Songbook

Songbook T h e T r e b l e s o f T e w k e s b u ry A b b e y S c h o l a Ca n to r u m Helen Porter & Carleton Etherington, Benjamin Nicholas

Songbook 1 Music, When Soft Voices Die

[1:44]

Roger Quilter (1877-1953) Laurence Kilsby treble 2 Vater Unser

[2:36] [2:17]

Henry Purcell (1659-1695) 4 Love’s Philosophy

[1:38]

Quilter Laurence Kilsby treble 5 The Land Of Spices

[3:48]

John Ireland (1879-1962) Laurence Kilsby soloist

11 Ave Maria

[2:42]

J.S. Bach (1685-1750) / Charles Gounod (1818-1893) Laurence Kilsby treble 12 Nymphs And Shepherds

13 Dutch Carol

14 I Will Give My Love An Apple

[2:39]

[1:43] [1:37] [1:37] [2:29] [3:27]

Vaughan Williams

[3:19]

17 Somewhere

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

19 At The River

[2:29]

Robert Lowry (1826-1899), arr. Aaron Copland (1900-1990) 20 The Lord’s Prayer

[2:27]

21 Wedding Introit

[3:08]

MacMillan Benjamin Nicholas organ 22 I Sing Of A Maiden

[2:15]

Patrick Hadley (1899-1973)

Vaughan Williams 16 Dirge For Fidele

[2:39]

John Tavener (b1944), arr. Barry Rose (b1934)

trad., arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) 15 Linden Lea

Léo Delibes (1836-1891) Salim Jaffar soloist 8 Ex Ore Innocentium

[3:31]

Richard Rodney Bennett (b1936)

James MacMillan (b1959)

Howard Skempton (b1947) Benjamin Nicholas piano 7 O Salutaris Hostia

10 A Song At Evening

18 Sure On This Shining Night

Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

Purcell

[5:33]

Gabriel Jackson (b1962) Carleton Etherington organ 6 Whispers

[3:12]

Philip Wilby (b1949)

Arvo Pärt (b1935) 3 Fairest Isle (Address To Britain)

9 The Flower

The trebles of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum Benjamin Nicholas director Helen Porter piano Carleton Etherington organ

[2:39]

23 Skye Boat Song

[2:49]

trad., arr. Percy Grainger (1882-1961) Laurence Kilsby, Charlie Waddington, Salim Jaffar soloists 24 How Can I Keep From Singing?

[4:00]

Lowry, arr. John Scott (b1956)

Total playing time

[66:33]

Recorded on 5-7 July 2010 in Merton College Chapel, Oxford Producer and Engineer: Paul Baxter 24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Photography: Thousand Word Media Design: John Christ Booklet editor: Henry Howard Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk With thanks to the Warden and Fellows of the House of Scholars of Merton College, Oxford

Songbook Medieval troubadours no doubt carried their own ‘songbooks’ around in their heads. Hugo Wolf had his Italian and Spanish songbooks (the ‘Liederbuch’) – song cycles of national storytelling. The collected oeuvres of the likes of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and George Gershwin are known as their ‘songbooks’.

And we refer to that imagined compilation of all those great 20th-century songs as The Great American Songbook – grouped together with capital letter status no less.

This recording is another kind of songbook, unique to the Schola Cantorum choristers of Tewkesbury Abbey. ‘Essentially, it’s a showcase for the Abbey trebles,’ their Director of Music Benjamin Nicholas explains. ‘We’ve been assembling our own Songbook for quite a while now – the songs the trebles sing, from time to time, in boys-only concerts, and which they are taught in individual singing lessons.

I’ve always been keen to build each boy up as a soloist, not necessarily with the express idea of them singing lots of solos, but so that they can learn to sing in a soloistic way.’ This is evident most of all in the distinctive singing of 11-yearold Laurence Kilsby, whose gifts won him the BBC Chorister of the Year competition in 2009. On this recording, he features as soloist in two Shelley settings by Roger Quilter, the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria and in John Ireland’s beautiful, sincerely-felt Passiontide motet Ex Ore Innocentium from 1944.

Benjamin Nicholas continues: ‘I’m convinced that working with the choristers on boys’ voices repertory has helped the overall sound of the choir; it’s given the boys a greater sense of independence, so that when we return to working on SATB repertoire for Abbey services, their singing has a greater confidence and a more three-dimensional quality.’

Britten’s two masterpieces for boys’ voices, the Missa Brevis and A Ceremony of Carols, have been one focus for the Tewkesbury choristers in recent years, but they have also had opportunities to sing his War Requiem and Mahler’s Symphony No 3 in concert. ‘Beyond those mainstay pieces,’ Nicholas asserts, ‘it’s amazing how much other repertoire there is out there that is either explicitly for boys’ voices or which works very well for them.

That’s if you get out there and look, of course.’

Getting out there and looking is clearly something that Benjamin Nicholas enjoys doing – ‘rummaging, ferreting around’ in sheet music stores, as he calls it, and making fresh discoveries. A number of the less well known pieces on this disc are such discoveries in the racks of favourite music shops for Nicholas: Blackwells in Oxford of course, but shops in Edinburgh and one in Bach’s old town of Arnstadt too. ‘The tactile nature of all this sifting through music can’t be underestimated,’ Nicholas says. ‘Just by turning the pages, you can get a real sense of how

a piece flows from beginning to end, and this can be so much better than viewing sample pages on a website or in an e-mail.’

singing, and the enjoyment is enhanced even further by Percy Grainger’s dancing piano accompaniment.’

An important aspect of this Tewkesbury Songbook is its mix of sacred and secular items. Benjamin Nicholas was very clear that the sequence on this recording should not be divided up along these lines, just as the choristers’ concerts featuring Songbook repertoire are a mixed affair. (Nicholas’ greater concern was to balance solo and choral numbers, and to insert a solo each for piano and organ, for added textural contrast.) And so a number of pieces that might well find their way into Tewkesbury Abbey services – the Lord’s Prayers of Arvo Pärt and John Tavener, for example, Aaron Copland’s saint’s day hymn At The River, Gabriel Jackson’s The Land Of Spices or Philip Wilby’s The Flower – find themselves adjacent on this disc to a number from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s West Side Story, Henry Purcell’s ‘Address to Britain’, Fairest Isle from King Arthur, and a range of folk song settings. Just as generations of choral scholars and lay clerks, inspired by The King’s Singers, have indulged in the extra-curricular pleasures of close harmony arrangements, this lighter Songbook repertoire is a chance for the Tewkesbury choristers to let their hair down a bit. ‘Take the Skye Boat Song, for example,’ Nicholas mentions. ‘This is a tune whose direct simplicity all the boys clearly love

Grainger’s love of Scottish folk melodies provides a link with James MacMillan’s ingenious re-working of She Moved Through The Fair in his Wedding Introit for solo organ.

This was written as a gift for the composer’s bride, Lynne, and performed at their wedding in Edinburgh in 1983. MacMillan’s striking simulation of bagpipes atop a nagging, twisting left-hand ostinato conceals in some way the fact that the composer had chosen an Irish folk tune for these Scottish nuptials – but a very lovely tune all the same.

Another great early 20th-century folk song collector, Ralph Vaughan Williams, appears centrally on this disc with three quite different songs: the folk song I Will Give My Love An Apple, the art song Linden Lea (with its lowleaning apple tree), and a two-part setting of Shakespeare’s Dirge For Fidele, better known by its first line ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’, from Act IV Scene 2 of Cymbeline.

Vaughan Williams’ 1922 setting came two decades before Finzi’s better known version, from the cycle Let Us Garlands Bring.

This third Vaughan Williams piece was introduced to Benjamin Nicholas by the counter-tenor James Bowman, who

Songbook suggested it for a concert they gave together at Forthampton Court – until the Dissolution, the country retreat of Tewkesbury Abbey’s abbots. Other concert situations for Nicholas and the Tewkesbury choristers have generated other repertoire, such as two of the three American pieces on this disc: both the Samuel Barber Sure On This Shining Night and Bernstein’s Somewhere were prepared for use as encores on a 2005 tour of the USA. Two English engagements resulted in the commissioning of two works featured on this disc – both, coincidentally, settings of George Herbert. Benjamin Nicholas asked the Bristol-based composer Philip Wilby to write a piece for a Royal School of Church Music course that he was directing in 2010.

The result, The Flower, is a charming duet ‘for the Easter Choristers’. 18 months before that, in September 2008, the annual service of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference took place at Westminster Abbey.

The Chairman that year was Tim HastieSmith, the then-Headmaster of Dean Close School in Cheltenham – the Abbey choristers’ school. Gabriel Jackson was commissioned to write a piece for the joint Tewkesbury and Westminster Abbey choristers, and he set George Herbert’s remarkable 1633 sonnet, Prayer (taking the title, The Land Of Spices, from the final line). Opaque in meaning but rich in imagery, Herbert’s poem gave the

Texts choristers much to ponder. Gabriel Jackson, in turn, gives the choristers a stable, chantlike vocal line, and assigns all the descriptive character of Herbert’s rich text to the organ part – most pertinently with Messiaen-like right-hand chirrupings for the ‘bird of Paradise’, and the chimes of the final verse’s ‘Church bels beyond the stars’.

Jackson’s The Land Of Spices is written explicitly for the sonorous spaces of an abbey building such as Tewkesbury or Westminster.

The resonant sonorities of Merton College Chapel, where this recording was made, are of equal benefit to the other instrumental interlude in this Songbook compilation, Howard Skempton’s Whispers. Great space and atmosphere is drawn from the hushed, suspended chords, and the composer notes that with the lightly animated central section, ‘the change of pace reflects the fact that whispering can be either tender or moderately urgent’. ©Meurig Bowen Meurig Bowen is Director of the Cheltenham Music Festival, and writes widely on a range of musical matters. He is also a very part-time choral counter-tenor.

1 Music, When Soft Voices Die

Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory – Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved’s bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.

Percy Bysshe Shelley 2 Vater Unser

Vater unser im Himmel, geheiligt werde Dein Name. Dein Reich komme. Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel so auf Erden.

Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute, und vergib uns unsere Schuld, wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern. Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung, sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

3 Fairest Isle (Address To Britain)

Fairest Isle, all isles excelling, Seat of pleasure and of love, Venus here will choose her dwelling, And forsake her Cyprian grove.

Cupid from his fav’rite nation Care and envy will remove; Jealousy, that poisons passion, And despair, that dies for love.

Gentle murmurs, sweet complaining, Sighs that blow the fire of love, Soft repulses, kind disdaining, Shall be all the pains you prove.

Ev’ry swain shall pay his duty, Grateful ev’ry nymph shall prove; And as these excel in beauty, Those shall be renown’d for love.

John Dryden

Texts 4 Love’s Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the ocean, The winds of Heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single, All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle – Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high Heaven And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea – What are all these kissings worth If thou kiss not me?

Shelley

5 The Land Of Spices

Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age, Gods breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth; Engine against th’ Almightie, sinner’s towre, Reversèd thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear, The six daies world-transposing in an houre, A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear; Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse, Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best, Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest, The milkie way, the bird of Paradise, Church-bels beyond the stars heard, the souls bloud, The land of spices, something understood.

George Herbert

7 O Salutaris Hostia

O salutaris hostia, Quae caeli pandis ostium: Bella premunt hostilia, Da robur, fer auxilium.

O saving Victim, opening wide The gate of heaven to man below: Our foes press on from every side; Thine aid supply, thy strength bestow.

St Thomas Aquinas (translation: Edward Caswall) 8 Ex Ore Innocentium

It is a thing most wonderful, Almost too wonderful to be, That God’s own Son should come from heaven, And die to save a child like me.

And yet I know that it is true: He chose a poor and humble lot, And wept, and toiled, and mourned, and died, For love of those who loved him not.

I sometimes think about the Cross, And shut my eyes, and try to see The cruel nails and crown of thorns, And Jesus crucified for me.

But even could I see him die, I should but see a little part Of that great love, which, like a fire, Is always burning in his heart.

And yet I want to love thee, Lord; O light the flame within my heart, And I will love thee more and more, Until I see thee as thou art.

William Walsham How 9 The Flower

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! ev’n as the flowers in Spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.

Grief melts away Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing.

These are Thy wonders, Lord of love, To make us see we are but flowers that glide: Which when we once can find and prove, Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide.

Who would be more, Swelling through store, Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

Herbert

Texts 10 A Song At Evening

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on.

Before I lay me down to sleep I give my soul to Christ to keep.

Four corners to my bed, Four angels round my head; One to watch and one to pray And two to bear my soul away.

I go by sea, I go by land, The Lord made me with His right hand.

If any danger come to me, Sweet Jesus Christ deliver me.

He is the branch and I’m the flower, Pray God send me a happy hour, And if I die before I wake, I pray that God my soul will take.

Anon, pieced together by Walter de la Mare

11 Ave Maria

Ave Maria gratia plena, Dominus tecum.

Benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

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

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

12 Nymphs And Shepherds

Nymphs and shepherds, come away.

In ye grove let’s sport and play!

For this is Flora’s holy day!

Sacred to ease and happy love, To dancing, to music and to poetry.

Your flock may now securely rove, Whilst you express your jollity!

Nymphs and shepherds, come away!

Thomas Shadwell

13 Dutch Carol

A child is born in Bethlehem: Awaiteth him all Jerusalem.

Amor, amor! Quam dulcis est amor!

The Son took upon him humanity, That to the Father thus draws nigh: Amor…

The angels above were singing then, Below were rejoicing the shepherd men: Amor…

Now let us all with the angels sing, Yea, now let our hearts for gladness spring: Amor…

(Translation of refrain: Love, love! How sweet is love!)

Dutch traditional, translated by R.C. Trevelyan 14 I Will Give My Love An Apple

I will give my love an apple without e’er a core, I will give my love a house without e’er a door, I will give my love a palace wherein she may be, And she may unlock it without any key.

My head is the apple without e’er a core, My mind is the house without e’er a door.

My heart is the palace wherein she may be, And she may unlock it without any key. traditional

15 Linden Lea

Within the woodlands, flow’ry gladed, By the oak trees’ mossy moot, The shining grass blades, timber-shaded, Now do quiver underfoot; And birds do whistle overhead, And water’s bubbling in its bed, And there, for me, the apple tree Do lean down low in Linden Lea. When leaves, that lately were a-springing, Now do fade within the copse, And painted birds do hush their singing Up upon the timber tops; And brown-leaved fruit’s a-turning red, In cloudless sunshine overhead, With fruit for me, the apple tree Do lean down low in Linden Lea. Let other folk make money faster In the air of dark-roomed towns, I don’t dread a peevish master, Though no man may heed my frowns.

I be free to go abroad, Or take again my homeward road To where, for me, the apple tree Do lean down low in Linden Lea. William Barnes

Texts 16 Dirge For Fidele

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor th’ all-dreaded thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finished joy and moan; All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!

Nor no witchcraft charm thee!

Ghost unlaid forbear thee!

Nothing ill come near thee!

Quiet consummation have; And renownèd be thy grave!

William Shakespeare

17 Somewhere

19 At The River

There’s a place for us, Somewhere a place for us.

Peace and quiet and open air Wait for us somewhere.

There’s a time for us, Someday a time for us, Time together with time to spare, Time to learn, time to care.

Someday, somewhere We’ll find a new way of living, We’ll find a way of forgiving, somewhere.

There’s a place for us, A time and place for us.

Hold my hand and we’re halfway there.

Hold my hand and I’ll take you there, somehow, someday, somewhere.

Shall we gather by the river, Where bright angels’ feet have trod, With its crystal tide forever Flowing by the throne of God?

Stephen Sondheim

Robert Wadsworth Lowry

18 Sure On This Shining Night

Sure on this shining night Of star-made shadows round, Kindness must watch for me This side the ground.

The late year lies down the north.

All is healed, all is health.

High summer holds the earth.

Hearts all whole.

Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone Of shadows on the stars.

James Agee

Yes, we’ll gather by the river, The beautiful, the beautiful river; Gather with the saints by the river That flows by the throne of God. Soon we’ll reach the shining river, Soon our pilgrimage will cease; Soon our happy hearts will quiver With the melody of peace.

Yes, we’ll gather…

20 The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

22 I Sing Of A Maiden

I sing of a maiden that is makeless.

King of all kings to her son she ches.

He came all so still where his mother was, As dew in April that falleth on the grass.

He came all so still to his mother’s bower, As dew in April that falleth on the flower.

He came all so still where his mother lay, As dew in April that falleth on the spray.

Mother and maiden was never none but she: Well may such a lady God’s mother be.

Anon, 15th century 23 Skye Boat Song

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, Onward! the sailors cry; Carry the lad that’s born to be king Over the sea to Skye.

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar, Thunderclouds rend the air; Baffled, our foes stand by the shore: Follow they will not dare.

Speed, bonnie boat…

Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep, Ocean’s a royal bed.

Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep Watch by your weary head.

Speed, bonnie boat…

Texts Many’s the lad fought on that day Well the claymore could wield, When the night came, silently lay Dead on Culloden’s field.

What though the tempest loudly roars, I hear the truth, it liveth; And though the darkness round me close, Songs in the night it giveth.

Speed, bonnie boat…

Burned are our homes, exile and death Scatter the loyal men; Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath Charlie will come again.

Speed, bonnie boat…

Sir Harold Boulton 24 How Can I Keep From Singing?

My life goes on in endless song: Above earth’s lamentation, I hear the real, though far-off hymn That hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife I hear its music ringing; It sounds an echo in my soul, How can I keep from singing?

No storm can shake my inmost calm, While to that rock I’m clinging; Since love is Lord of heaven and earth, How can I keep from singing?

When tyrants tremble in their fear And hear their death knell ringing, When friends rejoice both far and near, How can I keep from singing?

In prison cell and dungeon vile, Our thoughts to thee are winging, When friends by shame are undefiled, How can I keep from singing?

Lowry (verse 3 by Doris Plenn)

The Trebles of the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum

Benoit André Ramsay Clifford-Holmes Patrick Coniam Adam Haycock Douglas Haycock Rowan Ireland Salim Jaffar Ethan Kent

Laurence Kilsby Dominic McClaran Joe Morford Louis Morford Samuel Napier-Smith Hugo Till Charlie Waddington

Biographies Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum of Dean Close Preparatory School ‘The trebles splendidly vindicate the tradition that places them at the heart of English cathedral music.’ — Gramophone, April 2009 Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum is the choir of men and boys which sings the weekday Evensongs in Tewkesbury Abbey.

The choristers are all educated at Dean Close Preparatory School, Cheltenham, which is a member of The Choir Schools’ Association.

Over the last few years, the choir has been involved in a number of collaborations – Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Orchestra of St John’s, Britten’s War Requiem and Mahler’s Symphony No 3 with the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Britten’s Spring Symphony with the Cheltenham Bach Choir and Honegger’s Cantate de Noël with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales. Since 2000, the choir has undertaken twelve foreign tours, including three lengthy visits to the USA, six visits to France, and trips to Italy and Germany. In December of 2008, the choristers represented Great Britain in a concert of music by Berlioz with the Slovak Philharmonic which was the closing event of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The choir has broadcast regularly

from the Abbey, and in September 2006 broadcast Choral Evensong from St Michael’s Church, Tenbury Wells, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the foundation of St Michael’s College.

The choir has also been active in commissioning new works and in Christmas 2007 gave the first performance of Bob Chilcott’s The Night He Was Born.

In September 2008 the choristers joined with the Choristers of Westminster Abbey and James O’Donnell to give the first performance of Gabriel Jackson’s The Land Of Spices in Westminster Abbey as part of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference.

Benjamin Nicholas is Director of Choral Music at Dean Close, in which capacity he directs the boys and men of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum in the weekday services in Tewkesbury Abbey. Since October 2008 Benjamin Nicholas has held the title of Reed Rubin Director of Music at Merton College, Oxford where, with Peter Phillips, he has been instrumental in establishing the new choral foundation.

Benjamin Nicholas has been Organ Scholar at Chichester Cathedral, Lincoln College Oxford and St Paul’s Cathedral. During his time in London he was also Director of Music

of St Luke’s Church, Chelsea. In addition to touring extensively with the Schola, he has recently directed the Choir of Merton College in concerts in France and the USA. Benjamin Nicholas has conducted numerous premières including works by Bob Chilcott, Howard Goodall, Gabriel Jackson, Matthew Martin, Nico Muhly, Howard Skempton, and Philip Wilby. In 2011 Benjamin Nicholas also becomes Director of the Schola Cantorum at the Edington Festival.

Laurence Kilsby is a chorister in the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum of Dean Close Preparatory School. In 2009 at the age of 11 he won the BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year award – the first time ever that someone from a choir school in Gloucestershire has won the competition.

The final took place in front of an audience of over 2,000 at St Paul’s Cathedral and was broadcast on BBC Radio 2.

Laurence has appeared on BBC Songs Of Praise and sung as a soloist at the Barbican, London and Bristol’s Colston Hall.

Helen Porter is director of Music at Dean Close School Carleton Etherington is organist of Tewkesbury Abbey

Thomas Weelkes: Sacred Choral Music Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum Benjamin Nicholas director

Carleton Etherington plays the Grove and Milton organs of Tewkesbury Abbey DCD34089

DCD34070

Born around 1575, Thomas Weelkes is remembered as one of the outstanding English composers of the seventeenth century. This survey of Weelkes’ services, verse anthems and sacred madrigals features first recordings of several works in new reconstructions by scholar Peter James. Benjamin Nicholas’ Tewkesbury choir delivers telling performances passionately conveying the range, imagination and technical accomplishment of Weelkes’ settings.

‘It is very hard not to use superlatives when speaking of Ben Nicholas and his choir at Tewkesbury Abbey.’ — Choir Schools Today 2008 ‘… angelic purity …’ — The Guardian, December 2007

Stanford Choral Music: Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum Carleton Etherington Organ, / Benjamin Nicholas

Few ecclesiastical buildings in the United Kingdom can boast possessing two pipe organs; of those that can, fewer still can rival the quality of the ‘Grove’ and ‘Milton’ organs in Tewkesbury’s magnificent Norman abbey.

The legendary organist William Thomas Best proclaimed the ‘Grove’ (on show at the Liverpool Exhibition of 1886) to be ‘the finest organ of its kind that I have ever played upon’; its first appearance at the 1885 Inventions Exhibition in London caused something of a sensation amongst the organ cognoscenti. Tewkesbury Abbey’s other instrument – known as the ‘Milton’ – is a happy example of enlargement and rebuilding over the decades, resulting in a flexible and thoroughly contemporary instrument capable of interpreting a wide spectrum of the repertoire. This recording demonstrates the unique qualities of each instrument in a programme of concert organ works by some of the finest composers for the organ of the past two centuries.

‘The Tewkesbury organist, Carleton Etherington, shows sensitivity and subtlety...’ — International Record Review, March 2009

DCD34087

For their fourth recording for Delphian, the boys and men of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum turn their attentions to that doyen of Anglican church music, Charles Villiers Stanford. Alongside familiar gems from the Evensong repertoire, sung with characteristic vigour and freshness, the programme includes the six little-known Bible Songs, each followed by its associated hymn. Amongst the soloists - all members of the choir – are Laurence Kilsby, 2009 BBC Chorister of the Year, making his solo debut on disc.

‘For their fourth recording for Delphian, the boys and men of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum turn their attentions to that doyen of Anglican church music, Charles Villiers Stanford. Alongside familiar

The Three Kings: Music for Christmas from Tewkesbury Abbey Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum Carleton Etherington organ, / Benjamin Nicholas DCD34047 In the vast, echoing space of their medieval home the boys and men of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum celebrate the awe and mystery of Christmas, ushering in the birth of the Christ-child with a sequence of carols from the last two centuries that combines familiar names with offerings from some of today’s foremost composers.

‘I doubt whether there are many more admirable choirs outside Westminster, Oxford and Cambridge than the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola

DCD34019