RECORDING OF THE MONTH
A Song of Farewell – Music of Mourning and Consolation
Orlando GIBBONS (1583-1625) arr. Percy DEARMER (1867-1936)
Drop, drop, slow tears [2:00]
William WALTON (1902-1983)
A Litany; Drop, drop, slow tears [4:25]
Robert WHITE (c.1538-1574)
Christe, qui lux es et dies [4:29]
James MacMILLAN (b.1959)
A child’s prayer [4:12]
John SHEPPARD (c.1515-1550)
In manus tuas [4:05]
Jonathan DOVE (b.1959)
Into thy hands [8:14]
Thomas MORLEY (1557/8-1602)
Funeral Sentances [10:16]
Edward ELGAR (1857-1934)
They are at rest [3:31]
Herbert HOWELLS (1892-1983)
Requiem [24:02]
C. Hubert H. PARRY (1848-1918)
Lord, let me know mine end (Songs of Farewell) [11:42]
The Gabrieli Consort/Paul McCreesh
rec. The Lady Chapel, Ely Cathedral, England, 8-10 November 2009
SIGNUM RECORDS SIGCD281 [75:56]
This is a disc of staggering beauty and effortless sophistication. Every element
of it oozes care in conception and execution right down to the austere simplicity
of the pure white booklet design and tastefully discreet aquamarine print.
I am wary of compilation albums and also of baroque specialists who suddenly
turn their hand to other eras of music. On both fronts Paul McCreesh and his
superb Gabrieli Consort prove me woefully wrong in this instance.
The sub-title of the disc elegantly sums up the contents – “music of mourning
and consolation”. In the discussion/liner McCreesh explains that the programme
was built around the main work – the extraordinary Howells Requiem – to reflect
different aspects of grief, death, loss and crucially consolation across the
centuries. Not all the works are specifically settings of the liturgy for
the dead but the abiding emotion is one of reflection and ultimate redemption.
In the hands of lesser groups this might make for a rather high quality even
saccharine background music CD. The Gabrieli’s enormous skill is their super-sensitive
response to the texts and an extraordinarily fine control of dynamic, balance
and line.
Until the programme reaches the aforementioned Howells the music alternates
very effectively between 16th and 20th century composers.
From the very first bars of the opening item Orlando Gibbons’ ravishing Drop,
drop slow tears (in an arrangement by Percy Dearmer) the listener is
drawn into an ecstatically visionary world of gently poised pain and regret.
McCreesh makes so many subtle yet effective choices; he includes women’s voices
in the Gibbons because of the 19th/20th century arrangement
but stays with men alone for the other ‘early’ works. The music is paired
to allow ancient and modern conceptions of the same enduring human emotions.
That is the central message of the disc – the mode of expression may change
over the centuries but mankind’s experience of those emotions remains the
same. The presence of the male altos in such works as the Howells give the
inner lines a steely edge which again stops the music sinking into the soupy
pastoralism that can afflict much 20th century British music and
its performance.
The choice of the richly resonant Lady Chapel in Ely Cathedral benefits nearly
all the music and certainly endows the entire disc with a wholly suitable
ecclesiastical air. This is one of those rare discs where every individual
item is a joy in itself yet the impact of the whole is greater still. It is
quite impossible to select any portion as ‘better’ than any other but my predilection
for 20th century British music does draw me towards James MacMillan’s
sublime A Child’s Prayer written as a response to the Dunblane School
massacre and Jonathan Dove’s Into thy hands. Listen to the way –
as programmed – out of the unearthly stillness at the end of the MacMillan
(so very beautifully sung) the In Manus tuas by the 16th
Century John Sheppard emerges. The juxtaposition, more spiritual consonance
really, takes both works to a higher level still. Dove sets the same text
– initially - as Sheppard. He is following in the Anglican tradition of Howells
with a setting of iridescent beauty. The harmonies slide from shimmering dissonance
to warm consonance. It sounds like a brute to sing with the kind of poise
and grace achieved here. Curiously the two works that made least impact are
the Elgar and Parry. The Elgar sounds a little bit cosy in its harmony and
emotional range in comparison with the rest of the programme. The Parry is
the one work which with its contrapuntal complexity suffers most in the blurring
acoustic of the cathedral. Not that these are anything but super-fine performances
of these great works. It is just that the bar is set so high on this disc
that they come up relatively short.
This leaves the Howells Requiem. Its association with the tragic loss of his
nine year old son is well-known and although written some years before that
disaster it was the work he mined for what became his masterpiece Hymnus
Paradisi in 1950. The original Requiem was not released for publication
until 1980 and can now be seen as the seminal work from which Howells’ association
with the Anglican Liturgy grew. It remains one of the great liturgical works
by a 20th century British composer and as such has been well served
on disc. There are numerous versions available from just about every type
of choir from boy-voiced church choirs to mixed secular groups. The Gabrieli
Consort are the equal of any and as elsewhere benefit from a heightened yet
subtle response to the text and the musical implications of it. This is subtle
and refined music-making not crude word-painting or ugly pointing up of passing
musical material. The sense is that one has stumbled on an act of private
and personal grieving. There is an intimacy and an identification with the
restrained passion of the work that transcends the physical act of ‘making
music’ and reaches to the very essence - offering both mourning and consolation.
I imagine the recording of this work in the glorious space that is Ely Cathedral
must have been a very spiritually uplifting and moving experience for the
performers – it certainly sounds that way.
A few last practical details; full texts are printed with English-only translations
where necessary. The format of the CD is the increasingly popular mini-book
style with the disc slipping neatly into a pocket inside the front cover.
The liner is beautifully printed on high quality paper in English only. It
includes several photographs from the sessions as well as a couple of very
atmospheric pictures of the cathedral. The interview/liner between Paul McCreesh
and Consort member Greg Skidmore is that rarest of things – interesting and
informative. Special mention to producer Adrian Peacock and engineer Neil
Hutchinson who have achieved a perfect recording for this kind of disc; atmospheric
yet detailed, intimate yet able to expand to meet the demands of the several
passionately ecstatic climaxes. My only surprise is that it seems to have
been recorded in 2009. Why have we had to wait so long for a disc of such
quality? A disc of the year without doubt.
Nick Barnard
A disc of the year without doubt.