Bairstow - Choral Music
Paul Provost (organ) & Roderick Williams (baritone)
The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge & Britten Sinfonia, David Hill (Director of Music)
…Bairstow could hardly have finer advocates than David Hill's St John's Choir, beautiful in tone and balance… admirably clear in enunciation, well supported by rhythmic organ playing, and outstandingly...
Bairstow - Choral Music
Paul Provost (organ) & Roderick Williams (baritone)
The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge & Britten Sinfonia, David Hill (Director of Music)
Purchase product
…Bairstow could hardly have finer advocates than David Hill's St John's Choir, beautiful in tone and balance… admirably clear in enunciation, well supported by rhythmic organ playing, and outstandingly...
About
Another great disc from the dazzling Choir of St Johns College Cambridge under their Director of Music David Hill, collaborating with great musicians including Roderick Williams, Paul Provost and the Britten Sinfonia. The music of Edward Bairstow (18741946) is an essential part of the British cathedral music tradition. He set his texts with a beauty which makes one never able to think of the words without recalling the music, as the Dean of York wrote on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Certainly the more well-known works on this disc eminently fulfill this criterion. St Johns inspired recordings of these classic numbers in the matchless acoustic of the chapel make this a disc to treasure on these grounds alone. However it also includes some glorious rarities from different points in Bairstows career, which demonstrate his mastery of different styles and developing harmonic language. The Five Poems of the Spirit are a particular highlight: beautiful and unusual settings of metaphysical poetry for solo baritone, choir and orchestra, performed with passionate commitment by the wonderful Roderick Williams.
Contents and tracklist
- Paul Provost (organ)
- Choir of St John's College Cambridge
- David Hill
- Paul Provost (organ)
- Choir of St John's College Cambridge
- David Hill
- Paul Provost (organ)
- Choir of St John's College Cambridge
- David Hill
- Paul Provost (organ)
- Choir of St John's College Cambridge
- David Hill
- Paul Provost (organ)
- Choir of St John's College Cambridge
- David Hill
- Paul Provost (organ)
- Choir of St John's College Cambridge
- David Hill
Awards and reviews
August 2007
…Bairstow could hardly have finer advocates than David Hill's St John's Choir, beautiful in tone and balance… admirably clear in enunciation, well supported by rhythmic organ playing, and outstandingly well recorded. And the late cycle of Five Poems of the Spirit, given luxury casting with the superb Roderick Williams as solo baritone and the firm support of the Cambridge-based Britten Sinfonia, does give the disc life beyond the choir stalls.
2010
An excellent disc in regard both to the standard of performance and to the selection of Bairstow's music. And to that should be added straight away the quality of recorded sound, for in choral music of this type it is particularly important to allow for enough reverberance and sense of space without loss of clarity; also to balance choir and organ so as to keep a focus upon the singers and their words while enabling the organist to exploit the full range of the instrument in tone and volume.
The recommendation for this new issue is confirmed most decisively by the inclusion of the FivePoems of the Spirit. Completed in 1944, it remained unpublished till after Bairstow's death.
The orchestration was provided by Sir Ernest Bullock, and with its baritone solos and (largely) early-17th-century texts it stands, not unworthily, alongside Vaughan Williams's Five MysticalSongs. Particularly memorable is the fourth, Raleigh's 'Give me my scallop-shell of quiet', but all are attractive. Roderick Williams is the ideally suited soloist and the Britten Sinfonia do justice to a delightful score. In the accompanied anthems and services the organ parts are played with skilful registration by Paul Provost, and the choir sing throughout with their customary expressiveness and variety of colour: exquisitely (for instance) in the unaccompanied Jesu, the very thought of Thee.
September 2007
An excellent disc in regard both to the standard of performance and to the selection of Bairstow's music. …Five Poems of the Spirit… remained unpublished till after Bairstow's death. Roderick Williams is the ideally suited soloist and the Britten Sinfonia do justice to a delightful score.
