Cambridge

For many, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the sound of carols sung from King’s College Chapel, and each year over the festive period millions around the world enjoy the Choir’s A Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols. This two-part collection celebrates 100 years of the iconic service with a mix of brand-new performances and historical recordings not heard since the original BBC broadcasts.

When King’s College, Cambridge was founded by King Henry VI in 1441, careful provision was made for a choral foundation of sixteen men and sixteen choristers to sing daily services in the Chapel. English worshippers of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were generous when it came to music, making regular donations and bequests to churches and monasteries, so that masses could be sung for the salvation of their souls. It is no coincidence that the music of this era should therefore have reached new heights of richness and complexity; indeed, England was home to some of the most elaborate polyphony composed anywhere in Europe.

The Cremonese composer Marc’Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1535/36–92) is chiefly remembered as the teacher of Claudio Monteverdi while, for well nigh 500 years, his own achievements were left to sit in the shadows. This third in a series of pioneering recordings from the Choir of Girton College, Cambridge, reveals Ingegneri to have been one of the masters of his age, writing music of breathtaking richness and beauty: the works heard here combine learned, intricate counterpoint with the kind of sheer sonic thrill that brings a shiver of physical excitement. It is, of course, religious music, but it is also extraordinarily passionate, to a degree not previously heard, nor for centuries to come, until the rise of the great Romantic choral works.

Sounding as glorious as ever under Director of Music Daniel Hyde, the Choir of King’s College celebrates Easter with a wide-ranging and beautifully assembled program recorded in King’s College Chapel. Starting with an anthem by the late English composer, conductor, and musician George Malcolm, complete with an attention-grabbing introductory fanfare by Matthew Martin (Director of College Music at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge), the musical journey runs from William Byrd to Maurice Duruflé with some well-known hymns along the way. There are numerous highlights: the high drama of Rossini’s “O salutaris Hostia,” Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s very Victorian “Wash Me Throughly,” Antonio Lotti’s resonant “Crucifixus à 6,” and the gentle poise of John Ireland’s “Greater Love Hath No Man.”

Bill Ives has enjoyed a rich and varied career as both performer and composer (Grayston Ives). These experiences, culminating in nearly two decades as Informator Choristarum (Director of Music) at Magdalen College, Oxford, are reflected in a compositional style which is complex yet accessible, rich and colourful. His choral music comes from the heart, and this deeply personal reaction to the texts enables the performer or listener to engage with and enjoy the music to its full extent.

Following from Ash Wednesday, this album is the second live Evensong album from the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge and marks the next great season of the Church’s Year, Eastertide. This cele- bration of Jesus’s resurrection also initially spans forty days, taking us up to Ascension Day, and culmi- nates on the fiftieth day with the Feast of Pentecost. Where the previous album reflected the tradition of using no organ from Ash Wednesday until the Gloria of the Easter Vigil, the instrument is fully utilised here by the Chapel’s organ scholars Glen Dempsey and James Anderson Besant.

A programme spanning the variety and sheer emotional range of Stanford’s Anglican choral music (with a notable contribution from Owain Park in the Fantasia and Toccata for organ). You are unlikely to hear quite so stirring a rendition of ‘St Patrick’s Breastplate’ for some time to come…