I’ve never really understood the music of Igor Stravinsky. I like bits of it - ‘The Firebird’ and the exciting bits in ‘The Rite of Spring’, but the rest has rather passed me by. His music is more approachable that a lot of modern music, but I felt there was something arid about it, and slightly phoney. I know what I mean, but having recently listened to some of his religious music (’The Symphony of Psalms’ particularly) I know I haven’t got it quite right. There is something honest and deeply felt here which I hadn’t recognised before. There is no showing off - but trying to recapture a distant, hidden part of himself.
Here’s a short choral work, his ‘Pater Noster’. It lasts two minutes - about as long as it takes to read the prayer properly and mean it. In it there is an echo of Stravinsky’s Russian past, seen without nostalgia. It hasn’t the technicolor of Russian Orthodox choral music (see here for a comparison) but it is simple, clear, uncluttered and very beautiful.
It is sung by the Westminster Cathedral Choir conducted by James O’Donnell.
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This is the most moving of all choral versions of The Lord’s Prayer, in the Russian Orthodox rite. The opening chant, in the bass, is as cavernous as the cathedral it was recorded in. Instead of the English choral tradition of vibrato-free, neutered sopranos, we hear women’s voices floating over those dark basses, bringing real colour to the choral sound. It’s a sound that resonates with love and tragedy. Nothing compares with it.
This Bulgarian choir from the capital, Sofia, is conducted by Georgi Robev.
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From Beth Nielsen Chapman, written after she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, this is a song of hope - and fear. She places hope in God and his angels to care for her before she goes to sleep. Like Hansel and Gretel, lost in the wood, praying for angels to guard them, two at their head, two at their feet. There is fear here too, its undercurrent deep in the music, but in the last verse, when the piano shifts sideways into a new major chord, hope is there too.
‘Now I lay me down to sleep, the troubles of this world released. The promise of tomorrow keeps angels by my side.’
It’s simple, artless - and very moving.
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The most famous Christmas song of all, Franz Gruber’s Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht. It was sung by German soldiers in the trenches of the First World War to signal the Christmas Truce in 1914. In its naive simplicity it has become, since then and at this time of year, the song eternal for everlasting peace - Christ the Saviour is here.
Here it is sung, most beautifully, by the RIAS Chamber Choir conducted by Uwe Gronostay.
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This is an example of ‘West Gallery Music’, the choral music sung in country churches up to the middle of the 19th century. It is ‘west gallery’ because that was where it was sung, at the west end of the church accompanied by a local band of mixed instruments - in the place later occupied by an organ, whose introduction, and new Anglican Liturgy, pushed it out for good. It was also much looked down upon by the more sophisticated and conventionally ‘musical’ as common, peasant music. But it had a liveliness of its own, and I am glad to say, has been revived in England by amateur choirs over the last twenty years.
Here’s a west gallery version of ‘While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night’. If you think you know the tune, you do - it later became the famous Yorkshire song, ‘On Ilkley Moor baht’ at’. It is perhaps rendered with rather more sophistication here than it would have been by a rural choir of farmers, labourers and village women, but it has great vigour.
Of course, in whatever version this is sung, no schoolboy worth his salt would sing the first line straight, as written. So join in with me and schoolboys everywhere and sing ‘While shepherds washed their socks by night’.
It is sung by the English Choir, Psalmody.
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This is one for younger listeners who didn’t hear this version of this simple American hymn first time round. Judy Collins sings it straight with choir. No instruments. It is wonderful.
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Max Bruch’s hymn, a greeting on Christmas Night, the saviour is here. It is a soupy, romantic setting of a rather syrupy poem by Robert Prutz, for alto, chorus and orchestra. It sings of bells, and shepherds and stars, of gold and myrrh, and love. It is utterly irresistible. Here’s the last verse (my rough translation).
‘Holy night, aloft a fiery light of a thousand candles, the star of life bringing light into our hearts. Behold, in heaven and on earth, love shines out like a rose. Peace has returned. The king of love is here.’
The Choir and Orchestra of West German Radio, Cologne, is conducted by Helmut Froschauer.
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A hymn sung at the beginning of Mass in the Russian Orthodox Church, as the priests enter. It was composed at the end of the 18th century by Dmitry Bortnayansky (1751 - 1825). I don’t think any other kind of choral singing has the same quality of mystical rapture as this. Just as you think it’s all over, great Allelluias sing out fortissimo.
The choir is the USSR Russian Choir conducted by Alexander Yurlov. It is from a vinyl LP, which accounts for some slight crackling here and there.
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Posted in Religious, Choral on Jul 26th, 2008 No Comments »
Brought up a Catholic before the Second Vatican Council means that all my early experiences of worship are of the traditional Latin Mass - and almost ten years as an altar boy meant I officiated at one or more every week. But it must be forty years since I last went to one. The Latin Mass was replaced in the 1970s by the mass in the vernacular. Occasionally I attended versions of the mass on Sunday where some latin was allowed, mainly in the singing, but it was a weak and insipid thing compared with the original.
It’s heartening to see the blanket ban on the traditional Latin Mass being lifted by the present Pope, but I’m not sure if the art can have survived forty years of silence. Let’s hope so. And if they want altar boys over sixty, who remember it last time round, I’m available.
Here’s a moment of nostalgia to touch all Catholics of a certain age. It’s the Kyrie, sung by choir and congregation, at a late celebration of the Latin Mass on All Saints Day 1975, at Downham Market, England by Fr Oswald Baker.
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Organs weren’t introduced into most English churches until the middle of the nineteenth century. When they were they had a profound effect on church music. Before, church singing was simpler, rougher, and more homely. After, it became smoother and more solemn. The earlier style is now referred to as West Gallery music - on account of the choirs and musicians stationing themselves in the West Gallery. Choirs were accompanied by local bands - of violins, cellos, flutes, cornets and other assorted wind instruments, including the strange Serpent. These bands doubled for secular dances at local inns and halls -see the early dance scene in the BBC’s 1995 version of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ which recreates such a band. In Thomas Hardy’s “Under the Greenwood Tree” too there is a memorable evocation of a West Gallery band and choir.
Over the last twenty years or so there has been something of a revival in West Gallery music - and a joy it is to hear. From recordings I have heard I suspect that modern recreations smooth out the roughness and off pitch intonation of the originals. Here, however, is ‘Come Let Us All’ . It is sung at Christmas time. I don’t know where I got this from, but it captures perfectly the original rustic, homely quality of the music, sung in a regional (Dorset?) accent, with delightful added aitches to make ‘hangels’ - a touching attempt to poshen up their style.
Afterthought: Listening to it again I realise that in among the strings and woodwind there is an organ, sounding the death knell of the band - and making the singing more poignant.
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