FLIGHT OF SONG
Choral music by Jonathan HARVEY, Howard
SKEMPTON, Michael
TIPPETT and Judith
WEIR
The Choir of Queen's College,
Cambridge/James Weeks
Matthew Steynor (organ)
GUILD GMCD 7213
Crotchet
AmazonUK
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Howard Skempton has the lion's share in this particularly enterprising
release of fairly new choral music. Though sometimes considered an experimental
composer, whatever this may mean, he is generally better known for his numerous
short instrumental pieces cast in a fairly consonant idiom sometimes verging
on minimalism. He also scored some success with his Lento for orchestra
first performed during the Proms some years ago. He has written many instrumental
miniatures for various instrumental combinations, including pieces for accordion,
his own instrument.
Though he has also written some vocal music, he may not generally be associated
with choral music. The present release offers a quite wide ranging survey
of his choral output of which the most ambitious piece is Flight of
Song of 1996. In the first movement Skempton somewhat looks back
at his experimental years (the very beginning of this movement is some sort
of collage sung almost at random), though the other movements and the other
pieces are much in the same vein as his instrumental miniatures. However
these short pieces are really well done, fairly simple, tuneful. To
Bethlem did they go (1995) is a delightful carol that could become
quite popular at Christmas time.
Judith Weir is a very distinguished composer with a considerable output
in almost every genre and she has written a number of choral pieces. Her
carol Illuminare, Jerusalem (1985) is fairly well-known and
has already been recorded. Ascending into Heaven (1983) sets
a long Latin text and, though played without break, falls into three vocally
differentiated sections, the last of which ends softly high up in the air.
Fine as it is, I find that the Two Human Hymns (1995) are much
finer pieces. The first hymn sets Herbert's Love, also set by Vaughan
Williams in his Five Mystical Songs, whereas the second is a setting
of Henry King's sic Vita. Weir's Two Human Hymns are,
as far as I am concerned, one of the finest pieces in this collection.
Jonathan Harvey has written a good deal of choral music throughout
his career. Some of his large-scale choral pieces, e.g. Forms of Emptiness
and Lauds are already available on CD (ASV CD DCA 917). The present release
has three shorter works of great beauty: Thou mastering me God
(1989), God is our Refuge (1986) and the undated
The Tree which are all fine examples of what Harvey may achieve
with comparatively simple means.
Tippett's Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (1963) is better known
though it may still not be as popular as it should. Tippett's approach is
quite personal and his setting is full of arresting ideas, such as the opening
trumpet fanfare in the Magnificat, whereas the Nunc Dimittis is
somewhat simpler, more straightforward.
This is a particularly enterprising release of unfamiliar choral music written
over the last twenty years or so. All the works are immaculately, affectionately
sung. Matthew Steynor's playing is superb throughout. A most welcome release
and I, for one, hope that similar collections will soon be recorded by the
same forces.
Hubert Culot
