Finzi, Britten & Holst: Works for Choir and Orchestra

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An example of Holst’s ability to achieve powerful effects with the sparest of means. — BBC Music Magazine, July 2017

Release Date: 1st Jul 2013
Catalogue No: CHAN10783X
Label: Chandos
Series: Classics, The Hickox Legacy
Length: 67 minutes

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Finzi: Requiem da Camera

Work length23:49

$5.00

$6.50

Stephen Varcoe (baritone)
Britten Singers, City of London Sinfonia
Richard Hickox
Recorded: 15-16 February 1991
Recording Venue: St Jude's Church, Central Square, London

I. Prelude. Slow - Appassionata (Arr. P. Thomas for voice and orchestra)

Track length5:55

$1.00

$1.30

II. How still This quiet cornfield Is tonight! (Arr. P. Thomas for voice and orchestra)

Track length9:22

$2.00

$2.60

III. Only a man harrowing clods (Arr. P. Thomas for voice and orchestra)

Track length4:00

$1.00

$1.30

IV. We who Are left, how shall we look again (Arr. P. Thomas for voice and orchestra)

Track length4:32

$1.00

$1.30

Britten: Psalm 70 "Deus in adjutorium meum"

Work length5:21

$1.00

$1.30

Britten Singers
Richard Hickox
Recorded: 15-16 February 1991
Recording Venue: St Jude's Church, Central Square, London

Deus in adjutorium meum intende, "Psalm 70"

Track length5:21

$1.00

$1.30

Britten: Chorale after an Old French Carol

Work length5:07

$1.00

$1.30

Britten Singers
Richard Hickox
Recorded: 15-16 February 1991
Recording Venue: St Jude's Church, Central Square, London

Britten: Cantata Misericordium, Op. 69

Work length19:43

$6.00

$7.80

John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Stephen Varcoe (baritone), Nicholas Ward (violin), Edward Roberts (violin), Stephen Tees (viola), Susan Dorey (cello)
Britten Singers, City of London Sinfonia
Richard Hickox
Recorded: 15-16 February 1991
Recording Venue: St Jude's Church, Central Square, London

Beati misericordes

Track length3:57

$1.00

$1.30

Iesu parabola iam nobis fiat fabula

Track length4:14

$1.00

$1.30

Bono nunc animo es, viator

Track length2:01

$1.00

$1.30

En alter in conspectum venit

Track length1:48

$1.00

$1.30

Ecce, tertius apparet

Track length7:43

$2.00

$2.60

Holst: 2 Psalms

Work length13:30

$3.00

$3.90

John Alley (organ)
Britten Singers, City of London Sinfonia
Richard Hickox
Recorded: 15-16 February 1991
Recording Venue: St Jude's Church, Central Square, London

Psalm 86, "to my humble supplication"

Track length8:29

$2.00

$2.60

Psalm 148, "Lord, Who hast made us for thine own"

Track length5:01

$1.00

$1.30

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Gerald Finzi dedicated his Requiem da camera (1924) to the memory of his teacher, Ernest Farrar, who was killed on active service in September 1918. Finzi was devastated by the loss, and here in the second and fourth movements, in particular, he offers his own sedate impression of the war, in which ploughboys-turned-soldiers glimpse their last of England before the music, landscape, and innocence are lost in the gathering darkness. Finzi later rewrote the third movement, but the instrumentation of the new version was left incomplete. With the blessing of the Finzi family, the orchestration was completed by Philip Thomas on the basis of extensive surviving sketches, and the complete work was first performed in 1990.

Also on this disc are three works by Benjamin Britten. In Deus in adjutorium meum, the composer sets Psalm 70 in Latin for unaccompanied mixed voices. The work was written for the 1945 production of Ronald Duncan’s play This Way to the Tomb. During the 1980s, many short pieces which Britten had originally written as part of his extensive music for radio and theatre, and which were subsequently forgotten, reclaimed their place in the limelight. The Chorale after an Old French Carol is one such work, the words deriving from A Christmas Oratorio which W.H. Auden had written for Britten to set. Cantata misericordium marked Britten’s fiftieth year, Britten premiering it in 1963.

Gustav Holst wrote Psalm 86 and Psalm 148 in 1912 before he achieved his breakthrough as a composer. As Director of Music at the St Paul’s Girls School, Holst wrote this work for the inauguration of the school’s new organ in 1910, using a favourite hymn tune from Cölner Gesangbuch of 1623, set to a Biblical paraphrase of Psalm 148.

Hi-Fi News wrote of this disc when first released: ‘The choice of a small choir gives these pieces a sense of intimacy and yet one of intensity; there’s a feeling that Richard Hickox had inspired everyone to enthusiasm for his mixed programme.’

Reviews

July 2017

An example of Holst’s ability to achieve powerful effects with the sparest of means.

Offer,Finzi, Britten & Holst: Works for Choir and Orchestra

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