The title of this disc, Salmow Kernewek, means ‘Cornish
Psalms’ in Cornish. It’s also the title of the final piece in
an enterprising programme of contemporary choral music by composers
with Cornish links. The music is performed by a choir based at
Truro Cathedral. St. Mary’s Singers were founded in 1985 and they
sing services at the Cathedral when the Cathedral Choir is on
holiday. On this disc they are conducted by Christopher Gray who
conducted them from 2001 to 2008.
Russell Pascoe studied
composition with Derek Bourgeois at Bristol University and is
now head of Music at Richard Lander School, Truro. His Love’s
Agonie - Three Medieval Lyrics was commissioned by St. Mary’s
Singers and premiered by them in 2003. It sets three medieval
poems and moves in mood from worldly love to Christian love.
In the first song, Blow Northern Wind, the lady’s
virtues and physical beauty are extolled. In the second, Jesu
Christ, myn leman swete is a fervent prayer. The final movement,
The Penitent hopes in Mary contrasts worldly love and
Christian love. At least that is Pascoe’s intention. I found
these part-songs attractive and well-wrought without ever quite
appreciating the composer’s intentions to contrast the two types
of love. The opening song displays a lively rhythmic feel with
spicy harmonies. The second keeps in this territory, though
perhaps in less lively fashion. The final movement is, appropriately,
more austere.
These are followed
by a piece which Paul Drayton wrote for Grace and Holy Trinity
Cathedral in Kansas City. Drayton is a Cornish-based pianist,
composer and conductor. Love’s Redeeming Work is Done opens
with the choir singing Wesley’s Easter Hymn in unison
over a taxing organ part. The composer then develops the material,
increasing the choral interest until a final quiet conclusion.
I felt that he was aiming to produce a powerful and uplifting
work, but am not sure whether he succeeds. It is, however, undoubtedly
a well made and useful piece. The choral piece is followed by
Drayton’s atmospheric organ piece, Dance in a desolate place
which was written for Christopher Gray who plays it here.
Jonathan Carne’s
Put by the Sun was premiered by St. Mary’s Singers in
2008. It sets a poem by Robert Nichols from ‘Swansong’ (1920)
which was dedicated to Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock). Carne
is Cornish-born, trained at the Royal Academy and is now based
in Truro. Put by the Sun is a quiet, intense piece with
strong overtones of the English part-song mixed with hints of
close harmony.
Paul Drayton’s New
College Service was written in 1968 for the choir of New
College, Oxford. Drayton’s idiom in the piece is tonal, with
clear and affecting harmonies. In many places the Magnificat
hardly sounds like a sacred piece and comes to rather a
jazzy close. But the Nunc Dimittis is a quietly affecting
piece. Both movements are written with admirable clarity.
Lux Mundi is
a little gem. Written by Paul Comeau in 1994 for the Three Spires
Singers it was first performed at Truro Cathedral. Despite the
title, the words are English and taken from ‘Carols and Christmas
Rhyme’, selected from poems of Father Andrew (1935). The work
is tonal, but with an attractively tough edge to the harmony.
At times Comeau discovers a beautiful austerity.
Lux Mundi is
followed by another pair of strong pieces, by the most well-known
composer on the disc, Graham Fitkin. Organ is an organ
solo written for the organ of Symphony Hall in Birmingham and
premiered in 2004. Excitingly rhythmic and full of passages
which use the organ at full pelt, the work is impelled by jazzy
motor rhythms. Fitkin’s Endings sets a passage from Marcus
Aurelius. It opens with low organ drones and quiet choral clusters.
Over continuing organ pedal-points the choral music develops
into more traditional part-writing, but the piece remains distant
and rather haunting.
Finally Russell
Pascoe’s Salmow Kernek, which was first performed in
Truro Cathedral in 2006 at a concert involving St. Mary’s Singers
and choirs from Richard Lander School, Truro High School for
Girls and Truro School. The first movement, Out of the Depths,
opens with an organ passacaglia which builds gradually and eventually
acquires a choral contribution. The movement remains mysterious
and haunted with an air of gloom. In I will lift up mine
eyes a lyrical choral contribution is underpinned by a rather
strenuous organ part. The movement is not as up-beat as the
title might suggest though there is a lyrical clarity towards
the end. Then finally Praise the Lord my Soul builds
to a fine climax involving a lively organ part and a jazzy choral
contribution.
Throughout the disc
St. Mary’s Singers under Christopher Gray’s fine direction give
admirable performances of these tricky pieces. The choir’s sound
is good, clean and clear, with a bright, focused top; it sounds
a young choir. There are odd moments when the sopranos sound
a little pressed at their upper end but this is a small fault
given the range that they cover on the disc. All the performances
are confident and the choir sing as if they have lived in the
pieces for some time, always a good thing when performing new
music.
I found most of
the works on the disc fell into the well-made and useful category,
more of interest when assembling choral programmes for concerts
than for listening to at home on CD. But the two Graham Fitkin
pieces and Paul Comeau’s Lux Mundi will have me coming
back to listen again.
Robert Hugill
Tom Little
(organ) 
