Orchestral Anthems
Choir of Merton College, Oxford
Britten Sinfonia/Benjamin Nicholas
rec. 2024, St Barnabas, Ealing, London.
Texts included
Delphian DCD34351 [61]
Although not designated as ‘Vol. 2’, this CD is a follow-up to the highly successful 2022 disc of orchestral anthems which featured the same performers (review). Three composers – Bairstow, Elgar, and Vaughan Williams – are represented on both albums, but it’s good to welcome Ireland, Stanford, S. S. Wesley and Walton this time round.
Benjamin Nicholas opens the programme with a chorus from Elgar’s early oratorio, The Light of Life. It was an honour for the Worcester-born composer that the Three Choirs Festival should invite him to compose an oratorio for the 1896 Festival, which was to be held in his home city. (In those days each of the three cities involved in the Festival had much more autonomy than is nowadays the case.) The oratorio was small in scale compared to Elgar’s three subsequent compositions in the genre; he was told he should limit his score to a duration of about an hour. The Light of Life is far less frequently heard these days compared to the other three oratorios and there’s a reason for that: it’s very much the work of a genius who was still in development, as I’ve discovered through singing in some performances. One great problem with the piece is the libretto by Rev. Edward Capel Cure (1860-1953); it could best be described as Victorian. I suspect that, even though Elgar must have been determined to make his mark with The Light of Life Capel Cure’s text did not inspire him in the way that Cardinal Newman’s words did when he came to composer Gerontius, nor, indeed, the libretti that Elgar himself compiled from Scripture for The Apostles and The Kingdom. The Light of Life was composed only three years before the ‘Enigma’ Variations but the latter work demonstrates what a quantum leap forward Elgar had made by 1899. In this particular chorus there are, to be sure, hints of the mastery to come but this isn’t top-drawer Elgar. Though the Merton College Choir and the Britten Sinfonia perform the piece very well it’s not top-drawer Elgar and I found myself wishing that Nicholas had chosen instead either Great is the Lord (1910-12) or Give unto the Lord (1914). Had the latter been selected, not only would it have been a stronger programme opener but also it would have been a good link with a couple of the other pieces on this disc because it was composed for the annual Festival of the Sons of the Clergy, held at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
Stanford’s A major Evening Canticles were composed for that very service in 1880. The fact that Stanford’s work here follows the Elgar anthem enables us to make a comparison between the two composers. In 1896 Elgar was 39, a provincial musician by background and effectively self-taught as a composer. In 1880 Stanford was 38 but he had enjoyed many advantages that were not available to his Worcester-born colleague. Born into a prosperous family, he had been educated at Cambridge and in Germany. At this stage in their respective careers, Stanford was the more fully developed and polished as a composer, yet it was Elgar whose achievements would eventually be significantly greater. In his notes, Jeremy Dibble justly refers to the “motivic tautness” of Stanford’s setting of the Magnificat and this, I think, makes it a stronger piece than the Elgar item. It must also be acknowledged that the Irishman had a much better text to set than did Elgar. The Magnificat is very impressive, even if it’s, perhaps, not quite as opulent as Stanford’s earlier setting in B flat, Op 10. The piece ends with a majestic ‘Glory be’, which gives way to big, contrapuntal writing for double choir (‘As it was in the beginning’). Stanford offers us a great contrast in his Nunc dimittis, which is initially tranquil and spacious. The music begins to grow at ‘To be a light’ and the notes rightly draw attention to the blaze of trumpets at ‘To be the glory…’ Interestingly, though, Stanford departs a little from convention and repeats the words and music of the canticle’s opening in order to provide a hushed coda; he then reprises the ‘Glory be’ which we heard in the Magnificat. These splendid canticles receive a stirring performance from Benjamin Nicholas and his musicians.
The next piece on the programme was also a product of the Festival of the Sons of the Clergy. Sir Edward Bairstow was commissioned to write Lord, thou hast been our refuge for the 1917 service. There’s quite a contrast with the Stanford piece from 1880. Gone is the confidence of the Victorian age at its zenith; instead, Bairstow’s piece seems to reflect the uncertainty of a nation caught up in what must have seemed in 1917 like a war without end. The choice of text – verses from Psalms 90 and 102 – was surely significant for these troubled times. The anthem has become well known in the reduction for organ but here it receives its first recording in the original orchestral guise. Apparently, the orchestral score was found among the papers of the late Dr Francis Jackson, Bairstow’s successor as Organist of York Minster. Though the setting has some ‘big’ passages, much of it has a fairly subdued air to it, as befits the text. The orchestration is very effective and Benjamin Nicholas has rendered a signal service by giving this version a debut recording, which will make it better known, and by leading a fine performance of it.
Also receiving its debut recording is the orchestral version of Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s Ascribe unto the Lord. Although something of a staple of the repertoire of church choirs in the version with organ accompaniment, I wonder how often the orchestral version has been heard. Wesley composed the anthem in 1851 and I learned from the booklet that it was during his time as Organist of Gloucester Cathedral (1865-1876) that he orchestrated the piece for performance at the 1867 Three Choirs Festival in Hereford. Frankly, the anthem is over-long but the present performance makes a strong case for it and enables us to enjoy the colours of Wesley’s rather Mendelssohnian orchestration.
In between the Bairstow and Wesley pieces there’s a short, purely orchestral item in the shape of Vaughan Williams’ Prelude on ‘Rhosymedre’. We hear it in a 1938 orchestration by the composer Arnold Foster (1898-1963). It seems to me that Foster did a very fine job in scoring this lovely little Bachian Prelude. I particularly like the use he makes of the horns, the warm tones of which enrich the scoring. This music glows, and so does the performance.
John Ireland’s 1912 anthem Greater love hath no man is a firm fixture in the church music repertoire, and rightly so. Ireland packs an awful lot into a short time span and both his text and musical material is tightly organised. Furthermore, the music fits the words like a glove. As Jeremy Dibble observes, though the piece was composed before World War I, its text meant that the anthem acquired an enhanced resonance during that conflict. Here, it’s performed in the composer’s own 1924 orchestration. Ireland’s scoring is highly effective and the performance is excellent in all respects. The short but important solos are sung very well indeed by soprano Aine Smith (a member of the Merton choir) and guest bass, Florian Stortz; if memory serves me correctly, I think Stortz was previously a member of the Trinity College Cambridge choir and I’ve heard and admired him as a soloist on some of their discs.
Stortz is involved again in the final work on the programme, singing (very well indeed) the imposing solo at the start of Walton’s The Twelve. This piece was commissioned in 1964 by Christ Church, Oxford; it brought together two alumni of the college because Walton’s piece is a setting of words by W H Auden. Originally composed with organ accompaniment and first performed in that version at Christ Church in 1965, Walton orchestrated it the following year for performance as part of the 900th anniversary celebrations of Westminster Abbey. Most of the performances I’ve heard of this piece have been in the organ version – usually in the context of services – and I have to say that I’ve never been wholly convinced by the piece: now, having heard this terrific performance, I know why. Walton’s orchestral scoring brings so much more by way of colour, not least through the addition of percussion. One realises how close the anthem is at times to the world of Belshazzar’s Feast (not that The Twelve is a mere clone of that earlier, spectacular masterpiece; such is not the case). The vigorous music that follows the opening bass solo (’When they heard the Word’) features jagged choral writing and trademark Walton scoring. Even more impressive is the darkly dramatic music at ‘Then the Dark Lord, adored by this world’. Here, the choral writing is full of malign suspense and the orchestral accompaniment enhances the atmosphere tremendously. There are two excellent and expressive soprano soloists in the second stanza of Auden’s poem (‘O Lord, my God’). The third and final section includes, to use Jeremy Dibble’s felicitous phrase, a “virulent fugue” and the piece’s brief, jubilant end certainly puts one in mind of a certain Old Testament Feast. The Merton College Choir and Britten Sinfonia give a vital, colourful account of The Twelve and Benjamin Nicholas invests the piece with great energy. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that this performance has made me appreciate at last the stature of this piece.
As you may have inferred from my comments, I think the repertoire on this disc is slightly uneven – which wasn’t the case on the previous Merton disc of orchestral anthems. However, that view is an expression of purely subjective taste and others will undoubtedly feel differently about the Elgar and Wesley pieces. There is, however, no unevenness whatsoever about the performances. The Merton College Choir is somewhat larger than on some of their previous discs; the choir comprises 45 singers (16/9/8/12), which is roughly the same as participated in the earlier orchestral anthems disc. It’s a wholly sensible decision to use a choir that is sufficiently large to balance effectively against the orchestra, yet small enough to retain the flexibility for which this choir is so well known. The singing is very fine throughout, as is the quality of the orchestral playing, Benjamin Nicholas conducts with evident flair and energy, as well as attention to detail.
I was interested to see that a different recording venue was used for this recording. The previous volume was set down in All Hallows’, Gospel Oak, whereas this time the sessions took place in St Barnabas, Ealing. Perhaps the relocation came about because the Ealing church has a suitable organ in situ; I think I’m right in saying that the organ of Merton College Chapel was dubbed on (very successfully) for the earlier disc. St Barnabas Church has proved to be an excellent choice this time round; the acoustic is evidently right for this repertoire. Producer Paul Baxter and engineer Jack Davis have recorded the music very successfully; there’s acoustic warmth yet that doesn’t cloud in any way the detail or impact of the sound. Jeremy Dibble’s notes are valuable and authoritative though, dare I say, occasionally just a bit over-technical for the general reader.
This is an excellent follow-up to the previous disc: I hope that Benjamin Nicholas and Delphian will feel encouraged to go for the hat trick!
John Quinn
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Contents
Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
‘Light out of Darkness’ (from The Light of Life, Op 29)
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)
Evening Service in A, Op 12
Sir Edward Bairstow (1874-1946)
Lord, thou hast been our refuge
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Prelude on ‘Rhosymedre’ (orch. Arnold Foster)
Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876)
Ascribe unto the Lord
John Ireland (1879-1962)
Greater love hath no man
Sir William Walton (1902-1983)
The Twelve
