MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

REVIEW


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Buy through MusicWeb for £12.49 postage paid World-wide.


Musicweb Purchase button

 

More Divine Than Human - Music from The Eton Choirbook
John FAWKYNER (fl. late 15th century) Gaude rosa sine spina [16:35]
William CORNYSH (d. c. 1502) Salve Regina [15:42]
Walter LAMBE (b. 1450-51. d. after Michaelmas 1504) Magnificat [12:58]
Richard DAVY (c. 1465-1535) In honore summe matris [17:42]
John BROWNE (fl. c. 1480-1505) Stabat mater [15:16]
The Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford/Stephen Darlington
rec. 16-18 March 2009 in the Chapel, Merton College, Oxford DDD
Latin texts and English translations included
AVIE AV2167 [78:55]

Experience Classicsonline


 
In 1440 King Henry VI of England founded simultaneously two educational establishments to show his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. These were ‘the College Roialle of our Ladie at Eton beside Windsor and….the College Roialle of our Ladie and St. Nicholas of Cambridge.’ Thus were established what became two of the most venerable seats of learning – and of liturgical music – in England: Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge.
 
At Eton, where the college actually opened its doors in 1443, evening devotion to the Virgin was prescribed in the statutes from the start, with the singers required to sing in the chapel an antiphon in her honour every evening – in Lent it was always to be the ‘Salve Regina’. Over the years a corpus of music was assembled at Eton and by the early sixteenth century a significant amount of it had been copied into that remarkable treasury of music, which survives to this day, the Eton Choirbook.
 
The Choirbook contains a substantial amount of music. Some composers are represented by just one piece, whereas John Browne has no less than fifteen of his pieces preserved in it. From this vast collection Stephen Darlington has chosen five pieces, all of them quite substantial and all of considerable interest. Music from the Choirbook has been recorded by many ensembles, not least by The Sixteen, but here Darlington offers us the authentic experience of hearing it sung by an all-male church choir which is just a little larger than the Eton establishment of the time: the Eton choir consisted of sixteen choristers and ten lay clerks while for this recording Christ Church’s choir comprised eighteen trebles, four altos and five each of tenors and basses.
 
Just before discussing the performances, it’s appropriate to note the reason for the well-chosen title of the CD. Stephen Darlington tells us in the booklet that in 1515 an Italian visitor to Eton described the singing he heard there as ‘more divine than human’.
 
I’m unsure if the music is presented in chronological order in the programme. Indeed, little is known about many of the composers whose music is included in the Choirbook, still less is it possible to date with precision the date of composition of individual pieces. However, to judge from the dates of birth and death of the featured composers, it seems plausible to suppose a rough chronology. Furthermore, the pieces do seem to grow in complexity and intricacy as the disc progresses. So listening to the contents of the disc in the order in which they’re presented makes a lot of sense, I think. It was interesting to come to this disc hot on the heels of reviewing a disc by the choir of Edinburgh Cathedral devoted to the music of John Taverner. Taverner’s music was probably written a little later than anything on this present disc and his output represented the high water mark of the English florid style. There’s nothing in this programme to match the sheer exuberance of Taverner’s music though one can sense that trait developing as the pieces succeed one another. Interestingly, Darlington’s choir are not as unbuttoned and open-throated as their Edinburgh peers – that’s not an implied criticism – and their smoother, more mellifluous style is appropriate, I think, to the slightly more sober, though no less interesting music that they have recorded here.
 
John Fawkyner’s name was completely new to me and, it seems, nothing is known of his life. Gaude rosa sine spina is one of two pieces by him in the Choirbook. It’s not a particularly elaborate piece. I think I’d describe it as patient music, since it makes its effect cumulatively. Stephen Darlington’s fine choir sing it with suitable patience too and build it up well so that the final, affirmative stanza makes the proper effect.
 
There were two composers named William Cornysh, the second (younger?) of whom died in 1523. It is thought that this setting of ‘Salve Regina’ is by the earlier Cornysh, who can claim a footnote in musical history as the very first informator choristorum at Westminster Abbey. His five-part ‘Salve Regina’ shows an advance on Fawkyner’s piece in that the music is richer in texture and harmony and the polyphony is more intricate. It’s also a very beautiful composition. The present performance is a splendid one. Not only is the music very skilfully sung but a fine sense of atmosphere is generated. Listening to it, I found it quite easy to conjure up a mental picture of a candlelit evening rendition in the Eton chapel.
 
Walter Lambe’s ‘Magnificat’ is an alternatim setting This is a fine piece in which the polyphony frequently sounds celebratory. Stephen Darlington leads a strong performance.
 
Equally successful is the account of Richard Davy’s In honore summe matris. This is a luxuriantly expansive piece. The technical aspects of the music are very clever for we read in Timothy Symons’ good notes that the piece contains passages for no less than nine different combinations of two-part writing. These are all well done and the sections for full choir are no less impressive. Towards the end, leading up to and during the closing ‘Amen’, Davy employs triplets in some of the parts. In my experience this rhythmic device is not that common in music of this period and it makes an exciting effect.
 
Finally we hear Browne’s ‘Stabat Mater’, one of the jewels in the Choirbook. As befits the text, the tone of the music is quite sombre at the start but the music opens up as it unfolds and much of the full choir writing is texturally rich. It’s an imposing piece, which becomes ever more impressive as it progresses, and the concluding ‘Amen’ is quite magnificent. The choir perform it splendidly, sustaining the long lines, which are musically and mentally taxing, expertly.
 
There’s some marvellous music here. Throughout this fine disc the singing of the Christ Church is cultured and very impressive. They display excellent control and the tone is full and consistently pleasing to hear. There’s always good clarity in the delivery of the part writing, no matter whether a small group or the full choir is singing. It’s obvious that they’ve been expertly trained by Stephen Darlington. The recorded sound is atmospheric and reports the choir with clarity and presence.
 

John Quinn
 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.