Three
Choirs
in
single
file
With
BASIL
RAMSEY
|
THE THREE CHOIRS:
Cathedral Choirs of Gloucester,
Hereford and Worcester
Priory Records
PRCD 907
DDD Stereo Total time:
74'36
John Sanders: The Reproaches
Herbert Brewer: Prevent us, O Lord
Herbert Howells: O pray for the peace of Jerusalem
Herbert Sumsion: Magnificat in G
Herbert Sumsion: Nunc Dimittis in G
John Taverner: Dum transisset Sabbatum
Anton Bruckner: Antiphon
Anton Bruckner: Locus iste
Anton Bruckner: Ecce Sacerdos
Franz Liszt: Gloria (Messe Choralis)
Louis Vierne: Kyrie (Messe Solennelle)
Jean Langlais: Benedictus (Messe Solennelle)
Paul Drayton: Ecce Ancilla Domini
Charles H.H. Parry: I was glad
Thomas Tomkins: Magnificat (Fifth Service)
Robert Parsons: Nunc Dimittis (Great Service)
Recorded by Paul Crichton and Neil Collier at Gloucester, Hereford
and Worcester Cathedrals, 1987 - 1998 |
The aural illustrations
in this article use a proprietory
RealNetworks format. To listen,
please download
realplayer G2. |
The idea behind this compilation is excellent: these three choirs have
long been associated, so juggling tracks to produce a sound picture of each
of them over a ten-year period, two of them under previous organists, has
value in the perspective it projects. The bearing is on repertoire, which
now generally liberates us from the worst excesses of hallowed custom.
Under John Sanders, Gloucester in 1987 put to disc his own subtly impressive
setting of The Reproaches (click here to listen),
with Howells' serene music for O pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
The same choir under David Briggs turns to extracts from Vierne and Langlais
Mass settings (click to listen to part of the Langlais)
from which the heightened sense of drama peculiar to large ecclesiastical
spaces is quite spectacular.
Hereford under Roy Massey sing Herbert Sumsion's graceful setting of
the evening canticles in G and gives very good voice to the grandiloquence
of Parry's I was glad before veering off the beaten path with Taverner's
Dum transisset Sabbatum and displaying a hard-edged tone to which
this tightly-knit polyphony responds. (Click here to
listen.) Paul Drayton's sleek Ecce Ancilla Domini (click
here to listen) is at the opposite corner with a glittering obbligato
from the organ backing the voices' preoccupation with a simple tune and
some chromatic interplay.
Worcester has two groups, the first from Donald Hunt's tenure with Bruckner
motets and the Gloria from Liszt's Missa Choralis (click
here to listen), both stern and glorious, and the other directed by
Hunt's successor, Adrian Lucas, in classic cathedral repertory - canticles
by Tomkins and Parsons. (Click to listen to an extract
from the Parsons.) The subtleties of varied textures and their integration
into the whole picture is well maintained.
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