English Cathedral Music

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 668, 24 April 1952, Page 15

English Cathedral Music

days of the 16th > Century a tradition of choral singing, beginning in the cathedrals but certainly not confined to them, has grown up in England. It is not sur- | prising that many of the cathedral organists should provide much fine music for their choirs to sing, especially as some of these organists, particularly " in Tudor days, were the leading composers in England. Motets, _ settings of the Liturgy and the Psalms, anthems and other works were designed for special church festivals, and four centuries have produced an enormous Collection of what may be called English cathedral music. Last year the BBC recorded eight quarterhour programmes of this music, sung by the — choirs in six of England’s oldest cathedrals, as well as in the Chapel 5 aes the early

of New College, Oxford, and St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Composers, from the great Elizabethans like Byrd, Morley, and Orlando Gibbons down to Ralph Vaughan Williams and others of the present day, are represented. During the next few months these programmes are to be heard from all YC and YZ stations and the six main X stations. English Cathedral Music will start from 1YC at 8.0 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29, from 3YC at 7.0 p.m. on Wednesday, April 30, and from 2XG in the week beginning May 5. The first programme comes from York Minster, the Cathedral "Church of St. Peter. Listeners will hear the choir, under its conductor, Francis Jackson, sing the anthems O Lord, Increase My Faith, by Orlando Gibbons, Almighty God, Fountain of All Wisdom, by Ernest Bristow Farrar, and Sing .We Merrily Unto God, by William Crotch. The chief glory of York Minster is in its windows. No 6ther English church has preserved so much of its original glazing or conveys so well the colour and glow of the interior in which medieval man delighted. However, most of these windows were removed and packed away during the war, and though five of the biggest have been restored, it may take twenty years to complete the work. A Peter Philips motet and a Stanford hymn will be heard from the choir of Durham Cathedral, conducted by Conrad Eden, and from Westminster Abbey the choir under Dr. William McKie willesing motets by Stanford and Byrd and anthems by William Mundy and Byrd. The choir of the Chapel of New College, Oxford, conducted by. Dr. H. K. Andrews, will be heard next in anthems by John Weldon and Jonathan Battishill, followed by the choir of Worcester Cathedral, under David Willocks, also in two anthems, by James Nares and. Charles Wood. The choir of

St. Paul’s Cathedral, conducted by Dr, John Dykes Bower, sings an introit by Edward Bairstow, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silen@, and anthems by Thomas Morley and Orlando Gibbons. In the last two programmes anthems by Thomas Weelkes, W. H. Harris and Stanford will be heard from the choir of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, conducted by Dr. William H. Harris, and by Gibbons, Weelkes, and Vaughan Williams from the choir of Canterbury Cathedral under Gerald H. Knight.