Cecilia McDOWALL (b. 1951)
Works for Organ
Celebration (2014) [7:14]
First Flight (2016) [5:43]
O Antiphon Sequence (2018) [18:14]
George Herbert Trilogy (2010-2020) [18:14]
Wo Gott den Herr nicht bei uns hällt (2011) [3:26]
3 Antiphons (2006) [7:42]
4 Piano Solos – No 3: Pavane (1999, arr. William Fox [b. 1995] for organ 2020) [4:23]
William Fox (organ), Lucy Humphris (trumpet, 3 Antiphons)
rec. 4-5 March 2020, Church of St. John the Evangelist, Islington, London, UK
NAXOS 8.579077 [65:04]
Cecilia McDowall is one of the more notable living British composers. A very prolific writer for choral groups, she has also written a few pieces for instrumental groups and soloists. This disc from Naxos collects most of McDowall’s occasional and religious works for organ, all written within the last twenty-five years. McDowall has a clear fondness for the instrument, which she has described as, “a terrific instrument to write for.” Even though these works all are of quite recent vintage, they are quite accessible to the listener.
McDowall makes excellent use of the range of tonalities present in an organ, giving organist William Fox a workout on the keyboard. She also presents some challenging moments on the pedals. Throughout we hear significant contrasts between the simple and straightforward world of the chorale, and the complex and thoughtful use of decoration and harmony to paint striking moods in sound.
The disc begins appropriately with Celebration, a piece commissioned for the 2014 University of Portsmouth graduation ceremonies. Appropriately positive and joyful, they also carry a serious undercurrent beneath the sparkling wit. I particularly liked the futuristic gyrating figures in the higher registers that seem to speak to the possibilities lying ahead.
First Flight was written for the 2019 opening of a new organ at the church in Colonial Williamsburg. The piece marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing as starting points. The ominous rumble below evokes the Saturn V engines. After the galloping rhythms of Celebration, this piece almost feels static for the first half. Then nervous anticipation grows, becoming increasingly frenetic, as it culminates in a feeling of weightlessness. While not a literal program piece, it does function much like a traditional tone poem, giving us a sense of the story of humanity’s leap through imagination from the ground to space in less than six minutes.
The O Antiphon Sequence is the largest work on the disc, comprised of seven movements that parallel the “O Antiphons,” sentences sung at evensong in the Church of England, or at vespers in the Catholic Church, in each of the last seven days of Advent. Each phrase references a name of Christ and the prophecies of Isaiah as to the coming of the Messiah. These seven movements are arranged by key in the circle of fifths, and are quite challenging harmonically. Of particular note is the third movement, O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse), which is particularly appealing in its deceptively straightforward simplicity, when contrasted with the sparkling effervescence of the fourth movement, O Clavis David (O Key of David). In O Rex Gentium (O King of Nations), an insistent lower voice with an ornamented melody above offers a celebratory and slightly exotic flavor. The final antiphon, O Emmanuel, is the familiar hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel, given a thorough reworking here. This set is intriguing and provides a kaleidoscopic view of the Advent season.
For reasons that go unexplained in the liner notes, Fox has split up the George Herbert Trilogy into its three constituent parts and scattered them throughout the album. George Herbert (1593-1633) was a devotional poet and priest given to metaphysical imagery and fond of gimmicks and wordplay. The three pieces that make up the Trilogy are not settings of Herbert’s poetry per se, but rather seize upon evocative phrases used in his poems and build upon them. Most effective is the first, Sounding Heaven and Earth, with its ferocious and spiraling figures, suggesting the dizzying tempest of creation in a wild toccata. Sacred and Hallowed Fire is mysterious and foreboding, implying the things man is not meant to understand fully. Finally, Church Bells beyond the Stars energetically tintinnabulates at each end, with a chant-like middle section that keeps the piece firmly rooted in the reverent rather than allowing it to spin fully off into science fiction.
Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hällt is an odd little work based on the chorale of the same name. This was McDowall’s contribution to the Orgelbüchlein Project, which sought to complete J.S. Bach’s aborted set of 164 chorales in his so-called Little Organ Book. Wo Gott der Herr would be Chorale 119, BWV 258 in the Bach catalogues, but the listener should not expect McDowall to be imitating Bach; she very much does her own thing with the chorale, reinventing it for the modern day.
The piece on this disc that I found most appealing was the 3 Antiphons for trumpet and organ. McDowall combines the two sensitively, creating a set of contemplative short pieces that are very legato in nature. The Ave Maria gently unfolds like the petals of a flower, and is rapturously beautiful. McDowall follows that with the glowing radiance of the Regina Coeli. Even the nonreligious will find great loveliness in these meditations.
Finally, Fox provides an arrangement for organ of a Pavane that McDowall wrote in memory of her godfather, Arthur Crow. The sense of mourning is brought forth through repetition and discords that make it clear how deeply she felt the loss.
Fox’s playing is always sensitive and he knows how to make a good impact when it’s called for. The disc suffers from the usual Naxos dynamic compression, however, which prevents some of the contrasts that Fox is presenting from being fully realized. In a few instances I also felt like the reverb in the church was cut off a shade too abruptly; I would have liked a bit more roominess to be afforded, especially for works of this nature. A bit more patience was really called for at the engineering desk.
Mark S. Zimmer
Previous review: John Quinn
