What’s on Great Sacred Music, Sunday, October 4, 2015

 

08:01:22
Arvo Part: Morning Star
Ars Nova Copenhagen, Paul Hillier

 

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Dilectus meus mihi & Surgam et circuibo civitatem
Cambridge Singers, John Rutter

 

Johann Pachelbel: Fugue on the Magnificat sexti toni, No. 1
Joseph Payne, organ
The Gothic organ (c. 1500) in the Parish Church of St. Valentinus & Dinoysius,

Kiedrich (Rheingau), Germany

 

Grammy Award winner English choral conductor Paul Hillier founded the Hilliard Ensemble

in 1973 and the Theatre of Voices in 1990. You and I will hear a work or two by Palestrina

most Sundays until we have played all of his music which we have in the station’s music

library. I project that this will take us about three years. Palestrina wrote a lot of music!

Swiss-German organist Joseph Payne (1937-2008) made over 100 recordings mainly of the

music written by relatively obscure early music composers.

 

08:13:29
Thomas Tallis:  O Lord, in thee is all my trust
Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips

 

John Tavener: The Lamb
Choir of Westminster Abbey, Martin Neary

 

Sergei Taneyev: Chorale Variations
Valeri Rubacha, organ

 

Peter Phillips founded the Tallis Scholars in 1973. English composer

John Tavener (1944-2003) used a poem from Songs of Innocence and

of Experience by William Blake for his popular anthem “The Lamb”. Russian

organist Valeri Rubacha is professor of organ at the Conservatory of Music in Odessa.

 

08:28:18
Ralph Vaughan Williams: O clap your hands
Elora Festival Singers, Noel Edison
Thomas Fitches, organ

 

E.L. Bainton: And I saw a new Heaven
Choir of St. John’s, Elora, Noel Edison
Matthew Larkin, organ

 

Anonymous: Pange lingua
Kenneth Gilbert, organ
1981 Helmut Wolff organ, McGill University.

 

Canadian choral conductor Noel Edison works with two fine choirs:

the Choir of St. John’s Church, Elora, Ontario and the Elora Festival Singers.

The 1981 Wolff organ is located in what used to be the original library of McGill

University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

 

08:43:58
Anton Bruckner: Virga Jesse floruit
Corydon Singers, Matthew Best

 

Vasily Titov: The Angel cried out
Chanticleer, Joseph Jennings

 

Gerre Hancock: Improvisation on the hymn tune “St. Clement” 
Gerre Hancock, organ
Organ of St. Thomas’ Church, Fifth Avenue, NYC

 

We tend to think of Anton Bruckner as the composer of grand symphonies.

Indeed he was that; however in his youth he was a church organist and wrote

many fine motets and anthems for use in the liturgy. Василий Поликарпович

Титов (c.1650–c.1715) was a Russian baroque composer who composed over

200 works almost all of which were written for voices. The late Gerre Hancock (1934-2012)

was renowned for his superb improvisations on the organ, influenced, no doubt, by his study

with French pedagogue and composer Nadia Boulanger.

 

09:01:11
J.S. Bach: Cantata 169, “Gott soll allein mein Herze haben”
Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki
Robin Blaze, alto

 

If the opening sinfonia of this cantata sounds familiar, that’s because Bach ‘borrowed’ the movement

from his keyboard concerto in E major BWV 1053. But Bach didn’t stop there. The second alto aria

is the recycled second movement of that fine keyboard concerto.

 

09:26:04
Sir Arthur Sullivan: Boer War Te Deum
The London Chorus and New London Orchestra, Ronald Corp

 

Sullivan never lived to hear his Te Deum performed. He was commissioned to write this celebratory work

on the assumption that Britain would win the Boer War. Indeed that was the happy outcome.

 

09:42:59
Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Benedictus, Canticum Zachariae, H. 345
Le Concert Spirituel, Herve Niquet

 

The Canticum Zachariae by French baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) dates from 1687.

 

10:00:53
Charles Gounod: Requiem
Choeur de Chambre Romand; Quartet Sine Nomine, Andre Charlet
Eva Buffoni, soprano; Irene Friedli, alto; 
Ruben Amoretti, tenor; Alain Clement, bass

 

Charles Gounod (1818-1893) wrote his Requiem a few months before he died of a stroke in 1893.

Gounod composed the work for his grandson. This version is scored for soli, chorus, string quartet,

double bass, harp and piano.

 

10:38:42
Ignacio de Jerusalem: Mass in D
Chanticleer, with the Chanticleer Sinfonia, Joseph Jennings

 

Ignacio de Jerusalem who was born Ignazio Gerusalemme in Italy in 1707 emigrated to Mexico to be

the musician in charge of Mexico City’s Coliseo.