NEVER MISS AN OXFORD SALE (SIGN UP HERE) |

	UK and Europe
	Music books and printed music
	Twentieth Century and New Music
	Rutter
	Programme Notes


	Search the catalogue

Programme Notes

General Note for Church Music

Ever since my musical life began, church music has played a significant part in it: first as a boy soprano in my school chapel choir, then as a teenage organist, much later as director of the chapel choir at Clare College, Cambridge, and most recently as conductor of the Cambridge Singers, whose recordings and recitals often include sacred music. Given this background, it is almost inevitable that among my compositions there should be a fair amount of church music, most of which has been written in response to commissions and invitations.

Birthday Madrigals

Brian Kay is an old friend of mine since his days as a member of the King's Singers. Nowadays he is a broadcaster and conductor, and among the groups he directs is the Cheltenham Bach Choir. He is also a friend (and neighbour in the Cotswold Hills) of George and Ellie Shearing, who have their English home (when they are not in New York) not far from Brian's.

In September 1994 Brian invited JoAnne and me to dinner at his house to meet George and Ellie (whom I had only briefly met the year before when they came backstage to see me after a Carnegie Hall concert). After a good dinner the idea was put to me that I might write a choral piece to form part of a Cheltenham Bach Choir concert in celebration of George's 75th birthday year. Also to be on the programme was George's delightful choral suite Music to Hear.

I duly wrote the Birthday Madrigals, using as the opening movement my 1975 setting of It was a lover and his lass, which I had always intended to incorporate in a longer work but had never got around to.

At Brian's kind invitation I directed the first performance, with George out front in the audience, in June 1995.

Fancies

For choir and chamber orchestra

i. Tell me where is fancy bred
ii. There is a garden in her face
iii. The urchins’ dance
iv. Riddle song
v. Midnight’s bell
vi. The bellman’s song

Fancies was written in 1971 for the Richard Hickox Singers and Orchestra (the orchestra was later renamed the City of London Sinfonia). The first performance was given in London, and repeated shortly afterwards at an open-air concert one lovely summer’s evening by the River Thames in rural Berkshire, a perfect setting for it.

Five Childhood Lyrics

For unaccompanied choir

i. Monday’s Child
ii. The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
iii. Windy nights
iv. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
v. Sing a song of sixpence

The Five Childhood Lyrics (1973) are a kind of ‘homage’ to the world of children. I chose for my texts some of the rhymes and verses remembered from my earliest years, and set them to music as simply as I could – though the last of the five, which uses a familiar nursery tune, contains a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek elaboration.

Gloria

Gloria was written as a concert work. It was commissioned by the Voices of Mel Olson, Omaha, Nebraska, and I directed the first performance on the occasion of my first visit to the United States in May 1974. The Latin text, drawn from the Ordinary of the Mass, is a centuries-old challenge to the composer: exalted, devotional and jubilant by turns. My setting, which is based mainly on one of the Gregorian chants associated with the text, divides into three movements roughly corresponding to traditional symphonic structure. The accompaniment is for brass ensemble with timpani, percussion and organ - a combination which in the outer movements makes quite a joyful noise unto the Lord, but which is used more softly and introspectively in the middle movement.

I will lift up mine eyes

I will lift up mine eyes is a psalm setting for mixed choir and orchestra, dating from 1974.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills:
from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh even from the Lord:
who hath made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:
and he that keepeth thee will not sleep.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel: shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord himself is thy keeper:
the Lord is thy defence upon thy right hand;
So that the sun shall not burn thee by day:
neither the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:
yea, it is even he that shall keep thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in:
from this time forth and for ever more. Amen

(Psalm 121)

Magnificat

The Passage from St Luke (chapter 1, verses 46-55) known as the Magnificat - a poetic outpouring of praise, joy and trust in God, ascribed by Luke to the Virgin Mary on learning that she was to give birth to Christ - has always been one of the most familiar and well-loved of scriptural texts, not least because of its inclusion as a canticle in the Catholic office of Vespers and in Anglican Evensong. Musical settings of it abound, though surprisingly few of them since J.S. Bach's give the text extended treatment. I had long wished to write an extended Magnificat, but was not sure how to approach it until I found my starting point in the association of the text with the Virgin Mary. In countries such as Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico, feast days of the Virgin are joyous opportunities for people to take to the streets and celebrate with singing, dancing and processions.

These images of outdoor celebration were, I think, somewhere in my mind as I wrote, though I was not fully conscious of the fact till afterwards. I was conscious of following Bach's example in adding to the liturgical text - with the lovely old English poem Of a Rose and the prayers 'Sancta Maria', both of which strengthen the Marian connection, and with the interpolated 'Sanctus' (to the Gregorian chant of the Missa cum jubilo) in the third movement, which seems to grow out of the immediately preceding thought 'et sanctum nomen eius'.

The composition of Magnificat occupied several hectic weeks early in 1990, and the première took place in May of that year in Carnegie Hall, New York.

Requiem

Following the precedent established by Brahms and Fauré, among others, this work is not strictly a setting of the Requiem Mass as laid down in Catholic liturgy, but instead is made up of a personal selection of texts, some taken from the Requiem Mass and some from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

The seven sections of the work form an arch-like meditation on the themes of life and death: the first and last movements are prayers on behalf of all humanity, movements 2 and 6 are psalms, 3 and 5 are personal prayers to Christ, and the central Sanctus is an affirmation of divine glory.

Requiem was first performed complete on 13 October 1985 at Lover's Lane United Methodist Church, Dallas, Texas (Director of Music: Allen Pote) by the Santuary Choir and orchestra.

Requiem by Gabriel Fauré,
edited by John Rutter

Gabriel Fauré began work on his Requiem in 1887 purely, in his own words, 'for the pleasure of it'. At the time he was the choirmaster at the fashionable church of the Madeleine in Paris and the completed first version of the Requiem was first performed their under his direction on 16 January 1888 on the occasion of the funeral service of a certain M. Joseph Le Soufache. The work continued to be performed in this first version until 1893 when Faure made an expanded version introducing the Offertoire and Libera me and re-orchestrating much of the first version to include parts for bassoons, horns and trumpets. A third version followed - the familiar published one with full orchestra - which received its premiere in July 1890 at the Trocadero Palace during the Paris World Exhibition but it is not clear how much of this score was prepared by Faure and how much was delegated to one of his assistants.

The aim of this edition is to present the Requiem in a form as close as possible to Fauré's original more intimate concept of the work.

Suite Antique

For flute, harpsichord and strings

i. Prelude
ii. Ostinato
iii. Aria
iv. Waltz
v. Chanson
vi. Rondeau

The Suite Antique was written 1979 after Rutter was asked to write a piece for the Cookham Festival, performed by Duke Dobing and the London Baroque Soloists in Cookham Parish Church. Since Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.5 was in the programme, Rutter decided to write for the same combination of instruments, in the form and style of Bach's day.

The Suite is written for flute, harpsichord and strings with six movements ranging from `a Bach-like Aria to a Richard Rodgers-style Waltz'. Rutter's own style, comes forth most strongly in the final Rondeau with its characteristically forward driving rhythms and beautiful melodic lines.

Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press.

Te Deum

The Te Deum is one of the most ancient, and inspiring, of Christian liturgical texts. At one time it was believed to have been jointly written by St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, but recent research suggests it is even older, originating early in the fourth century as a Preface, Sanctus, and concluding prayer for the Mass of the Easter Vigil; there are even echoes of the psalms heard at several points in the text.

I had often thought of writing a Te Deum setting – if possible, using the incomparable English version of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer – but, despite some kind and tempting offers, had never found time to do so until the Guild of Church Musicians here in England invited me to compose a choral anthem for their centenary, to be celebrated at a service of thanksgiving in Canterbury Cathedral. The circumstances of the first performance allowed for only a brief period of rehearsal, so my music had to be straightforward and accessible.

At only seven minutes in length, my setting clearly belongs to the Anglican tradition of “functional” Te Deums rather than the symphonic tradition embodied in such extended settings as those of Handel or Haydn. I hope, however, that it may also find a use in non-liturgical contexts and in choral concerts – wherever, in fact, the greatest text of praise and thanksgiving is appropriate.

When Icicles Hang

For choir and orchestra

i. Icicles
ii. Winter Nights
iii. Good ale
iv. Blow, blow, though winter wind
v. Winter wakeneth all my care
vi. Hay, ay

When Icicles Hang will forever be associated in my mind with the much-missed figure of Russell Burgess, whose Wandsworth School Boys’ Choir was such a colourful and inspiring part of the musical scene in the 1960s and 70s. Russell asked me to write a seasonal but not specifically Christmas work for a December concert given by the choir in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1973, and, in writing it, I think I unconsciously reflected some of the contradictory facets of Russell’s endearing personality: his rumbustiousness in Good ale and Hay, ay, his gentleness in Blow, blow, thou winter wind, perhaps also something of his underlying melancholy (so often to be found in great men of action) in Winter wakeneth all my care. We all lamented his untimely passing at the age of only 48, but his work lives on in the gift of singing he gave to so many young people.

The Wind in the Willows

Kenneth Grahame’s enchanting book The Wind in the Willows was first published in 1908 and has remained one of the best-loved of children’s classics, enjoyed equally by generations of adult readers too. This musical adaptation was originally written as an ‘entertainment’ for the King’s Singers (six male voices) and the City of London Sinfonia to perform at a family concert. The present published version, for five soloists, narrator and chorus, can either be performed as a concert piece or staged in various ways.