My Oxford Year

The young Felix Mendelssohn's acquaintance with Acis and Galatea was due to Carl Friedrich Zelter, his composition teacher and conductor of the Berlin Singakademie. In 1828 Zelter asked Mendelssohn, by then a student at Berlin's university, to produce rescored versions of both Acis and Galatea and the Dettingen Te Deum for the use of the Singakademie. According to Fanny these orchestrations were a quid pro quo for obtaining Zelter's blessing on Felix's proposed revival of Bach's St. Matthew Passion and securing the cooperation of the Singakademie in the venture, which came to fruition on 11 March 1829.

The soundtrack to the book about the year that shaped the rest of the century. Pop was everything in 1966. It was a way of looking at the world, all funnelled into the single: ideas, attitudes, lyrics and experimentation that in the more indulgent years to come would be stretched out into a whole album. Condensed within the 7-inch format, the possibilities of 1966 were expressed with an extraordinary electricity and intensity – whether it be the flourishing of Holland-Dozier-Holland at Motown, the breakthrough of black American dance culture, the start of psychedelia and the beginnings of rock, or just simple mod pop.

Pelham Humfrey (16471674) was a genuine baroque pioneer in the word-setting of English biblical texts, as well as applying elements of French and Italian styles to his work. By the age of seventeen his anthems were evidently in use. He later succeeded Henry Cooke (his father-in-law) as Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal and also became composer to the Court. Humfrey died at the age of 27, but along with Matthew Locke exerted a strong influence on his peers even at his young age, including William Turner, Henry Purcell, and John Blow. The seven symphony anthems included on this recording have been selected from the extant 19 to demonstrate Humfreys range of work in the genre.