickler

Philip Kennedy

James Robinson

James Pitman Choral Scholar

Joshua Stutter

Caius Fund 2012 Choral Scholar

Basses

Liam Crangle

Wilfrid Holland Organ Scholar

Nick Doig

John Chumrow Choral Scholar

Stephen Fort

Patrick Burgess Choral Scholar

Malachy Frame

Caius Fund 2011 Choral Scholar

John Gowers

The Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge is one of Britain’s leading collegiate choirs. The College was founded in 1348 but the musical tradition stems from the late nineteenth century when the wellknown composer of church music Charles Wood became Organist. The choir in Wood’s day contained boy trebles; it is now a mixed undergraduate ensemble and is directed by Geoffrey Webber.

The choir sings Chapel services during the University term and has a busy schedule of additional activities including concerts, recordings and broadcasts. It travels extensively abroad, performing at a variety of venues ranging from major concert halls to universities, cathedrals and churches in Europe, America and Asia, often in connection with other professional ensembles such as Opera Northern Ireland, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra of San Francisco, and the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine. The choir also gives a number of concerts in the UK each year, and has made appearances at St John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, the Spitalfields Festival and the Aldeburgh Festival, and at many other concert halls and festivals around the country. Live radio broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and 4 form a regular feature of the choir’s schedule. Broadcasts of Choral Evensong have been notably adventurous in content and have ranged from Baroque anthems performed

with period instruments to Russian and Greek Orthodox music, South African music, and music composed especially for the choir by leading British composers such as James MacMillan. The choir has also appeared on television programmes on BBC1, BBC2, Channel 4 and on several foreign networks.

The Choir’s recordings have often specialised in the rediscovery of forgotten choral repertories, including previously unpublished music from within the English choral tradition and beyond. A series of highly acclaimed CDs has included music by British composers Samuel Wesley, William Child, Michael Wise, William Turner, Edmund Rubbra, Patrick Hadley, John Sanders, Mansel Thomas and Rebecca Clarke, and by continental composers Joseph Rheinberger, Giacomo Puccini, Leonardo Leo and Charles Gounod. The choir has recorded two reconstructions (the Latin Mass in E flat by Janáček and the St Mark Passion by J.S. Bach), three programmes of Swiss choral music (in conjunction with the National Library of Zürich), and the complete anthems of Charles Wood. Themed CD releases include a recording of modern and medieval vocal music entitled All the ends of the earth, and a further recording of modern and medieval Christmas music, Into this world this day did come (Delphian DCD34075). A 2011 recording of music by the leading British composer Judith Weir (Delphian DCD34095) has achieved high acclaim and

was BBC Music Magazine ’s Choral and Song Choice in December 2011. The choir has also joined together with the Choir of King’s College London in two recording projects – Rodion Shchedrin’s ‘Russian liturgy’ The Sealed Angel (Delphian DCD34067) and, most recently, Deutsche Motette: German Romantic choral music from Schubert to Strauss (Delphian DCD34124).

www.cai.cam.ac.uk/choir

Geoffrey Webber studied music at Oxford University, where he was Organ Scholar at New College. After graduating with a First, he became Acting Organist at New College and Magdalen College, and later University Organist and Director of Music at the University Church. During this time he also directed the Edington Festival. After completing his doctorate on German Baroque music he became Director of Music at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge and now divides his time between conducting, lecturing, teaching and research. He has recently established the first degree in choral conducting at the University of Cambridge, which attracts students from all over the world.

Born and raised in Glasgow, Barnaby Brown was principal flautist of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. While an undergraduate at Cambridge, he took up the Baroque flute and sang with the Choir of Gonville & Caius College. In 1996, he was appointed Composer in Residence at St George’s School, Rome, and in 2000 won a Scotland’s Year of the Artist residency, composing polyphony for Gaelic choirs in Trotternish, Isle of Skye. He has recorded two CDs of Bulgarian music with Derek Bell and is editor of the Siubhal Series, bringing single malts of Highland music to a wider audience.

Barnaby is the first Highland piper to apply the principles of the early music movement to pibroch. He began measuring historic instruments with Julian Goodacre in 1998 and plays a reproduction of a chanter from c.1680. His historically-informed performance style led to three appearances at the Edinburgh International Festival and numerous invitations to festivals abroad. His recordings, articles and editions have helped to revolutionise the way pipers approach the sources of pibroch (1760–1850), enriching the tradition beyond the legacy of the competition system.

His quest to revive the northern triplepipe, the bagpipe’s predecessor, led to six years in Sardinia and the formation of Band-Re with guitarist Gianluca Dessì. Their debut album, Strathosphere (2006), draws on an eclectic range of traditions to inspire original compositions and refresh historic Gaelic material. Barnaby’s recent intercultural projects include reviving the silver pipes of Ur (c.2450 BC); composing works for gamelan and Highland pipes; developing the ‘Four Nations Piping Concert’ with Mick O’Brien, Pauline Cato and François Lazarevitch; performing with the Izmir State Orchestra; and co-directing the Scottish Government commission Yatra for the Edinburgh Mela, combining Japanese taiko, Indian dhrupad, and Scottish traditions.

Barnaby’s research interests include the craft of composition with only 4-6 pitches, historical intonation and canntaireachd (the vocal substitute for Gaelic piping). Between 2006 and 2012, he was a lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and he is currently undertaking doctoral research on pibroch at the University of Cambridge, funded by the AHRC project ‘Bass culture in Scottish musical traditions’.

www.barnabybrown.info

www.triplepipe.net

www.bassculture.info

Biographies Also available on Delphian

Simon O’Dwyer – researcher, manufacturer, composer and player of the ancient musical instruments of Ireland – is the co-founder of ‘Ancient Music Ireland’. Born in 1955, he has dedicated his life’s work to the study and reconstruction of prehistoric musical instruments. He is in the vanguard of the pioneering research which is taking place into the music of prehistory around the world.

Simon has composed and registered many pieces for bronze horn, Iron Age trumpet, early medieval horns and bodhrán. He plays these instruments professionally and has recorded several albums. He is a poet and songwriter. Other skills include the manufacture of a selection of Bronze Age horns and early medieval instruments. He has spent the past twenty-six years dedicated to the promotion, research and documentation of the ancient musical instruments of Ireland. He has correlated a large library of archive material, and has performed at festivals, museums and presented papers on his work at conferences and universities worldwide.

Research and recordings are available on www.ancientmusicireland.com

Malachy Frame grew up in Belfast and is currently completing his BA degree in Music at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he is also a choral scholar. A former trumpeter in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, he moves to London to begin a postgraduate course in singing at the Royal Academy of Music in September 2014.

Into this World this Day did come: carols contemporary & medieval Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge / Geoffrey Webber DCD34075

Another intriguing and unusual programme combines English works from the 12th to 16th centuries with medievally-inspired carols by some of our finest living composers. From the plangent innocence of William Sweeney’s The Innumerable Christ to the shining antiphony of Diana Burrell’s Creator of the Stars of Night, this selection will seduce and enchant. The choir combines polish with verve, and Webber’s meticulous attention to detail is floodlit by the bathing acoustics of St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast.

‘stunning … an unflinching modern sound with an irresistible spiritual dimension’

— Norman Lebrecht, www.scena.org, December 2009

William Turner (1651–1740): Sacred Choral Music

Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge; Yorkshire Baroque Soloists Geoffrey Webber conductor DCD34028

It is easy to forget that our great English choral tradition was once silenced by act of Parliament. The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 subsequently ushered in one of the finest periods of English music, though the road to recovery for church music was a slow and difficult one. Turner, in 1660 a precocious nine-year-old, went on to become one of the best-known composers and singers of his day. This disc presents a crosssection of his sacred music, often in premiere recordings, ranging from small-scale liturgical works to one of his grandest creations, the Te Deum and Jubilate in D.

‘invigorating and highly persuasive … a reminder of the still unknown riches of English Baroque music’

— Gramophone, October 2007

The Caius choir in the ruins of Muckross Abbey, Ireland