Voices of Thunder
Works for Choir and Organ
Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford/Mark Williams
Alexander Pott, Edward Byrne and Romain Bornes (organists)
rec. 2023, Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford, UK
Coro COR16209 [77]

In some respects, the real ‘star’ of this collection is the organ, constructed by the German firm Eule and installed in Magdalen College Chapel in 2023. An essay in the booklet describes the instrument in considerable technical detail, much of which, it must be said, goes over this non-organist’s head. Full specification is provided, as well as a handsome photograph, spoiled only by the ubiquitous QR code where a score would usually be found. One passage in the essay I find particularly interesting: ‘Briefed with designing an instrument that would provide the tonal palette to accompany the Choir in a wide range of repertoire, as well as functioning as an effective and colourful solo instrument … one of the key considerations was the educational element of the design’. A suitable instrument, in other words, for ‘aspiring organists who spend time as Organ Scholar at the College’. Two Organ Scholars accompany the choir on this disc, with three pieces each; Assistant Organist, Alexander Pott, takes charge of the remaining six. In every case, their contribution is beyond praise.

The programme opens with works from two of our finest composers. James MacMillan, characteristically, provides a new way of reading a well-known text. The choir is restrained as it intones the words, then it is left to the organ, magnificently and wordlessly, to ‘sing unto the Lord a new song’ once the choir has left the scene. Jonathan Dove is equally inventive, using the organ to evoke the ‘seven stars’ created by the one who ‘turneth the shadow of death into the morning’. An ‘Alleluia’ then rapturously recreates that very morning, when ‘the darkness shineth as the day’. These deeply satisfying short works, perfectly chosen to demonstrate the splendid sound of the organ, make a most promising start to the programme.

There are some lovely moments in Dobrinka Tabakova’s Praise, but overall the piece makes a less immediate impression on this listener. Neither the climax, with the performers taken to the very top of their register, nor the sweetly consoling major-key close seem to grow naturally out of the text. ‘Balfour Gardiner’s Evening Hymn will be known to generations of choristers…largely as a result of its magnificent opening page’, say the notes. This may well be true, but it was a new and welcome friend to me. It is a splendid example of Anglican church music of its period, a passionate prayer for guidance and protection so sonorous and fervently confident that it (almost) leaves the listener convinced that the prayer will be answered.

The delightful registration chosen for the gentler portions of Haydn’s Insanae et vanae curae, and the contrast with the stormier passages, make this piece a fine demonstration of the organ’s capacities. Much the same might be said of the following piece by Malcolm Boyle, for some 15 years organist of Chester Cathedral, when George Guest was one of the choristers. A striking organ introduction and ‘the colours it calls for in registration’ are given in the booklet as two of the reasons for programming the work. The notes also refer to its ‘melodic charm’; I would go no further than that. The piece is impressive enough, though it lacks the grandeur of the Balfour Davis, and even more, the Parry that is yet to come.

The words ‘My heart is ready, O God’ are passed from voice to voice in American composer Libby Larsen’s I will sing and raise a psalm, a lively setting of a joyful and affirmative text that takes us far from the Anglican liturgical tradition. A constantly moving organ accompaniment is another feature of this most attractive work. Stanford’s For lo, I raise up is a setting, completed in 1915, of a text that begins in warfare and violence. When it is transformed into a prayer for God’s reassurance, the music passes into a peaceful and hopeful major key. To my ears, Stanford was more at home with the second part of the message than the first. It is unusual to find a conductor describing part of a programme as ‘almost coarse’. Mark Williams explains, though, that Marcel Dupré’s Laudate Dominum was written for choir and two organs, the principal instrument, usually found in French churches high on the back wall, and a second, placed near the choir. Modified registration supplies the smaller instrument here. All the same, others may share this listener’s relief at leaving behind Dupré’s stabbing, fortissimo chords to find themselves in the company of Arvo Pärt’s The Beatitudes. Few composers have established a manner more instantly recognisable than that of Pärt. He sets the well-known words from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount as a series of homophonic utterances, tonal but with surprising dissonances, and with each sentence broken into pieces interspersed with silence. The organ supports the choir with held pedal notes, and the result is profoundly reflective. The final Amen, though, is sung fortissimo and is followed by a cascading organ postlude which, as far as is possible on the organ, subsides into silence.

Judith Weir’s contribution is the second of her Two Human Hymns. (The first is a setting of George Herbert’s Love bade me welcome, set by Vaughan Williams in Five Mystical Songs.) The first half of this short work is positive and optimistic, comparing mankind to such things as ‘flights of eagles’ and ‘wind that chafes the flood’. Alas, we know only too well that this cannot last. ‘The Wind blowes out’ and, in the end, ‘Man forgot’. I have never heard a work by Judith Weir that was less than compelling, and indeed, anyone who can compose an opera in three acts plus an epilogue with a single character, unaccompanied, is worth investigating. Like to the falling of a star, at barely three minutes, has marks of greatness. The staccato treatment of the gloomy second part of the text, with tongue-in-cheek barrel-organ accompaniment, made me laugh.

Mark Williams has been in charge of the music at Magdalen since the beginning of 2017, and has fashioned the choir into the outstanding group that we hear on this recording. The singing throughout the programme is very fine indeed, the performances disciplined, technically sound and musically pleasing. As befits the Anglican tradition, the choir is unbalanced – five basses for 14 trebles as named in the booklet – but such is very rarely in evidence. There are moments in Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens – chosen to end the programme, a decision as fitting as it is unsurprising – where ideally one would like to hear more of the inner voices of Parry’s eight-part counterpoint. The boys, however, are thrilling here, but also intensely sensitive where required elsewhere in the programme. Williams’s choices in respect of tempo and dynamics are invariably satisfying. The splendid close of the Parry is only one moment that demonstrates how successfully the recording team of Simon Kiln and James Whitbourn have captured the sound of the choir, the organ, and the building.

William Hedley

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Contents
James Macmillan (b. 1959)
A New Song
Jonathan Dove (b. 1959)
Seek him that maketh the seven stars
Dobrinka Tabakova (b. 1980)
Praise
Henry Balfour Gardiner (1877-1950)
Evening Hymn
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Insanae et vanae curae
Malcolm Boyle (1902-76)
Thou, O God, art praised
Libby Larsen (b. 1950)
I will sing and raise a psalm
Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)
For lo, I raise up
Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
Laudate Dominum, Op. 9/4
Arvo Pärt (b. 1935)
The Beatitudes
Judith Weir (b. 1954)
Like to the falling of a star
Charles Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
Blest Pair of Sirens