Within a couple of
days of receiving my review copy of
this disc, news reached me that Hyperion
had lost the case of breach of copyright
brought against them by Dr Lionel Sawkins.
The issues behind the case have been
well documented elsewhere and I do not
intend to discuss them further here.
I will simply say that whatever your
stance on the rights and wrongs of the
matter, Hyperion is a label that has
brought us much to be thankful for over
a good number of years now. With costs
reputed to be around one million pounds
there is bound to be some degree of
impact on future recording plans but
let us hope that the Hyperion team can
recover sufficiently to carry on their
sterling work.
If an example were
needed of Hyperion’s services to British
music in particular, here is a classic
case in point. Despite being one of
our most performed contemporary composers
both in the concert hall and on radio,
Judith Bingham’s discography to date
is scandalously slim. Only a handful
of generally smaller works have so far
made it onto disc. None of her major
works, including those for choir for
which she is probably best known, have
been committed to CD whilst no single
disc has been produced dedicated entirely
to her music. Happily this latter point
is about to be put right. A recording
scheduled to appear on the Naxos label
is already in the can and is to include
several major works for choir, organ
and brass including her 2004 Proms commission
The Secret Garden (in
the live RAH recording of the premiere
by Thomas Trotter and the BBC Singers),
Salt in the Blood, an earlier
Proms commission and Ancient Sunlight,
written for Thomas Trotter following
the completion of the long awaited organ
at Symphony Hall, Birmingham.
In the meantime Hyperion
have succeeded in plugging the gap with
this premiere recording of Bingham’s
Mass, written for Westminster
Cathedral as a celebration of Ascension
Day in 2003. Bingham chooses to deviate
from the conventional in creating what
amounts to a narrative journey with
settings of the Kyrie, Gloria,
Offertory, Sanctus and Benedictus
and Agnus Dei framed by two substantial
organ pieces, a Preamble entitled
The road to Emmaeus and a Voluntary,
Et cognoverunt eum. The result is
both impressive and effective, the organ
Preamble paving the thematic
way and lending the work a satisfying
architectural cogency.
The language, whilst
melodically and harmonically approachable,
can be uncompromisingly austere in true
Bingham fashion with a dark beauty rarely
straying far from the surface of the
music yet punctuated by occasional passages
of repose as demonstrated in the beautiful
central section of the Gloria.
The Preamble opens in hushed
mystery to reveal the disciples trudging
in dejection with Christ absent from
their midst. The music rises to a moment
of "stunned recognition" before
subsiding once again to an atmospheric
conclusion, proof that Bingham writes
every bit as well for organ as she does
for choir. The shifting, unsettled Kyrie
(anyone familiar with the composer’s
Advent hymn The Clouded Heaven
will feel instantly at home here) leads
into a powerful proclamation of the
Gloria before the Offertory,
Et aperti sunt oculi, which like
the organ Preamble and Voluntary
draws on St. Luke’s Gospel for its narrative
thread. Both the brief Sanctus and
Benedictus and Agnus Dei
depart to a sound world steeped in plainsong,
with a touching simplicity in notable
contrast to the earlier music whilst
the final Voluntary culminates
in a bold celebration of the Ascension,
the music growing inexorably to an emphatic
final chord.
To my ears Bingham’s
music has always sounded unmistakably
English, an indication perhaps of why
it appears to sit so well here alongside
Vaughan Williams. Yet in contrast to
the Bingham, in Vaughan Williams’ Mass
in G Minor the Choir of Westminster
Cathedral enters a positive minefield
of competition. The same gutsy, full
blooded singing that they bring to Bingham’s
Mass is also demonstrated in
the Vaughan Williams Mass setting
and whilst I would not place Martin
Baker’s Westminster forces at the very
forefront of the finest available recordings
of the work they acquit themselves with
an enthusiasm that is both infectious
and enjoyable. The joyous Te Deum
in G that opens the disc is magnificently
sung with a fine sense of the spaces
and acoustic resonances of Westminster
Cathedral. Those same resonances also
pay dividends in the contrasting, ethereal
calm of O vos omnes, a truly
haunting setting that Vaughan Williams
conceived with those very acoustics
in mind when he wrote it for Westminster
Cathedral in 1922. Equally striking,
albeit for different reasons, is A
vision of aeroplanes, the extraordinary
setting of the prophet Ezekiel that
Vaughan Williams wrote within the last
two years of his life in 1956. As in
the epic and underrated Ninth Symphony,
this work is ample evidence that even
in his eighties the composer’s mind
was still probing and pushing his own
musical boundaries. Once again both
choir and organist Robert Quinney give
an account of unwavering commitment.
Christopher Thomas
The Choir of Westminster Cathedral/Martin Baker
(Master of Music) 
