Music in the Cathedral

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 632, 10 August 1951, Page 9

Music in the Cathedral

ROM the earliest times ot the Christian era, Church music has been a profound influence in the lives of Christian people, and a source of musical creation and inspiration to composers down the centuries. The Christchurch Cathedral Choir, under the direction of C. Foster Browne, has prepared four programmes of Church music by New Zealand composers (some of it specially written for the Choir) and these will be presented by 3YC ina series of weekly broadcasts beginning on Wednesday, August 15, at 9:10 p.m, On that evening listeners will hear a group of works by Dr. V. E. Galway, Blair Professor of Music at Otago University, and City Organist in Dunedin-Jubilate Deo, Pax Dei, Grant We Beseech Thee, Merciful Lord, I Heard a Voice from Heaven, and Te Deum Laudamus. Pax Dei to words by T. S. Eliot, was written for the consecration of the Cathedral Chapel of St. Michael and St. George on All Saints’ Day, 1949, Composed by Dr. Galway one Sunday afternoon, it reached Mr. Foster Browne next day and was heard by the composer himself on the Friday following, when he visited Christchurch. The work was thus actually written, dupligated and performed within one week. Among the works by another distinguished New Zealand composer, Dr. Vernon Griffiths, that make up the second programme, Super Omnia Cedrorum was specially written for the Jubilee Celebrations of Holy Cross College, Mosgiel, last year, and first sung by the scholars of the college. Besides Laudate Dominum and Cantate Domino, listeners will hear two works for boys’ voices, Nunc Dimittis, and a Magnificat which was written for the Cathedral Choir and dedicated to it. The programme will also include Gloria in Excelsis Deo, sung in Latin (written to complete the Missa Simplex dedicated to St. Mary’s Convent, Christchurch). Dr. Griffiths was guest conductor and organist when this second programme was recorded in the Cathedral. The two remaining broadcasts will consist of works by a group of composers. The third in the series is unusually interesting for the fact that the whole programme, in which will be heard O Clap Your Hands Together, by John Ritchie, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, by Douglas Lilburn, From Glory to

Glory, by T. A. Moresby, and Benedictus, by J. Peters, were all specially written for the Cathedral Thanksgiving Service during the Canterbury Centenary. Jack Peters gained his Mus. Bac. at Canterbury College, and is now organist at Southwell Minster, in England. He took the Durham Bachelor’s Degree, and holds the F.R.C.O. and the Archbishop’s Diploma in Church Music. T. A. Moresby, many listeners may recall, was on the steff of the 1st General Hospital of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. in Egypt. Last February C, Foster Browne presented organ works by this composer at a service held in the Cathedral during the conference of the British Medical Association in Christchurch. Notable in the final programme, along with works by Galway and Moresby, is an anthem in the form of a carol, In Bethlehem Street, composed by C. Foster Browne to words by J. R. Hervey. Mr. Foster Browne has been organist and choirmaster at the Christchurch Cathedral for nearly fourteen years. The Choir of 24 boys and 12 men, all of whom will be heard in these programmes, is never augmented, and is known throughout the Dominion for the excellence of its work. nee