Choral Spect Booklet

Transcrição

476 5706
The World’s Greatest Choral Music
CD1
[74’12]
CARL ORFF 1895-1982
1 O Fortuna from Carmina burana
Sydney Philharmonia Motet and Symphonic Choirs, Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra,
Antony Walker conductor LIVE RECORDING
ANTONIO VIVALDI 1678-1741
2 Gloria in excelsis Deo (Glory to God in the Highest) from Gloria in D major, RV589
Sydney Philharmonia Motet Choir, Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra,
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL 1685-1759
3 Zadok the Priest, HWV258
Sydney Philharmonia Symphonic Choir, Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra,
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH 1685-1750
4 Jesus bleibet meine Freude (Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring) from Cantata No. 147
‘Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben’, BWV147
2’36
HOWARD GOODALL b. 1958
2’23
JOHN RUTTER b. 1945
5’37
3’31
Gondwana Voices, Sally Whitwell piano, Mark O’Leary conductor
HUBERT PARRY 1848-1918
0 Jerusalem
2’28
Cantillation, David Drury organ, Brett Weymark conductor
2’51
GREGORIO ALLEGRI 1582-1652
! Miserere a 5 & 4
12’31
Jane Sheldon treble, Belinda Montgomery soprano, Jenny Duck-Chong alto,
Richard Anderson bass, Cantillation, Antony Walker conductor
4’07
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL
@ Hallelujah! from Messiah, HWV56
3’55
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI 1567-1643
6 Deus in adiutorium...Domine ad adiuvandum me festina (O God, in My Adversity...
2
3’06
Jane Sheldon soprano, Cantillation, David Drury organ, Sinfonia Australis,
David Stanhope conductor
9 For the Beauty of the Earth
Choir of Trinity College, University of Melbourne, Michael Leighton Jones director
O Lord Make Haste to Help Me) from Vespro della Beata Vergine
(Vespers of the Blessed Virgin)
3’27
8 Psalm 23 ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ from the television series The Vicar of Dibley
FRANZ BIEBL 1906-2001
5 Ave Maria – excerpt
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART 1756-1791
7 Ave verum corpus (Hail, True Body), KV618
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 1770-1827
2’04
£ An die Freude (Ode to Joy) from Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125
3
8’47
GIUSEPPE VERDI 1813-1901
ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER b. 1948
$ Dies irae (Day of Wrath) from Messa da Requiem (Requiem Mass)
4’18
5 Pie Jesu from Requiem
3’56
Jane Sheldon, Sara Macliver sopranos, Cantillation, Sinfonia Australis,
David Stanhope conductor
Sydney Philharmonia Symphonic and Motet Choirs, Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra,
JOHN TAVENER b. 1944
WILLIAM HENRY MONK 1823-1889 arr. Michael Leighton Jones
% Song for Athene
7’08
Cantillation, Antony Walker conductor
GABRIEL FAURÉ 1845-1924
^ Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11
5’15
Cantillation, David Drury organ, Antony Walker conductor
6 Abide with Me
5’24
Suzanne Shakespeare soprano, Benjamin Namdarian tenor, Mark Fitzpatrick trumpet,
Choir of Trinity College, University of Melbourne, Jonathan Bradley organ,
Michael Leighton Jones director
MICHAEL PRAETORIUS 1571-1621
7 In dulci jubilo a 4
CD2
[70’05]
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
GIULIO CACCINI 1551-1618 arr. Daniel Walker
1 Magnificat anima mea Dominum (My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord)
from Magnificat in D major, BWV243
3’02
2 For Unto Us a Child is Born from Messiah, HWV56
3’42
Cantillation, Orchestra of the Antipodes, Antony Walker conductor
8 Ave Maria
3’25
Gondwana Voices, Alexandre Oguey oboe, Helena Rathbone, Aiko Goto violins,
Nicole Forsyth viola, Daniel Yeadon cello, Maxime Bibeau double bass,
Paul Stanhope chamber organ, Lyn Williams conductor
WILLIAM BYRD c. 1540-1623
9 Ave verum corpus (Hail, True Body)
4’40
Belinda Montgomery soprano, Jenny Duck-Chong alto, Paul McMahon tenor,
Richard Anderson bass, Brett Weymark conductor
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
3 Lacrimosa from Requiem, KV626
2’28
3’20
JEAN SIBELIUS 1865-1957
0 Be Still, My Soul
5’27
Cantillation, David Drury organ, Brett Weymark conductor
GABRIEL FAURÉ
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI
4 Pavane, Op. 50
5’48
4
! Cantate Domino (Sing to the Lord)
1’57
5
CD3
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF 1873-1943
@ Bogoroditse Djevo, radusia (Virgin, Mother of God) from All-Night Vigil (Vespers), Op. 37
Sydney Philharmonia Symphonic Choir, Antony Walker conductor
2’52
LIVE RECORDING
[71’15]
1 And the Glory of the Lord from Messiah
Cantillation, Orchestra of the Antipodes, Antony Walker conductor
2’26
EDWARD ELGAR 1857-1934
£ Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 ‘Land of Hope and Glory’
6’51
3’15
Paul McMahon tenor, Cantillation, Brett Weymark conductor
3’08
7’44
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
4 O Sacred Head Sore Wounded (Passion Chorale) from St Matthew Passion, BWV244
2’46
PERCY GRAINGER 1882-1961
^ Ye Banks and Braes (British Folk Music Settings No. 30)
SAMUEL BARBER 1910-1981
3 Agnus Dei, Op. 11
GUSTAV HOLST 1874-1934 verse 2 arr. Michael Leighton Jones
% I Vow to Thee, My Country
3’01
JOHN HUGHES 1873-1932 arr. Brett Weymark
$ Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
FRANZ SCHUBERT 1797-1828
2 Sanctus from German Mass, D872
GABRIEL FAURÉ
3’27
5 In paradisum (Into Paradise) from Requiem, Op. 48
3’32
MICHAEL PRAETORIUS
& Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming)
3’15
MORTEN LAURIDSEN b. 1943
6 O magnum mysterium (O Great Mystery)
RICHARD WAGNER 1813-1883
* Beglückt darf nun dich, o Heimat, ich schauen (With Gladness I Gaze Once More
on My Native Land – Pilgrims' Chorus) from Tannhäuser
Cantillation, Brett Weymark conductor
6’28
JOSEPH HAYDN 1732-1809
3’54
7 Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes (The Heavens Are Telling the Glory of God)
from Die Schöpfung (The Creation), Hob.XXI:2
3’58
ANTON BRUCKNER 1824-1896
8 Ave Maria (Hail Mary)
4’14
6
7
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 1809-1847
9 Thanks be to God from Elijah, Op. 70
3’39
ALEXANDER BORODIN 1833-1887
0 Polovtsian Dance No. 17 from Prince Igor
11’30
PERCY GRAINGER
! Irish Tune from County Derry
4’15
Sydney Philharmonia Motet Choir, Antony Walker conductor
ROY WILLIAMSON 1937-1990 arr Lyle Chan and Brett Weymark
@ Flower of Scotland
1’45
JOHN TAVENER
£ Lament for Jerusalem – excerpt
2’30
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, The Australian Youth Orchestra, Thomas Woods conductor
$ Now Love, That Everlasting Boy from Semele
Cantillation, Sirius Ensemble, Antony Walker conductor
2’37
5’02
Jane Sheldon soprano, David Drury organ, Cantillation, Antony Walker conductor
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS 1872-1958
^ All People that on Earth Do Dwell
5’40
Choir of Trinity College, University of Melbourne, Australian Chamber Brass Ensemble,
Jonathan Bradley organ, Michael Leighton Jones director
8
of the exultant text, ‘Glory to God in
the highest.’
3 HANDEL Zadok the Priest
Mozart once said, ‘When Handel chooses,
he strikes like a thunderbolt.’ Of nothing is
this so true as of the anthem Zadok the
Priest, composed for the coronation of King
George II in 1727, and sung in Westminster
Abbey at every coronation since. It begins
with an extraordinary 22 bars of arpeggios:
slow chords spread out into a constant flow
of running semiquavers, the harmonic
tension building inexorably to a staggering
climax as the choir bursts in with its opening
acclamation, a rich seven-part choral texture
accompanied by trumpets and drums. The
central section, ‘And all the people rejoiced’,
is a stately dance in triple time, and the
anthem finishes with triumphant shouts of
‘Amen! Alleluia!’. The text is a paraphrase of
the Old Testament account of King
Solomon’s coronation: highly flattering to the
new king, as Solomon was famous for his
wisdom, and reigned over a prosperous and
peaceful kingdom.
2 VIVALDI Gloria in excelsis Deo
HAROLD DARKE 1888-1976
% In the Bleak Mid-Winter
CD1
1 ORFF O Fortuna from Carmina burana
Stravinsky described it as ‘neo-Neanderthal’
music, but this was a backhanded tribute to
Carl Orff’s success in writing perhaps the
most popular choral-orchestral work of the
20th century. Using the rediscovered
medieval songs and poems from the
monastery at Beuron in Bavaria (hence the
title Carmina burana, ‘Songs of Beuron’), Orff
in 1937 brought out a work combining dance,
mime and singing with a simple orchestral
accompaniment dominated by pianos and
percussion. The work’s opening and closing
chorus is an invocation to the goddess
Fortune, with her constant changeability,
symbolised by the wheel of fortune.
from Gloria in D major
Antonio Vivaldi was a violin-playing priest
who spent much of his career teaching the
girls and directing their music at an
orphanage in Venice, the Ospedale della
Pietà. He also wrote over 500 concertos for
all kinds of solo instruments but especially
for the violin, including the famous Four
Seasons. His church music has the same
brilliant effects, based on springing, energetic
musical patterns; the opening movement of
his Gloria, with its leaping strings and skirling
trumpet, is full of vitality, a fitting setting
4 J.S. BACH Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring
from Cantata No. 147
Neither the words nor the tune of Jesu, Joy
of Man’s Desiring are by Bach (Salomo
Franck wrote the former, and Johann Schop
the latter); Bach’s contribution is the
9
6 MONTEVERDI Deus in adiutorium
wonderful treatment of the voices in harmony,
over an elegant, joyous accompaniment of
flowing triplets which itself becomes a melodic
feature. Bach used this chorale melody twice
in his Cantata No. 147. Cantatas were an
important part of the Lutheran church service:
Luther himself had declared that the gospel
must be preached and sung, and the cantata,
a meditation on the themes of the day’s bible
readings, was sung between the reading of
the gospel and the (hour-long) sermon.
from Vespers of the Blessed Virgin
Monteverdi begins his Vespers of the
Blessed Virgin with a striking toccata in
which a single chord is turned into an
expression of grand ceremonial splendour.
Not until the ‘alleluia’ at the end is the choir
given a melody to sing, but the unchanging
harmony which makes up most of the piece
is anything but static, as the orchestra
weaves its energetic fanfares around the
powerful chord. The music’s dramatic quality
is not surprising, considering that it was
reworked by Monteverdi from the overture to
his opera Orfeo.
5 BIEBL Ave Maria – excerpt
Biebl was one of the most influential figures
in 20th-century German choral music. He
studied at the Musikhochschule in Munich
and during World War II was interned in
America, where he arranged concerts of
choral and chamber music. He returned to
Germany, becoming organist and choirmaster
at the Parish Church of St Magdalena in
Fürstenfeldbruck, near Munich, before being
appointed the first head of choral music
programming for the Bavarian Radio
Broadcasting Company. During these
appointments, he produced many of his over
1500 compositions and arrangements for
local and visiting choirs. His music remained
unknown outside Germany until Chanticleer
recorded the Ave Maria (written in 1964) in
the mid-1990s. Its simplicity of form, clear
texture and directness of approach are
characteristic of much of Biebl’s music.
7 MOZART Ave verum corpus
The communion motet Ave verum corpus
(Hail, True Body) is Mozart’s very last
completed work, composed at the request of
a schoolteacher friend who was also a
choirmaster. In other composers its richness
within simplicity might be the sign of a ‘late’
style – but Mozart was only 36!
8 GOODALL Psalm 23 ‘The Lord is
my Shepherd’
A happy conversion from secular to sacred
use has been the fate of Howard Goodall’s
1995 setting of The Lord is my Shepherd,
which was originally written as the theme for
the popular British TV series The Vicar of
Dibley. ‘My intention with the Dibley theme,’
10
0 PARRY Jerusalem
wrote Goodall, ‘had always been to treat the
series as if it were not a comedy, and write a
piece of popular church music that might
have a further life. It is now, I’m delighted to
say, enjoying that further life and is
performed in its full-length version both in
churches and concert halls everywhere.’ A
seasoned chorister, and composer of
musicals, film and television music, Goodall
comfortably adds a gentle syncopation to the
harmonies of predecessors such as Wesley
and Stanford, whose ‘epic and tuneful
chestnuts’ remain influential on his music.
Parry set William Blake’s stirring poetry to
music for a meeting of the Fight for the
Right, a women’s suffrage movement, in
1916; after he conducted it in 1918 at a
concert in London’s Royal Albert Hall to mark
the final stage in the Votes for Women
campaign, it was adopted by the National
Federation of Women’s Institutes. It is still
sung at meetings of WI groups all over
Britain, but its vision of ‘dark satanic mills’
vanquished and the shining city of God
established in England’s ‘green and pleasant
lands’ has been taken up much more broadly,
and Parry’s powerful anthem has become an
icon of British national identity.
9 RUTTER For the Beauty of the Earth
For the Beauty of the Earth was
commissioned by the Texas Choral Directors
Association in 1980. This elegant anthem is a
perfect example of the qualities which have
made John Rutter’s music so popular:
memorable melodies well-crafted for the
voice, with simple and immediately appealing
harmonies drawing both on the English
choral tradition and on the language of
popular music. Rutter’s experience in
directing vocal ensembles, especially the
choir of Clare College, Cambridge and his
own Cambridge Singers, has given him a
great sensitivity to the qualities of the
human voice which comes across in his
choral writing.
! ALLEGRI Miserere
This setting of the penitential Psalm 51 was
composed by Allegri around 1638 for the
Tenebrae services in the week leading up to
Easter: an intensely dramatic night office in
which the candles were extinguished one by
one to the solemn chanting of psalms. The
Miserere was the culmination of this office,
during which the final candle was carried
behind the high altar, leaving the church in
total darkness. Gregorio Allegri, a tenor in the
Sistine Chapel choir, gave his composition to
the choir for its exclusive use, and for over a
hundred years no-one outside the choir was
permitted to set eyes on the music – but the
14-year-old Mozart, on a visit to the Vatican,
11
premiere one of the soloists had to turn him
around to acknowledge the applause.
was able to memorise the work on a single
hearing, thus ‘smuggling’ the music out in
his own head.
$ VERDI Dies irae from Requiem
@ HANDEL Hallelujah! from Messiah
Verdi’s Messa da Requiem was described by
Brahms’ friend the conductor Hans von
Bülow as Verdi’s latest opera, in church
vestments. When Brahms heard this, he
snorted that Bülow had made an ass of
himself. Verdi’s very Italian drama and colour
was a completely different way of responding
to the Mass for the Dead, but one Brahms
recognised as equally inspired. The sequence,
Dies irae (Day of Wrath), a text reminiscent of
the frescoes in Italian churches reminding the
faithful of the reckoning awaiting them at the
end of time, is the most spectacular part of
Verdi’s setting.
For many people, a performance of Handel’s
Messiah is one of the highlights of the
Christmas season, but in fact the oratorio
was written to be sung during Lent, the
solemn period of fasting and spiritual
discipline in preparation for the festival of
Easter. Of Messiah’s three parts, only the
first is about the Nativity; the Hallelujah
Chorus comes at the end of Part II, which
focuses on the death and resurrection of
Christ, and is intended as an affirmation of
Christ’s victory over death and the
establishment of his kingdom on earth.
£ BEETHOVEN An die Freude (Ode to Joy)
% TAVENER Song for Athene
from Symphony No. 9
Beethoven saw himself as the heir of Haydn
and Mozart in Vienna’s great tradition. At the
same time, he was inspired to take that
tradition in new directions – such as including
a choir in the finale of his ninth (and last)
symphony. The words of this Ode to Joy
come from a poem by Schiller, and they
proclaim a vision of all humankind as one
family, with God as their loving father.
Beethoven refined his tune through many
sketches to its simple, clear and memorable
form. But he couldn’t hear it, and at the
The Englishman John Tavener became a
member of the Russian Orthodox church in
1977. There are two particularly Russian
elements in his music: the use of parallel
harmonies – a simple chord moving in step
with the melody – and of course the deep
bass sound. A third, more individual element
of his musical style is the use of exact
inverted counterpoint, where a melody sung
in one voice is sung simultaneously as an
exact mirror image in another, so that
wherever one melody rises, the other falls by
precisely the same interval. All three of these
12
elements can be heard in Song for Athene.
The work was written as a response to the
sudden death of a friend (four years later, it
was also sung at the funeral service for
Diana, Princess of Wales). The text brings
together Tavener’s English heritage and his
Orthodox spirituality by quoting both from
the Orthodox funeral service and from
Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
CD2
1 J.S. BACH Magnificat anima mea
Dominum from Magnificat in D major
Bach spent the last 28 years of his life as the
Kantor, or Director of Music, of St Thomas’
Church in Leipzig. Some of his greatest
music was composed during this period,
including the monumental Mass in B minor
and the St John and St Matthew Passions.
The Magnificat is on a smaller scale than
these works, but every one of its brief
movements is a masterpiece. Bach wrote it
for Christmas Vespers in 1723, his first
Christmas in Leipzig, and included several
additional Christmas texts inserted at various
points in the piece. Some years later he
revised it, removing the Christmas
interpolations to make the piece suitable for
use throughout the year, and transposing it
into D, a much brighter and more satisfactory
key for the trumpets in particular, as is very
clear from this opening movement, ‘My soul
magnifies the Lord.’
^ FAURÉ Cantique de Jean Racine
Racine’s canticle, which Fauré would have
found in the writer’s collection of Cantiques
spirituels (1694) that he wrote for use at the
young girls’ school of Saint Cyr, is a fervent
and eloquent prayer that produced from Fauré
not only his first mature work, but also one of
his very finest. With the Cantique de Jean
Racine, Fauré won first prize for composition
in 1865 at the École Niedermeyer where he
studied for eleven years.
2 HANDEL For Unto Us a Child is Born
from Messiah
This buoyant and graceful chorus is an
expression of joy at the birth of the Christchild. Out of the light two-part writing which
begins the chorus, Handel builds the voices
together into an exultant affirmation at
‘Wonderful, Counsellor...’. Handel borrowed
the music from a comic love duet he had
13
4 FAURÉ Pavane
written a month or so earlier (to the very
secular Italian words No, di voi non vo’
fidarmi – ‘No, I don’t want to trust you’) and
the clarity of his original chamber music
version is preserved in this setting for full
chorus.
Fauré composed his Pavane in 1887, at a
time when he was immersing himself in the
poetry of Paul Verlaine, and the piece is full
of the nostalgia for the courtly world of fêtes
galantes as celebrated in the 18th-century
paintings of Watteau. The optional chorus
adds lovers’ whispered confidences to the
stately procession of the pavane dance.
3 MOZART Lacrimosa from Requiem
The opening eight bars of the Lacrimosa may
well be the last notes that Mozart ever
wrote. The Requiem was commissioned by
Count Franz von Walsegg-Stuppach as a
memorial for his wife. Mozart began work on
the piece in October 1791 and was expecting
to finish it the following year, but when he
died on 5 December, only the opening
movement was complete. He had made a
start on several of the other movements, but
there were some for which he had written
nothing at all: the Lacrimosa, beyond those
first eight bars, was a completely blank page.
Mozart’s widow Constanze, desperate to
have the Requiem finished so that she could
claim the full commission fee, turned to one
of Mozart’s pupils, Franz Xaver Süssmayr,
who completed the piece to the best of his
ability, even faking Mozart’s signature so that
Walsegg would think he was getting a
genuine Mozart original. Not all of the
passages Süssmayr wrote are quite up to
Mozart’s standard, but his completion of the
Lacrimosa has become a favourite with both
choirs and audiences.
5 LLOYD WEBBER Pie Jesu from Requiem
Son of a London organist and composer, and
brother of a classical cellist, Andrew Lloyd
Webber grew up surrounded by music,
although, as he admits, ’My father insisted
that I should not be over-trained musically.’
The Requiem, from which this setting of the
Pie Jesu is excerpted, was in fact written in
memory of his father. It had its ritual ‘tryout’
at the Sydmonton Festival on the grounds of
Lloyd Webber’s own home in 1984 and was
extensively polished during the subsequent
six months before reaching the final version,
hugely popular when first released in 1985. A
more disarmingly simple setting of the Pie
Jesu could scarcely be imagined, recalling as
it does the similar treatment found in Fauré’s
famous setting. Lloyd Webber still enjoys
‘popping into evensong’ and comments
about his Requiem, ‘I don’t know what place
it will find in the music of today, but to me it
is the most personal of all my compositions.’
14
6 MONK arr. Leighton Jones Abide with Me
jubilo...’ The melody is one of the best known
in the entire Lutheran tradition, and in
Praetorius’ time would have been sung by
the congregation, led by a Cantor who stood
among them, with the harmony provided by
a professional choir from the local Latin
school, singing from the organ loft.
Henry Lyte won prizes for poetry while a
student at Trinity College, Dublin, and was
ordained soon after graduating. He wrote
Abide with Me a few months before his
death from illness, writing to his future
daughter-in-law that it was his ‘latest
effusion’. It was published in a collection of
his poetry in 1850 and, with his own tune,
was printed as a hymn-sheet in Bristol in
1863. In 1861, however, it had appeared in
Hymns Ancient and Modern, set to a
specially composed tune by William Henry
Monk (one of the hymnbook’s editors), with
which it has been associated ever since.
Now one of the most famous of all Christian
hymns, the poem takes its theme from Luke
24:29 – at the end of life’s brief span, the
faithful ask God to stay with them through
the darkness, until they awake in the light
of heaven.
8 CACCINI arr. Walker Ave Maria
Giulio Caccini was a singer and composer in
the Medici court and a member of the
Florentine Camerata, an artistic circle that
history recognises for having laid the
foundations for opera as we know it today.
His compositions included secular songs and
madrigals – but hardly any sacred works. And
the Ave Maria (in English, ‘Hail Mary’)
popularly attributed to him is a strange
composition: while the prayer has been set
to music hundreds of times over the
centuries, very rarely have these settings
used just the first two words. Scholars now
believe that the work is either by someone
else entirely, or else loosely based on a
Caccini original, perhaps a fragment that was
completed by another hand.
7 PRAETORIUS In dulci jubilo
The text of the Christmas chorale In dulci
jubilo, half in Latin, half in German, is said to
have been sung by angels to the mystic
Heinrich Seuse (or Suso): ‘After he had spent
many hours in contemplating the joys of the
angels ... there came to him a youth ... and
with him many other noble youths ... then
they drew him by the hand into the dance,
and the youth began a joyous song about the
infant Jesus, which runs thus: in dulci
9 BYRD Ave verum corpus
William Byrd was a devout Catholic who
relied on his musical talent to protect him
from the persecution being meted out to
Catholics under Elizabeth I. Others were not
so lucky: there is, for example, a record of
15
male-voice nationalist song (1938) and finally
for mixed voices in 1948. It is not known
who first decided that the tune was suited to
Schlegel’s German hymn, but its earliest
appearance in English is in the Revised
Church Hymnary (Church of Scotland) of
1927, well before its use as a hymn in
Finland itself.
someone being arrested for possessing a
copy of Byrd’s Gradualia, his setting of all the
mass texts for the major feasts of the
Catholic church year. Ave verum corpus, for
the feast of Corpus Christi, comes from this
collection: music for private, even secret,
worship. It is an intimate and concentrated
work; as Byrd wrote in the dedication of
Gradualia, ‘There is a certain hidden power,
as I learnt by experience, in the thoughts
underlying the words themselves; so that, as
one meditates upon the sacred words and
constantly and seriously considers them, the
right notes, in some inexplicable manner,
suggest themselves quite spontaneously.’
! MONTEVERDI Cantate Domino
Monteverdi is best known as the Maestro
di cappella (Director of Music) of St Mark’s
in Venice, a post he held from 1613, and for
writing large-scale works such as the
Vespers of 1610 and the operas Orfeo and
The Coronation of Poppea. He introduced a
revitalised and vibrant style of sacred music
to Venice, and this work, published in 1620,
contrasts sections of older-style polyphony
with rapid, homophonic passages. The text,
from Psalms 96 and 98, is not specific to
any one day, so this motet may have been
written for performance at any of the many
religious festivals held at the cathedral.
0 SIBELIUS Be Still, My Soul
Katharina von Schlegel’s six-verse hymn
Stille, mein Wille; dein Jesus hilft siegen (‘Be
still, my soul, your Jesus will help you
overcome’) appeared in a book of sacred
songs in 1752; Jane Borthwick’s translation
was published in Edinburgh in 1855 in a
series called Hymns from the Land of Luther.
In 1899, Sibelius composed a series of
dramatic historical tableaux as a contribution
to the anti-Russian Press Celebrations held in
November. The following year, Sibelius
rearranged the seventh tableau, ‘Finland
Awakes’, into the orchestral piece Finlandia,
but it was not provided with words until
1937, after which Sibelius rearranged it as a
@ RACHMANINOFF Virgin, Mother of God
from All-Night Vigil (Vespers)
Audiences without the key to the language
of his vocal works know Rachmaninoff
largely through the piano. Many Russians,
however, prize his vocal music even more
highly, and above all his greatest contribution
16
$ HUGHES arr. Weymark Guide Me, O Thou
to the Russian Orthodox liturgy, the All-Night
Vigil (Vespers) of 1915. Here Rachmaninoff
was drawing on an age-old tradition of
unaccompanied chant and choral music for
Orthodox worship, clothing it in his own
lyricism and affecting harmonies. Wonderfully
satisfying to sing, this music asks its
interpreters to sound like the deeply resonant
Russian voices for which it was written.
Great Jehovah
William Williams was an 18th-century
Anglican priest who spent 43 years travelling
throughout Wales on horseback, preaching
and singing the gospel in his native Gaelic.
This ‘sweet singer of Wales’ wrote some 800
hymns, but very few of them have been
translated into English. The tune, Cwm
Rhondda, was written in 1907 by the Welsh
composer John Hughes for the annual
Baptist singing festival at Capel Rhondda
church in Pontypridd, near Cardiff.
£ ELGAR Land of Hope and Glory
‘I’ve got a tune that will knock ‘em – knock
‘em flat,’ announced Elgar in May 1901. It was
the melody of the middle section of his march
in D major, the first of what was to become a
series of five marches that Elgar named Pomp
and Circumstance. Elgar was of course quite
right about the impact his melody would have,
to the point where he came to resent the
work’s mammoth success, as its popularity
eclipsed much of the rest of his output. That
popularity came especially with the marriage
of the music to A.C. Benson’s patriotic poem;
God Save the Queen may be the national
anthem of the United Kingdom, but Land of
Hope and Glory is the anthem of England –
the official anthem at the Commonwealth
Games, and of course unofficially at the Last
Night of the Proms!
% HOLST I Vow to Thee, My Country
Sir Cecil Spring Rice was a career diplomat
who served in the British Foreign Office and
then in Berlin, Constantinople, Tehran, Cairo,
St Petersburg and Stockholm; his final
posting, from 1912, was as Ambassador to
the United States. Spring Rice originally
wrote this poem during his Stockholm
posting (1908-1912); the first verse
concerned allegiance to one’s country, while
the second paralleled this with religious faith
in heaven. After his sacking as ambassador in
1918 (and only weeks before his death), a
depressed Spring Rice rewrote the first
verse to reflect the losses of the world war.
The poem was put to music by Gustav Holst,
set to the ‘Jupiter’ theme from his orchestral
suite The Planets.
17
^ GRAINGER Ye Banks and Braes
title refers to a convention of medieval
iconography wherein the stem of Jesse was
depicted as a rose plant.
The poem Ye Banks and Braes was penned
by Robert Burns in 1791: the source of the
tune has never been completely resolved.
There is a letter from Burns claiming that the
melody was written by a James Miller, who
had been advised, partly as a joke, that the
way to compose a true Scots air was to
simply ‘keep to the black keys of the
harpsichord and preserve some kind of
rhythm’. It has also been claimed that the
tune has its origins in Ireland, the Isle of
Man and England! This arrangement is by
the eccentric Australian composer and
pianist Percy Grainger, who marked it to be
sung ‘Very clingingly throughout’, with a
chorus of whistlers providing a descant in
the second verse.
* WAGNER Pilgrims’ Chorus
from Tannhäuser
Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser is an epic tale of
the human struggle between the spiritual
and the sensual. The minstrel Tannhäuser,
after a year of orgiastic pleasure in the city of
Venus, breaks free through his love for the
pure Elizabeth. Unable to completely
repudiate the memories of the physical
delights offered by Venus, Tannhäuser is sent
on a pilgrimage to Rome to seek absolution
from the Pope – who refuses to grant it, and
ultimately it is only through the intercession
of Elizabeth, who by this time has died and
gone to heaven, that Tannhäuser finally
receives the forgiveness he needs, at the
moment of his own death. The Pilgrims’
Chorus comes in Act III, as the returning
pilgrims (with Tannhäuser no longer part of
their company) sing of their joy at seeing
their native land again, now that their ordeal
is over.
& PRAETORIUS Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
When Michael Praetorius collated Musae
Sioniae (‘The Muses of Sion’), an extensive
compendium of German hymnody published
in nine volumes from 1605, he included a
four-part setting of the 15th-century folk carol
Es ist ein Ros entsprungen. The text follows
the messianic prophecy found in the book of
the Old Testament prophet Isaiah: ‘A shoot
will come up from the stem of Jesse [the
father of King David] and from his roots a
branch [Mary] will bear a little flower [Jesus].
Loosely translated as ‘A rose did spring’, the
18
deliberately simple; Schubert’s hymn Zum
Sanktus, ‘to be sung at the Sanctus’, with its
sense of quiet dignity and awe, is a fine
example of the style.
CD3
1 HANDEL And the Glory of the Lord
from Messiah
The writings of the prophet Isaiah are rich
with poetic visions of the coming of the
Messiah. In this passage, Isaiah describes
how ‘all flesh’ shall see the glory of God;
Handel expresses this musically by
introducing the full chorus, for the first time
in Messiah, to exclaim at the wonder to
come. Each phrase of the text is set to a
distinctive melodic phrase, and these motifs
are passed from voice to voice to weave a
joyous dance pulsing with anticipation.
3 BARBER Agnus Dei
The Agnus Dei is the last of the five texts
traditionally set as part of the Catholic mass,
along with the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo and
Sanctus. Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei,
however, was not written for performance in
church. The music comes from his
immensely popular Adagio for Strings of
1938 (itself a transcription of the slow
movement of his String Quartet in B minor).
The Adagio has come to be particularly
associated with funerals – it was played at
the funerals of Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
Albert Einstein and Princess Grace of
Monaco, and was broadcast in the United
States when John F. Kennedy was killed –
and the composer had apparently been
deluged with requests for a choral version.
The Agnus Dei text fits well with the
poignant simplicity of the music, and the
flowing melody recalls the ‘simple and
sincere’ Gregorian plainsong which, said
Barber, ‘warmed all the corners of my heart
left cold and untouched by the magnificent
pageantry [of St Peter’s, Rome].’
2 SCHUBERT Sanctus from German Mass
Most of the famous mass settings are
settings of what is commonly referred to as
‘High Mass’, where a choir sings more or
less elaborate settings of the Latin texts
used in the Catholic liturgy. Schubert’s
German Mass belongs to a different tradition.
In a ‘Low Mass’, up until the 1950s, the texts
of the mass were recited in a low voice by
the priest, to the point where much of the
service was inaudible to the congregation. To
compensate for this, music was written for
the choir or congregation to sing at
significant points in the service. For example,
while the priest was reciting the Kyrie
eleison prayer (‘Lord, have mercy’), the
congregation would sing a hymn in German
asking God for mercy. The style was kept
19
4 J.S. BACH O Sacred Head Sore Wounded
what that new Requiem was. Fauré replied
that it was one from his own pen. The vicar
went on, ‘Monsieur Fauré, we don’t need all
these novelties; the Madeleine’s repertoire is
quite rich enough, just content yourself with
that.’ Nevertheless, despite this initial
reception and the composer’s own
nonchalance, the work, since its publication in
1900, has become a firm favourite with
audiences the world over. In Paradisum is the
last movement, an evocation of the angels
leading the departed soul into Paradise.
from St Matthew Passion
This chorale comes from Bach’s St Matthew
Passion, his musical setting of the biblical
narrative of the crucifixion of Christ. As the
story unfolds, at key points Bach
intersperses arias and chorales, settings of
religious poetry designed to encourage the
listener to enter into the spirit and emotion
of the story, and to make a personal
response. O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded
comes at the point in the story where Christ,
after being flogged, is presented to the
crowd dressed in kingly robes of purple, with
a crown of thorns on his head: the mocking
laughter of the crowd, ‘Hail, King of the
Jews!’ is transformed into a hymn of quiet
dignity and power. Bach uses this tune five
times in the course of the St Matthew
Passion, harmonised differently each time; as
a result, it has become known as the
‘Passion Chorale’.
6 LAURIDSEN O magnum mysterium
Morten Lauridsen is Professor and Chair of
Composition at the University of Southern
California, and one of the most performed
American choral composers today. O
magnum mysterium is probably his bestknown work; its long, arching melodic lines
are embellished with carefully prepared and
controlled dissonances to create its intended
aura of a ‘great mystery and wondrous
sacrament’. Lauridsen has described the
piece as ‘a quiet song of profound inner joy’.
5 FAURÉ In paradisum from Requiem
The Requiem is Fauré’s most famous work,
composed when he was choirmaster at the
fashionable Madeleine church in Paris. He
later declared, ‘My Requiem wasn’t written
for anything … for pleasure, if I may call it
that,’ going on to say that he directed its first
performance ‘at the funeral of some
parishioner or other.’ Immediately after that
funeral, the vicar called Fauré over and asked
7 HAYDN The Heavens Are Telling
from The Creation
Haydn’s oratorio The Creation was inspired
by performances he had heard in England of
Handel oratorios, and its text, based on the
poetry of Milton and on the Bible, had
originally been intended for Handel. The story
20
chorus, with vivid illustration of the rushing
of water.
of the creation of the world is told by solo
angels, and at the conclusion of each day of
creation, the whole heavenly choir
celebrates, as in this chorus: ‘The heavens
are telling the glory of God, and the
firmament shows forth his handiwork.’
0 BORODIN Polovtsian Dance No. 17
from Prince Igor
The opera Prince Igor would have been
Borodin’s masterpiece – as it is, neither the
libretto nor the music was finished, but
concert halls resound to what Borodin did
achieve, and so does the Broadway musical
Kismet. The tunes of the barbarically splendid
Polovtsian Dances constantly remind us that
a Russian genius was uniquely placed to
interpret the orient – in this case the Turkish
nomads, living in 12th-century southern
Russia, called Polovtsi, who capture Prince
Igor, and dance and sing in praise of their
benevolent ruler, Khan Konchak.
8 BRUCKNER Ave Maria
Bruckner was a choirboy at the monastery of
St Florian before training as a teacher and
studying music only as a sideline. His music
sits firmly in the Viennese orchestral
traditions of Beethoven and Schubert, but
with a harmonic and instrumental idiom
similar to that of Wagner. First performed on
12 May 1861 by the Linz Cathedral Choir,
this, his second setting of the ‘Angelic
Salutation’, was published in 1887 as number
two of Zwei Kirchen-Chöre (Two Church
Choruses).
! GRAINGER Irish Tune from County Derry
This famous tune is best known today as
Danny Boy, but although the song seems to
evoke the very soul of Ireland, the poem was
penned by an Englishman, the barrister
Frederick E. Weatherly, who matched it up
with the tune in 1912. When Grainger wrote
this setting, in 1902, the melody was an ‘old
Irish tune, wordless and nameless’. It existed
in just one source, George Petrie’s 1855
collection Ancient Music of Ireland; Petrie
had the tune from a ‘Miss J. Ross of
Newtown Limavady in the County of
Londonderry’, who according to a Ross family
9 MENDELSSOHN Thanks be to God
from Elijah
Mendelssohn was only 39 when he died, but
he had in the course of his career made ten
visits to England. There he was a superstar,
and few works have been as eagerly awaited
as his oratorio Elijah, composed for
Birmingham in 1846. It became the most
popular oratorio of the 19th century. Elijah
the prophet leads the people of Israel to trust
that God will relieve the drought afflicting
them, and when it breaks, they rejoice in this
21
for God. The Lament is a sign, therefore, and
a lament for the lost paradise that is
universal.’ The texts are drawn from Christian,
Jewish and Muslim traditions; this excerpt
from Stanza V is a setting of Christ’s lament
over Jerusalem: ‘O how often would I have
gathered thy children together even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and
ye would not!’
tradition had learned the melody from a ‘very
old man’ in a distant mountain cabin who had
himself learned it from a harper. Grainger
wrote six different versions of the melody, all
of them wordless; the rich harmonies of this
version for unaccompanied choir reveal
Grainger’s inexhaustible inventiveness and his
clear love for the melody.
@ WILLIAMSON arr. Chan / Weymark
$ HANDEL Now Love, That Everlasting Boy
Flower of Scotland
This song commemorates the Battle of
Bannockburn in 1314 when the Scottish army
under Robert I (the Bruce), King of Scots
defeated Edward II, King of England. Like
Land of Hope and Glory for the English,
Flower of Scotland is the Scottish ‘national’
song, for those occasions where being
Scottish comes before being British – the
Rugby World Cup being the most famous
example. The composer, Roy Williamson,
was for 25 years one half of the Scottish folk
duo The Corries.
from Semele
Handel is famous for his oratorios – Messiah
being the obvious example – and he was
also immensely successful as a composer of
operas, such as Julius Caesar and Alcina.
With Semele, however, he created
something that was neither oratorio nor
opera: though it was originally performed in
oratorio style, without costumes or sets, as if
it were a piece of sacred music, its secular,
even erotic tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses
was clearly operatic, as was the extensive
use of recitative. But one quality which
Semele shared with Handel’s oratorios is his
brilliant use of the chorus. The fashionable
Italian operas of the day generally confined
the involvement of the chorus to the finales
of each act; in Semele, Handel gives the
chorus plenty of opportunities to shine, as in
Now Love, That Everlasting Boy, set to the
bright dance rhythms of a hornpipe.
£ TAVENER Lament for Jerusalem – excerpt
Tavener has described the Lament for
Jerusalem as a ‘mystical love song... The title
might suggest a work written for the wartorn place that contemporary Jerusalem has
become, but...for me, Jerusalem is a
universal symbol which signifies the
changeless and celestial synthesis of the
Cosmos, and the primordial longing of man
22
% DARKE In the Bleak Mid-Winter
Executive Producers Robert Patterson, Lyle Chan
Mastering Thomas Grubb
Editorial and Production Manager Hilary Shrubb
Publications Editor Natalie Shea
Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd
Cover Photo Jim Reed/CORBIS/APL
Harold Darke set Christina Rossetti’s poem In
the Bleak Mid-Winter in 1911, only five years
after Gustav Holst had written his version for
The English Hymnal. Rossetti’s poem seems
not to have been intended as a carol or
hymn, but its subject matter lends itself
perfectly to the application. While some
commentators have pointed out its scriptural
liberties (there are no references to ox, ass
or camel in the bible and neither is there
evidence to suggest Christ’s birth took place
in mid-winter), it would be churlish to
concentrate on these minor details and
ignore the carol’s many delights.
ABC Classics thanks Alexandra Alewood and
Melissa Kennedy.
 2000 CD1 1-4, 6, 7, @-$, CD2 1, 3, 4, @, £ CD3 5,
7, 9-!;  2001 CD1 ^;  2002 CD1 5, 8, %, CD2 2, 5,
!, CD3 1, 3, 6, 8;  2003 CD1 9-!, CD2 7, 9, 0, $,
*, CD3 @, $;  2004 CD2 &, CD3 £, %;  2006 CD2 6,
8, %, ^, CD3 2, 4, ^
This compilation was first published in 2006 and any and all
copyright in this compilation is owned by the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation. © 2006 Australian Broadcasting
Corporation. Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by
Universal Music Group, under exclusive licence. Made in
Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Any
copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or
broadcast of this record without the authority of the copyright
owner is prohibited.
^ VAUGHAN WILLIAMS All People that
on Earth Do Dwell
This famous text, a metrical paraphrase of
Psalm 100 (Jubilate Deo), is almost certainly
by William Kethe, a Protestant working in
exile in Geneva during the reign of Queen
Mary. So fine is the text and so famous its
tune, that the ‘Hundredth Psalm’ received
mention in works such as Shakespeare’s The
Merry Wives of Windsor and Bunyan’s The
Pilgrim’s Progress. Vaughan Williams wrote
two arrangements of this psalm, one in
1929, and the other, sung here – with
trumpets, and incorporating a setting by John
Dowland – for the coronation of Queen
Elizabeth II in 1953.
23

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