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The Choir's summer programme is usually a departure from the sacred nature of its usual repertoire. However, at the request of some of the singers, we present here another recital of sacred music. The three composers represented could not be more diverse; the Russian Orthodox Tchaikovsky, the Jewish Christian convert Mendelssohn and the self styled Christian Agnostic Vaughan Williams.
Tchaikovsky's reputation rests mostly with his symphonic works, but this music for the Orthodox liturgy laid the foundations for a new, non-Germanic music for the Russian church followed by Rachmaninoff in his later, famous setting of the Vespers. Mendelssohn's choral reputation lies almost entirely with his oratorio Elijah, yet his small scale pieces are numerous and beautifully written, as in these four sacred pieces for four and eight parts chorus.
One might be mistaken for seeing Vaughan Williams as a major religious composer of the first half of the last century. Yet Vaughan Williams was not in anyway a traditional churchman - he attended chapel as an undergraduate because it was compulsory and listened to evensong in Ely Cathedral for the architecture, the music and the sound of the language of the Authorised Version of the bible. Appreciation of language and fine poetry were part of Vaughan Williams's make up - he was typical of many English composers in this respect (see the work of Bliss, Britten, Finzi and Michael Tippett to name a few). Vaughan Williams was no doubt attracted to George Herbert's poems much by their musical imagery as by their ecstatic content. The result is one of the composer's finest compositions, with a perfect marriage of music and words. |
