Thomas Tallis, William Byrd,
John Taverner, Orlando Gibbons, Henry
Purcell, William Mundy and John Sheppard.
These are just a few names from a
period in English music – long before
that marvellous, and totally spurious,
comment from the 1920s was coined
that England was "ein Land ohne
Musik" – where choral music reigned
supreme and polyphony, secular and
sacred, was brought to new heights.
After this great flowering: silence.
Well, that’s not quite true, we mustn’t
forget the myriad glees, madrigals,
partsongs and lesser - it must be
said - church music. And I must admit
to having a soft spot for the choral
works of Pearsall and the partsongs
of George Macfarren and Lisa Lehmann.
However there’s nothing of the stature
of Spem in Alium, When David
Heard that Absalom was Dead or,
on a simpler level, When Vesta
was from Latmos Hill Descending
or Thule, the Period of Cosmography.
In Carol Reed’s film
The Third Man, Orson Welles
attributes Switzerland’s world fame
to the cuckoo clock. To many, England’s
claim to choral music fame in the
19th century is Stainer’s
Crucifixion. With all due respect
to Stainer, and all the other composers
beavering away at choral music in
this country at that time, and up
to the First World War, nothing could
have prepared the public for the incredibly
intense and unique choral experience
which was Ralph Vaughan Williams’s
Mass in G minor.
As conductor of the
Bach Choir, and joint editor of The
English Hymnal (1906), VW knew
his renaissance and baroque choral
music. When he turned to writing his
own Mass, for unaccompanied
voices, it was to be expected that
he would absorb all that he knew and,
mixed with his own distinctive style,
produce a work to match the stature
of Spem in Alium. And match
it he did!
Here is VW, a mere
12 years after the première
of the Tallis Fantasia, and
with three symphonies under his belt,
firmly at home in the middle of the
English choral music renaissance.
Laid out magnificently for double,
antiphonal, choir, with four soloists,
the Mass shares some of the
block chordal writing of the Pastoral
Symphony, with which it is contemporary.
There is more than a nod towards his
beloved folksongs but there is no
direct use of the vernacular here.
VW knew exactly what
he could get from his singers and
he created a work which is expertly
written for voices, rich in texture,
full of tunes, a sheer joy to listen
to, and, I know from personal experience,
to perform.
The five movements
are concise but what an experience
is crammed into such a small space.
The antiphonal effects are thrilling
and the small solo contributions are
very powerful. And he creates a perfect
QED when the music of the opening
Kyrie returns in the final
Agnus Dei.
It was hearing the
première of Tallis Fantasia
in Gloucester Cathedral in 1910 that
convinced Howells to embark on his
career as composer. For this we should
be grateful. Howells’s Requiem
is one of two works - the other being
the glorious Hymnus Paradisi
- which he wrote as a private memorial
on the death of his only son, Michael,
from spinal meningitis, in 1935. Because
of their very personal nature Hymnus
Paradisi wasn’t performed for
twelve years after completion and
the Requiem had to wait nearly
45 years before seeing the light of
day in performance. Setting words
from the Psalms and the Requiem Mass,
this is a deeply serious work, sharing
material with Hymnus Paradisi,
slow moving, thoughtful and very beautiful.
The part-writing is superb, the textures
are full, but never too thick, everything
is clear and well thought out.
There is no doubt
in my mind that here are two of the
most important 20th century
works for unaccompanied voices by
English composers. Both composers,
Howells, especially, were always happy
when writing for voices and these
works, although both from relatively
early in their respective composer’s
careers, show this love of the voice.
The two fill-up pieces
are equally interesting.
Howells wrote his
exquisite setting of Helen Waddell’s
translation of Prudentius’s Hymnus
circa Exsquias Defuncti for a
commemoration of President Kennedy
after his assassination in 1963 (not
1961 as the notes tell us). Like the
Requiem, it is a fertile work,
full of the Howells we know and love,
and very deeply felt. The music is
bold and dramatic, startling and arresting,
making this one of Howells’s richest
and most fascinating smaller choral
works. It is a perfect lesson in how
to set words without losing sight
of their meaning and allowing the
composition to become more important
than the message.
VW’s Te Deum
was written for the enthronement of
Dr C G Lang as Archbishop of Canterbury.
As befits the occasion this is a celebratory
work and it comes as a shock after
the perfect silence which follows
the Mass. But it is a pleasant
makeweight for VW and does bring about
the sole lightness in a disc of very
serious, but very beautiful, music,
deriving from the Tudors, the Elizabethans,
and that whole period of pure choral
polyphony. What a legacy VW and Howells
had to draw on. They bring the English
choral tradition into line in the
modern world with their illustrious
predecessors.
Matthew Best’s Corydon
Singers give of their all, and the
small solos are potent in their simplicity
– here is fine solo singing. This
is a magnificent disc of great music
by English composers. This isn’t just
a disc for lovers of English music,
or choral music, this is a disc which
should be in every collection for
the sheer excellence of the music-making
and the stature of the music. Superb
recording, and, with the exception
of the slip mentioned above, very
good notes.
Bob Briggs
Corydon Singers/Matthew Best 
