A Year at Llandaff...

Llandaff Cathedral is sited on the banks of the River Taff, to the north of Cardiff. It is effectively the Anglican cathedral for the Welsh Capital. This splendid building was badly damaged by a parachute mine during the Second World War. Much restored by the architect George Pace it has many impressive features. Most striking is the sculpture by Jacob Epstein, Christ in Majesty (1954) which towers over the interior of the nave. Lightning damaged the organ in 2007, and a new instrument was procured. The current instrument was built by Nicholson and Co., Malvern and was commissioned in 2010. The Cathedral supports a lively musical tradition.

This present CD is one of several that explore A Year At… These include York, Winchester, Bristol, and Exeter.

The Christian Year begins on the First Evensong of Advent Sunday (held on the Saturday). The anonymous Creator of the Stars of Night gets this choral concert off to a good start. John Scott, onetime Organist and Director of Music at St Thomas’s Church, Fifth Avenue, New York, provides a moving setting of the ancient plainsong melody. It sets the scene for the church’s meditation on the imminent Birth of Jesus and the hope of his Second Coming. I am not sure that Bob Chilcott’s vibrant Nova! Nova! is appropriate for Advent. I think that the story of the Angel Gabriel and his visit to Our Lady is more appropriate to the Annunciation on 25 March. At Christmastide, Christina Rossetti’s haunting In the Bleak Mid-Winter is ever popular – in the Harold Darke or the Gustav Holst version. The present number was “souped up” by Mack Wilberg, and given “luscious, romantic harmonies.” This uses Holst’s tune to great advantage.

Epiphany celebrates the Coming of the Magi. For this Feast, we hear Gaston Litaize’s stirring organ solo, Epiphanie. This celebrates both the wonder and the numinous qualities of the story. The Spiritual, Down to the River, commemorating the Baptism of Christ does not work for me. Candlemas celebrates the moment that Mary presented the Infant Child in the Temple in Jerusalem. Jonathan Dove has set a Vast Ocean of light, a poem by the seventeenth century author, Phineas Fletcher. The text majors on the manifestation of the divine which inspired Simeon in the Temple to sing “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation…” Dove has created a magical score that balances a moto perpetuo organ accompaniment against soaring vocal parts and sensitive harmonies.

Lent arrives with another Spiritual – We shall walk through the valley. I am not sure the choice of this piece reflects the penitential preparation for Easter, that the Christian tradition demands.

We are on more secure liturgical grounds with Philip Wilby’s setting of Isaac Watt’s moving hymn When I survey the wondrous cross. Wilby has through composed this anthem, with a gentle exposition of the first two verses, followed by some intensity at the words “See by his head, his hands, His feet/Sorrow and Love flow mingled down.” The calm of the opening music returns for the final verse, the reader’s response to Christ’s suffering. This is my big discovery on this CD: it is incredibly beautiful. Edward Elgar’s Ave Maria is suitable for the celebration of the Annunciation. This deeply devotional anthem is a well-wrought meditation on the Angel Gabriel’s words to Mary and our reaction to them.

The Father’s Love, sung here on Maundy Thursday, speaks of service to, and love for, one another. I have not heard (knowingly) anything by Simon Lole before. His beautiful setting of a text from St John’s Gospel is tranquil, melodic, and fully within the Anglican choral tradition. Equally moving is the Good Friday offering: Philip Moore’s It is a thing most wonderful, to words by William Walsham How. It reflects the progress of the text’s sentiment, beginning peacefully, building up to an intense middle section where the choristers consider the “cruel nails, and crown of thorns.” The anthem concludes with a gentle interweaving of voices in the serene final stanza.

Easter is celebrated with a dynamic arrangement of the Dutch Carol by Philip Ledger. This Joyful Eastertide recalls the passion, but also looks to the hope of the risen Christ. Healey Willan, although born in England in 1880, is regarded as the “Dean of Canadian Composers.” Most listeners will associate him with organ and choral music, however, amongst his eight hundred works, he did write a piano concerto, two symphonies and at least seven operas. Rise up, my love, my fair one, is drawn from The Song of Solomon and can be interpreted allegorically as Christ’s Ascension. It is a perfect fusion of words and music.

The second organ solo on this CD is Kenneth Leighton’s Veni Creator Spiritus, completed in the year before his death. Regarded as a meditation on the eponymous ninth century plainsong chant it is a formally imaginative piece. It explores various moods appropriate to Pentecost, including a powerful climax and calm conclusion. Sometimes the aesthetic of Vaughan Williams is apparent.

Today’s sophisticated musicians often decry John Stainer as being “deservedly forgotten” and his work riven by “a tide of sentimentalism,” “cheaply sugary harmony” and “palsied part-writing.” Anyone listening to Stainer’s I saw the Lord (1858) will have to retract this view. They will be surprised by its technical competence. Jeremy Dibble, in his study of the composer has noted that it is devised in a tri-partite structure, makes an unconventional use of fugue, has unusual tonal schemes, and exhibits a “striking dialectic of drama and serenity which is articulated by the anthem’s larger architectural plan.” The text is taken from the book of Isaiah and an eleventh century hymn concerning the Trinity.

All Souls is represented by Bob Chilcott’s second offering, Even such is time, using a poem penned by Sir Walter Raleigh on the evening before his execution at the hand of James I. The words explore the idea of death and the hope of eternal life. This understated setting retains a definite sense of optimism.

The Call of Wisdom was composed for the Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral for the Diamond Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II in 2012. The text, based on verses from the Book of Proverbs, is by Michael Hempel. There is considerable beauty in Will Todd’s lyrical anthem. It is heard here in its SATB version. Here it is used in a celebration of All Saints.

The final track is an evening hymn, Arglwydd mae yn nosi (Lord, the Night Approaches) written by Caradog Roberts in 1918. Lasting just over a single minute, it perfectly complements the text’s plea for God to “Stay with us” as “the night approaches.”

The liner notes are first-rate and provide succinct details, texts, and translations. There is a helpful introduction to the Cathedral and its musical heritage. Dates for all the pieces would have been useful. I have provided them where possible. Lists of choristers and choir members are included, as well as biographical details of the Assistant Director of Music, Aaron Shilson, and Director of Music, Stephen Moore.

Altogether a splendidly eclectic mix of church music mainly from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is magnificently sung with an outstanding ambient recording. 

I look forward to subsequent releases from this series of A Year At…

Track Listing
Advent
Anon Medieval, arr. John Scott
Creator of the stars of night (2007)
Bob Chilcott (b.1955)
Nova! Nova! (2002)
Christmas
Gustav Holst (1874-1934) arr Mack Wilberg
In the bleak mid-winter
Epiphany
Gaston Litaize (1909-91)
Epiphanie for organ (1984)
Baptism of Christ:
Spiritual, arr. Philip Lawson
Down to the river
Candlemas
Jonathan Dove (b.1959)
Vast ocean of light (2010)
Lent
Spiritual arr. Undine Smith Moore
We shall walk through the valley.
Passiontide
Philip Wilby (b.1949)
Wondrous Cross
Annunciation
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Ave Maria (rev.1902)
Maundy Thursday
Simon Lole (b.1957)
The Father’s Love (1987)
Good Friday
Philip Moore (b.1943)
It is a thing most wonderful (2005)
Easter
Dutch Carol arr. Philip Ledger
This joyful Eastertide
Ascension
Healey Willan (1880-1968)
Rise up, my love, my fair one (1929)
Pentecost
Kenneth Leighton (1929-88)
Veni Creator Spiritus for organ (1987)
Trinity
John Stainer (1840-1901)
I saw the Lord (1858)
All Souls’
Bob Chilcott
Even such is time (2002)
All Saints’
Will Todd (b.1970)
The Call of Wisdom (2012)
Evening
Caradog Roberts (1878-1935)
Arglwydd mae yn nosi (Lord the Night Approaches) (1918)
The Choir of Llandaff Cathedral/Stephen Moore; Aaron Shilson (organ)

rec. 21-23 June 2022 Llandaff Cathedral.
Regent Records REGCD573

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first pubished.