This recording is the
culmination of a four-year association
between Gabriel Jackson and the choir
and conductor of St Mary’s. Matthew
Owens has succeeded in placing contemporary
music at the heart of the cathedral’s
musical life, thus assuring an almost
unique status for his choir as the germination
point for new Anglican music – an artistic
position which cannot be too greatly
applauded.
The Edinburgh Mass
immediately invites comparison with
Arvo Pärt’s ‘Berliner Messe’, not
only on the strength of the title, but
also in the shortened Mass text used.
Where Pärt has a whole chamber
orchestra with which to support his
voices, Jackson uses the choir alone,
but both works share an economy and
conciseness aimed at intensifying the
directness of the Mass texts. In fact,
a more useful stylistic comparison throughout
this disc is with the choral work of
Poulenc, and there are plenty of moments
which remind me of the ‘Messe’ and the
Motets of that great Frenchman. While
Jackson’s compositional voice is distinctive,
it is hard not to pick out the eclectic
fragments of (for instance) Howells,
Tippett, possibly Duruflé or
Fauré, and indeed Pärt which
crop up occasionally like the currants
in a hot-crossed bun. This is not really
a strong criticism. It is a considerable
challenge to create really new music
in what is after all an extremely well-trodden
and closely frame-worked idiom. After
listening carefully to Jackson’s music
for a while now I have come to respect
his achievement more and more.
The choir is nicely
recorded here, and, aside from one rather
pinched voice in the trebles which spoils
the homogeny of the sound at some critical
moments, is safely in tune, with good
ensemble, dynamics and balance. Katy
Thompson is the treble given solos in
a number of these pieces, and while
the vocal line soars cleanly over atmospheric
organ or choral moments her intonation
isn’t always completely secure – sometimes
falling just short of the note, as in
the beginning of Ane Sang. The
Precentor parts in Preces,
Responses and Dismissal,
are taken by The Revd Canon Peter Allen.
I hate to seem flippant when it comes
to such sensitively serious work as
this, but his voice reminds me of Thermian
Commander Mathesar from that film ‘Galaxy
Quest’ – or maybe I should just go to
church more often.
This is new religious
music of the highest order. It is unpretentious,
open and honest, and with just enough
extra harmonic interest to give the
listener a frisson of relief
from the conventions and traditions
which are the backbone of, or which
can be the straitjacket for this kind
of music. The simplest ideas are often
the best, and I particularly like the
surprise upward semitone shift in the
Truro Service pieces.
Personal taste plays
a big role in approaching such a release.
Since becoming ‘European’ I have been
able to look a little more objectively
at the Englishness of much of my earlier
musical education. My first real composition
teacher was Christopher Brown, whose
choral work is equally rooted in the
English tradition. Like change-ringing,
there is something unique about British
choral music which makes it instantly
recognisable as such, and those who
love sounds which can trace their ancestry
back through Howells, Purcell, Elizabethan
and even Medieval work from within the
shores of the British Isles will be
refreshed and fortified by the music
on this disc.
Dominy Clements
The Choir of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral,
Edinburgh/Matthew Owens 
