By Ronald Corp
JAMES MACMILLAN is intermittently composing a series,
The Strathclyde Motets, no doubt with the aim of
providing music for the entire church year. So far, these motets
have been published separately, but now Boosey & Hawkes have
gathered together two volumes of seven anthems (£11.99; ISMNs
9790060122958 and 9790060122965) each. I hope they find a place in
the repertory of choirs up and down the country.
These works are suitable for concert use also, and have been
written with the good amateur choir in mind. This means that,
without compromising his personal musical idiom, MacMillan has
written pieces with an awareness of the ability of amateur singers.
The music is not as difficult as some of his other works, and the
immediacy of expression makes them very attractive.
But the music is challenging. The opening motet in volume one,
"Data est mihi omnis potestas", a communion anthem for
Ascension Day, is scored for eight-part choir, and begins with a
leap of a ninth for first sopranos (not so hard perhaps), but also
includes melismatic writing (admittedly at a slow tempo), which
would need to be securely sung to sound effective. Similar
flourishes of small-value notes feature in "Factus est
repente", a communion motet for Pentecost. The more
straightforward "In splendoribus sanctorum" for midnight
mass includes a trumpet (or organ) obbligato, and suggests a
performance embracing aleatoric elements.
Some of the music in Volume Two is more straightforward. The
block chords of "Benedicimus Deum caeli" and the syllabic
chordal writing in "The Canticle of Zachariah" reveal a more
down-to-earth side of MacMillan's writing; and "O radiant dawn", an
antiphon for 21 December, sounds almost Victorian. A harp is
called for in "Os mutorum", which is scored for two
soprano parts. The final two motets bring us back to the
complexities of an eight-part choir and more rhapsodic rhythmic
patterns.
If you want to hear any of these motets, some of them have
already attracted excellent recordings from the choir Capella Nova
under Alan Tavener on Linn Records.
THE Missa Dunelmi (£9.99; ISMN
9790060123450) was commis-sioned by Durham Cathedral and had its
première by the Cathedral Choir under James Lancelot in 2011. It is
scored for unaccompanied choir. The Kyrie is striking and
beautiful, and held together by sustained hummed notes, which act
as a kind of drone, over which the two-part treble voices sing
ecstatic lines. The opening three-note- intonation that the priest
sings to the words "Gloria in excelsis Deo" gives that
movement its musical starting point, and provides a motif that
informs the rest of the movement.
The Creed is not set. The Sanctus movement rejoices in hushed as
well as fortissimo chords and flourishes, with a Benedictus section
floating in (mainly) unison trebles over rich major chords. The
Agnus Dei is marked "very slow", and is written in very long notes.
Here, the chords are denser, the treble notes carrying the melodic
line. This is a most attractive mass setting, and I hope it gets an
outing in the concert hall, too, where it would make a wonderful
item in a programme of sacred music.
Domine non secundum peccata nostra
(£2.50; ISMN: 979006012-3238) was commissioned by the Master and
Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge, to mark the 500th
anniversary of the founding of the college. It is a setting of
verses from Psalm 102 (Tract for Ash Wednesday), and is scored for
choir with solo violin. The violin part is available as a free
download. The choral writing is straightforward, with doublings
into eight parts, and the juxtaposition of choir and violin is
tellingly exploited.
I hope that musical directors will consider these various works,
as they would each individually enhance any concert programme or
church service.
THE Church Music Society has brought out William Turner's anthem
The Queen shall rejoice (£2.20; 978-0-19-395393-2)
for the present royal Jubilee, and obviously hopes that choirs will
take it up in this celebratory year and beyond. The anthem was sung
at the coronation of Queen Anne in 1702, and it is just possible
that this is the same anthem as was heard as "The King shall
rejoice" at the coronation of Anne's father, James II, in 1685.
It is a simple four-part setting of fewer than 100 bars.
Although the score has no organ part, a simple accompaniment has
been included here. The music is attractive, and has a dance-like
quality in a dotted three beats to a bar metre.
Dr Geoffrey Webber, the editor of this anthem, suggests that it
would be possible to perform the work in a lilting triplet rhythm
in compound time, but it seems to me that the dotted rhythms work
best as the composer wrote them.
The general editor of the CMS Reprints is Richard Lyne, and he
has brought out an edition of John Blow's anthem O Lord God
of my salvation (£2.20; 978-0-19-395390-1) to coincide
with the commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Dr
Watkins Shaw, who had a special affection for the works of Blow and
this piece in particular.
Although modest in scale, the anthem is large in scope,
beginning with eight-part choral counterpoint to the words of Psalm
88, "O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before
thee." A central verse section omits two voice parts, but these are
reintroduced for the last full section "For my soul is full of
trouble, and my life draweth nigh unto hell." This is a most
impressive piece.
Perhaps the finest of Pearsall's works is the eight-part
madrigal "Lay a garland". Towards the end of his life, Pearsall
adapted this work to the words "Tu es Petrus". Taking the
lead from the composer, Richard Shephard has taken another
eight-part work of Pearsall, "Great God of Love", and married it to
words from Charles Everett's hymn, Take up thy cross, the
Saviour said (Church Music Society, £1.85;
978-0-19-395392-5). This will give the Pearsall work a new lease
of life; the music seems perfectly suited to its new context.
In celebration of the 400th anniversary of the King James
Bible, the Royal School of Church Music organised a composition
competi-tion seeking works in two categories: one for cathedral
choirs, and the second for works suitable for use in church or
school. The winning anthem in the latter category was the very
approachable and melodically straightforward work "The mystery of
Christ", by Christopher Totney, a music teacher and church organist
based in Wiltshire.
This has been published in a volume, King James Bible
Anthems (RSCM, £4.95 (£3.71 affiliate price); ISMN:
M-57018-074-5), together with three of the anthems that were
runners-up. Each of the works is easy on the ear and very
practical. Owain Park is the 17-year-old composer of "Let thine
heart keep my commandments", which has a separate part for oboe
(although the solo line is written in small notes in the piano
accompaniment). The main vocal melody is hauntingly singable.
"Sing, O heavens" by Andrew-John Bethke is suitably jaunty and
is scored for two-part choir (upper and lower voices), while Thomas
Hewitt Jones's anthem is a gentle setting of words from Revelation,
"Thou art worthy, O Lord". The harmonic language of all four
anthems is safe and schmaltzy. Did no one enter something
ear-ticklingly original?
LEVEL ONE of The Complete Church
Organist was published in 2010 by the Royal School of
Church Music, and sought to provide the necessary skills for any
organist for the accompaniment of church services. Rather than
focus on organ-playing, the book offered guidance on the playing of
hymns, worship songs, anthems, and communion settings, and gave
useful advice on how to rehearse and how to lead from the keyboard,
with some suggestions of which stops to use in various
circumstances (£19.50; 978-0-85402-179-6).
If organists were not confident, this was a wonderful manual to
help them on their way, and was ideal for pianists who were making
the move on to the organist's bench. The editor, Daniel Moult, has
a wealth of experience to offer, and did so in a helpful and
pragmatic way.
Now comes Level Two (of the proposed three)
(£19.50 (£14.63 affiliate price); 978-0-85402-180-2). It has been
devised to accompany the RSCM's Church Music Skills programme, and
includes repertory from the course as well as a range of solo organ
pieces. The volume builds on its predecessor by offering advice on
the use of pedals and how to accompany chanted psalms. Of course,
it all comes down to practice, but there are some very useful
hints here, and some artful exercises. I am pleased that exercises
by John Stainer are included, because he was a very significant
musician, who strove to improve the standards of church music in
his day.
Sections on "how to practice" and the various exercises are
geared to limbering up the fingers, hands, and feet, besides
enabling an independence and co-ordination between them. Then come
various hymns, with suggestions of speed and registration, followed
by helpful suggestions of how to manage modern worship songs, which
often appear to be written for piano (and not organ)
accompaniment.
The section on accompanying Anglican psalms stresses the need to
know the chant by heart to enable flexible support to the singers,
and the section on accompanying anthems offers editorial fingering.
The last section in the volume provides a wide variety of organ
solos from Sweelinck to Langlais, with notes on their
composers.
Both volumes are well designed and well assembled and highly
recommended.
ALSO from the same stable comes Volume One of Gospel
Colours by Martin How (RSCM, £5.95 (£4.46 affiliate
price); 978-0-85402-192-5). These are 14 short organ pieces
reflecting the moods of various Gospel readings, and the titles
give some idea of what the composer is driving at:
Longing, Confidence, Fanfare,
Majesty, Apocalypse. It all smacks of "library
music". But please do not think that this is to belittle. These
pieces have integrity and musical substance, and this will make
them very useful as interludes in a ser-vice. Do search out this
volume, and see what How has written - and, of course, there is
more to come.