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ID: GMCD7170
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection: Sacred Music
Subcollection: Cathedral Choir
Recorded in the Parish Church of All Saints, Hove
It’s history……. The young King Edward VI founded three Royal "Hospitals" towards the end of his reign. Christ’s Hospital, in the old buildings vacated by the Grey Friars, was to educate and care for fatherless children and other poor men’s children, St Thomas’ Hospital was to attend to the sick, and Bridewell Hospital was to give shelter and sustenance to beggars. Barely a century later the Great Fire of London claimed a large number of the Christ’s Hospital buildings, but it was almost entirely rebuilt within 30 years, thanks to the generosity of a number of city merchants. In 1673 Charles II founded the Royal Mathematical School within Christ’s Hospital, largely from the inspiration of Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist. He was the Secretary to the Admiralty and so was interested in ensuring that high quality mathematicians and navigators were educated for future sea-service. Much later Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb and James Leigh Hunt were boys at Christ’s Hospital, and the School has boarding houses named after them. The school was originally co-educational; however, from quite early in its history, the girls of the Foundation were educated separately at Hertford. In 1985, however, they rejoined the boys at Horsham, where the School had relocated in May 1902 in search of fresh air and space for proper relaxation and games. Today, Christ’s Hospital is the largest educational charity in the country, enabling this education to be offered to the most deserving children, irrespective of the ability to pay. All fees are means tested and on average parents meet less than 15% of the School’s costs. The Foundation therefore looks for children who will contribute most to, and benefit most from, a place at the School. …it’s music……. Historians have quite correctly emphasised that Christ’s Hospital was never merely an orphanage as such, for amongst the earliest academic appointments was "a schoole-maister for Musicke". So our musical tradition stretches back nearly 450 years: - longer, if one were to count the semi-monastic tradition that had been nurtured for centuries before by the Greyfriars by the Newgate of the City of London, for Christ’s Hospital took over their premises in November of 1552. It is far from fanciful to imagine the youthful voices of the children singing in the massive three hundred foot long church of Christ Church, Greyfriars, not far from Old St Paul’s, and we know for certain from Robert Dow’s Will for setting up a Song School in 1609 that boys were "to sing in the Quier of Christ Church", and that from 1613 a boy should "serve and be employed in playing of the organs of the said church". Alas in September 1666 the Great Fire destroyed that wonderful building, but the tradition itself continued in the rebuilt, though rather smaller church, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, which became known as Christ Church, Newgate Street. Today, the School has six full-time and thirty visiting music staff teaching some 500 individual lessons each week, as well as providing a full programme of rehearsals and concerts for ensembles of all sizes. Much emphasis is given to the development of musical ability through chamber music and the finest pupils give an annual concert at the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank. However, the School is also proud of its larger ensembles, the Choirs, the Orchestras, and the Marching Band, famous for its appearances each year at the front of the Lord Mayor’s Show, at Twickenham and at Lords. Music is an integral part of the School’s life, and continues to play an important role in the continuing strong links with the City of London. …and it’s choirs Standing on one side of the great central quadrangle of Christ’s Hospital is the Chapel. It is a collegiate-style building, spacious enough to seat the whole school of 830 pupils and 90 staff. Services are accompanied by the School Organist on the massive five-manual Rushworth and Dreaper organ, which was designed in 1931 by the Director of Music at that time, C. S. Lang. The 112 members of the Chapel Choir are seated centrally and antiphonally, ideally placed to lead the congregational singing. As well as singing hymns, anthems, canticles, psalms and responses for the regular weekly services, the choir also sings for a full programme of special occasions throughout the year including a service for St. Matthew’s Day in the City of London, attended by the Lord Mayor, re-emphasising the school’s strong links with its past. The choir performs in the famous "Bluecoat" Tudor uniform worn by all pupils of the school throughout the normal school week. The choir gives an annual performance of a major choral work - in recent years, Brahms’ German Requiem, J. S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Mozart’s Requiem. In addition the choir sings Choral Evensong at such venues as St Paul’s Cathedral, Chichester Cathedral, Guildford Cathedral, St George’s Chapel, Windsor, broadcasts for television and BBC Radio (Remembrance Sunday, Highway, Radio 3 Advent Carol Series, Sunday Half Hour) and the smaller chamber choir, Schola Cantorum, sing for many other special events. This is the Choir’s fourth CD recording. Details of earlier recordings are available from Christ’s Hospital Enterprises, Christ’s Hospital, Horsham, West Sussex, RH13 7LS. |
| 15.00 eur Buy |
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ID: GMCD7226
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subcollection: Choral and Organ
Christopher Eastwood plays the organ for In The Bleak Midwinter, and conducts The Three Kings.
Mark Williams (A Spotless Rose)
Rebecca Willcox (In The Bleak Midwinter)
William Tallon (In The Bleak Midwinter)
Sylvia Garnsey (Coventry Carol, Once In Royal)
Thomas Lydon (Three Kings)
Poulenc: Quatre Motets Pour Le Temps De Noel
Poulenc’s religious music, while expressing perfectly his profound Catholic faith, was always closely bound up with his relationships with friends and lovers. He had been catapulted back to the church in 1936 by the death in appalling circumstances of the composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud. His great opera Dialogues des Carmelites was deeply affected by the illness and death of his lover Lucien Roubert. These four exquisite miniatures seem to have been written, between November 1951 and May 1952, at least in part as gifts for their dedicatees: indeed they are such private pieces that no proper record exists of their first performance. What may have been their premiere was given, rather incongruously, in Madrid by the Netherlands Chamber Choir. Poulenc dedicated the first of them, a dark, tender setting of "O Magnum Mysterium", to the conductor of that performance, Felix de Nobel. The gentle second motet "Quem Vidistis Pastores" was a tribute to one of Poulenc’s closest woman friends, Simone Girard. She was the secretary of the Avignon Concerts Society and by all accounts an indefatigable organiser and fine amateur pianist. To Poulenc she was indispensable. In a letter of 1951, in which he offers her the "Quem Vidistis", he tells her "You have the ultimate intelligence - quite simply that of the heart, a sentiment surely appropriate to this evocation of the simple shepherds seeing the star over Bethlehem. The set is completed by a setting, marked "Calme et doux", of "Videntes Stellam", and an exultant "Hodie Christus Natus Est" which seems to be made up entirely of fanfares. |
| 15.00 eur Buy |
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ID: IFO00072
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection: Organ Collection
Subcollection: Organ
Norman Cocker (1889-1953)
"Tuba Tune"
Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
Psalm Prelude (Psalm 34,5) op. 32/1 from: Three Psalm Preludes (1915/16)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1985)
Choral Prelude: Rhosymedre
Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
Adagio in E major
from: Three Pieces (1905)
Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Sonata in G major · op. 28 (1895)
• Allegro maestoso
• Allegretto
• Andante espressivo
• Presto
Sir Charles H. Parry (1848-1918)
Martyrdom [As pants the Heart] op. 205.4
Eventide [Abide with me] op. 205.2
Hanover [O worship the King] op. 205.3
from: Seven Choral Preludes (1916)
John Ireland (1879-1962)
The Holy Boy [Christmas Carol](1918)
Percy Fletcher (1879-1932)
Festival Toccata (1915)
Catherine Ennis (London) an den Klais-Orgeln von 2002
im Dom zu Münster |
| 21.00 eur Buy |
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ID: MSVCD92003
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Subcollection: Piano and Clarinet
One of Metier's first issues, and re-issued by demand, this CD is valuable to lovers of English music because Howells' music is still under-rated and ignored. The very fine musicians help to make this an essential recording.
tracks:
Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 21 (with Andrew West, piano) Rhapsodic Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet (with Michael Collins, clarinet) Phantasy String Quartet, Op. 25 |
| 12.00 eur Buy |
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ID: NMCD136
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection: Instrumental
Subcollection: Piano
For over thirty years Rex Lawson has been at the forefront of pianola music throughout the world. This recording features new music and arrangements for pianola commissioned by the Aeolian Company of London in 1921, with music from JS Bach, Arnold Bax, Frederic Cowen, Percy Grainger, Herbert Howells, Maurice Ravel, Alfredo Casella, Hubert Parry, Igor Stravinsky and others. |
| 22.00 eur Buy |
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ID: RES10138
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection: Christmas Music
Subcollection: Choral and Organ
Choir of Worcester College, Oxford & Stephen Farr
Following on from the universal critical acclaim of their first album with Resonus (This Christmas Night - RES10113), the Choir of Worcester College, Oxford - under the direction of Stephen Farr - return with a second album of contemporary Christmas Carols.
Entitled Nowell sing we, this new selection contains works from a wide variety of celebrated composers including Gabriel Jackson, Peter Maxwell Davies, Lennox Berkeley, Colin Matthews, Francis Pott, Edmund Rubbra, Richard Rodney Bennett & Herbert Howells among many others, with no fewer than nine world premieres. Also featured throughout the programme are the seven O Antiphon Preludes for solo organ by Nico Muhly, performed here by Stephen Farr on the organ of Keble College, Oxford. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD046
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection: Choral Collection
Subcollection: Christmas Music
Signum Records is proud to announce the launch of its first DVD disc which also marks the debut of Tenebrae on the Signum Label.
The Dream of Herod features music for Advent, anthems for the Mother & Child, music for Christmas, and The Dream of Herod, a semi-dramatic contemporary work with a particular resonance at Christmas.
9 - Chris Watson & John Bowley, tenors
12 - Natalie Clifton-Griffith, soprano |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD151
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection: Choral Collection
Subcollection: Choral and Organ
'I Love all Beauteous Things' explores a great collection of works by the British Composer Herbert Howells, featuring performances of some of his lesser-known choral and organ music.
The Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin have had a long and prosperous history: they were recorded as having taken part in the first performance of Handel's 'Messiah' in 1742. Since 1972 the new mixed voice choir, lead by Judy Martin, has been highly active with concerts tours and regular broadcasts for the RTĒ and BBC, as well as continuing worship in the cathedral.
Herbert Howells
1 Thee Will I Love
2. Hills of the North
3. I Love All Beauteous Things
4. Missa Aedis Christi: Kyrie
5. Tranquillo ma con moto from Six Short Pieces for Organ
6. Missa Aedis Christi: Gloria
7. Allegro Scherzando from Six Short Pieces for Organ
8. Missa Aedis Christi: Credo
9. Aria from Six Short Pieces for Organ
10. Allegro impetuoso from Six Short Pieces for Organ
11. Missa Aedis Christi: Sanctus
12. Missa Aedis Christi: Benedictus
13. Chorale from Six Short Pieces for Organ
14. Missa Aedis Christi: Agnus Dei
15. Quasi lento: teneramente from Six Short Pieces for Organ
16. This World, my God, is held within your hand
17. Haec Dies
18. A Maid Peerless
19. Sweetest of Sweets
20. O Holy City, seen of John |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD161
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection: Vocal Collection
Subcollection: Vocal and Piano
* world premiere recording
The 20th Century composers Peter Warlock, Herbert Howells, Michael Howard and Betty Roe were all inspired by the music of their country, both in the words they set in song and the music they composed. Tim Travers Brown, accompanied by Jeremy Filsell, explore the counter-tenor's role in British songwriting. Whilst Roe and Howard wrote specifically with the counter-tenor voice in mind, Warlock and Howells did not, providing the counter-tenor with a fantastic opportunity to highlight some of their best works in a new perspective.
This programme forms a delicate balance between modern styles and historical influences featuring the songs 'My Little Sweet Darling' and 'The Night' by Peter Warlock, 'The Painted Rose' by Michael Howard, 'When the Dew is Falling' by Herbert Howells and 'Noble Numbers' by Betty Roe. |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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ID: SIGCD182
CDs: 1
Type: CD
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Collection: Vocal Collection
Subcollection: Christmas Music
Christmas Traditional Composer
Tenebrae is a professional chamber choir, founded and directed by Nigel Short in 2001. Often performing by candlelight, the choir creates an atmosphere of spiritual and musical reflection, where medieval chant and renaissance works are interspersed with contemporary compositions. The carefully selected team of singers use the acoustic and atmostphere of the building to enable the audience to experience the power and intimacy of the human voice.
Tenebrae has an exceptionally wide repertoire from early, through renaissance, baroque and classical music, to romantic and twentieth century works, plus a range of specially commissioned pieces, the most recent of which is Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles. What Sweeter Music is a real festive treat, with a sumptuous collection of songs and carols for Christmas - touching on traditional favourites (Silent Night, Away in a Manger), modern classics (The Lamb, What Sweeter Music) and some new light-hearted arrangements (Jingle Bells, We Wish You a Merry Christmas). |
| 18.00 eur Buy |
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