Ich gieng einmal spatieren - Berben Leon [mp3]


Sons of the organist Isaak Hassler, Hans Leo and Jacob Hassler were born in Nuremberg, where they received their initial musical training from their father. Both went to study in Italy, we know that Andrea Gabrieli would become Hans Leo's teacher. On returning, they entered the service of the Fugger family in Augsburg. Later on, Hans Leo became Kapellmeister to the Prince Elector of Saxony Christian II, and Jacob was appointed chamber organist at the Court chapel of Emperor Rudolph II in Prague. This CD presents six of the extant keyboard compositions by Jacob Hassler as well as Hans Leo Hassler's Variations on Ich gieng einmal spatieren — a remarkable piece which comes close to Bach's Goldberg variations, regarding its extent and diversity. The Fugger family owned several instruments by Franciscus Patavinus, superbly worked, decorated with gold and ivory ornamentation, and with a broad, full sound. It is more than probable that both Hans Leo and Jacob Hassler played these instruments while in the service of the Fuggers in Augsburg. For this reason the Patavinus harpsichord, part of the collection of the Deutsches Museum in Munich since 1910, was used for the present recording. It closely resembles an instrument listed in the Fuggers' inventory, and could actually be the one described. The original signature on the name board, according to the purchase documents, was »Francisci Patavini Dicti Ongaro, 1561«, making it one of the few surviving harpsichords from the 16th century. The magnificent instrument is largely in its original state.


  • Wykonawca Berben Leon
  • Data premiery 2010-10-18
  • Nośnik CD
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Mass for Notre Dame - Various Artists [mp3]


It is fair to say that David Briggs is probably the only person in the world—at least outside France—for whom, at the age of just nine, the death of Marcel Dupré was a major event. Other nine-year-olds, back in 1971, might have registered the deaths of Nikita Khruschchev and Ogden Nash, or more mainstream musicians such as Igor Stravinsky, Jim Morrison and Louis Armstrong. But the passing of one of French music’s legendary organist-improviser-composers would surely have passed every other single-digit youth by.Improvising at the keyboard—and, by association, that very special form of keyboard improvising at the console of a French electro-pneumatic organ—is in Briggs’ bloodstream. His grandfather, Lawrence Briggs, was a well-known liturgical improviser in Birmingham, where he was Organist of St Jude’s Church on Hill Street for over forty years. ‘I always loved to improvise, since I was six years old, and I remember very well the day Marcel Dupré died’, David Briggs remarks. ‘And nowadays, hearing famous improvisers like Olivier Latry, Philippe Lefebvre, Pierre Pincemaille, Jean Guillou and Daniel Roth is a source of endless stimulation and excitement.’In the same year as Dupré’s death, Briggs encountered another huge musical presence on the Parisian scene: Pierre Cochereau (1924–1984), Organist Titulaire at Notre-Dame Cathedral from 1955 until his death. ‘I first became addicted to Cochereau’s sound-world as a nine-year-old chorister at Birmingham Cathedral, when John Pryer (the Sub-Organist, himself a brilliant improviser) lent me an LP of the maître improvising a set of Variations on Alouette, gentille Alouette. I heard Cochereau three times at Notre-Dame in the early eighties, and each occasion was a life-changing experience.’A few years before Briggs’ own close encounters with Cochereau, Stephen Layton was also in Notre-Dame being transported by the cataclysmic blast of Cochereau’s playing. As a ten-year old chorister in Winchester Cathedral Choir, he vividly remembers Cochereau anointing their presence at High Mass with a gradually climaxing, throbbing processional. Those moments in Paris, spine-tingling and affirming, set something off for Layton too. Both he and Briggs ended up, many hundreds of hours’ organ practice later, at King’s College, Cambridge; Briggs was Organ Scholar from 1981 to 1984, Layton from 1985 to 1988 (with Richard Farnes, now Music Director at Opera North, as the link-man from 1983 to 1986).Layton, since, has focused on conducting (though he still ascends to the organ loft once in a while, always keen to improvise). Briggs, though starting out post-Cambridge in the English cathedral Kapellmeister world, now immerses himself totally in the life of a virtuoso organist-composer. And although he now lives in the USA, he may as well have a French passport. Rather like an Olympic ski champion from the United Arab Emirates, or a prize bull-fighter from the vegetarian heartlands of Totnes, Briggs has broken through robust barriers—infiltrating another culture to the point that he instinctively inhabits it. But amidst that incense-smoked air of the French liturgical organ tradition, he brings to it, significantly, the complementary riches of a very different, equally strong tradition from the other side of La Manche. How extraordinary that socio-historical events across many centuries (Reformations, Revolutions) conspired to create such different musical cultures separated by just twenty-one miles of sea. With its blend of the English liturgical choral tradition and the unique role the organ plays in French liturgy as ersatz choir, this disc is a musical Entente Cordiale indeed.To inhabit a musical world as much as Briggs does requires what he himself acknowledges as ‘addiction’. In 1984, newly arrived as Assistant Organist at Hereford Cathedral and taking lessons from Jean Langlais, he started transcribing a recording of Cochereau’s improvisations from Christmas Eve 1968. This was ‘primarily with the intent of sharpening my own aural senses, as well as examining in some detail the ravishing and generous harmonic and emotional language which was (and is) unique to Cochereau. I didn’t realize at the time that this was to be the beginning of an extended eleven-year process, on an almost daily basis. It was certainly a labour of love, and it’s not something you get quicker at—I worked out that the average time to transcribe one minute’s music was four hours.’ He should compare notes with two other kinds of musical transcribers of our time: on the one hand, the keyboardists of Progressive Rock tribute bands (notably, facsimiles of Genesis and Yes), whose ambitious, fiddly roles for Hammond organ and synthesizer have to be picked out, note by note, from original recordings; and on the other, the re-creators of film soundtracks whose original manuscripts have been lost or discarded. The most heroic of these is the conductor John Wilson, who has brought back to life several sumptuous MGM film scores in the last decade (the originals’ somewhat tragic destiny was as landfill for a Californian golf course). Like Briggs, Wilson knows how laborious this transcription process can be: he once spent four hours deciphering the pitches and orchestration of a single bar from The Wizard of Oz.The Messe pour Notre-Dame on this disc is a fusion of Cochereau transcription and Briggs’ own compositional voice. ‘About 15% is based on some wonderful Cochereau improvisations for the Feast of the Assumption in 1962’, he says. ‘I transcribed them from an unedited reel-to-reel recording made in Notre-Dame that day by Fred Tulan, a well-known American organist and great friend of Pierre. You can hear—in the ‘Domine Deus’ section of the Gloria and introductions to the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei—Cochereau’s incredible invention and ravishing harmonies. I’ve tried to make the link into my own music as imperceptible as possible, but it is for others to say if it’s successful or not!’ Additionally, this recording of the Mass intersperses four movements of David Briggs’ own improvisations—the Introït, Offertoire, Élévation and Sortie. Very much aligned with French liturgical practice, this is Briggs captured in the heat of the improvised, unedited moment—in some cases performing with suitably awestruck members of the Trinity Choir bearing witness in the organ loft.Messe pour Notre-Dame was indeed conceived specifically for the great Parisian cathedral and its mighty 1868 Cavaillé-Coll organ. The choir it was written for was an English one, however—commissioned by Neil Shepherd and the choir of Keynsham Parish Church, near Bristol, they performed it with Briggs in Notre-Dame on 28 July 2002. What a magnificent gift to that most endangered musical species of the early twenty-first century, the English Parish Church Choir.In February 2002, when the Mass was composed, Briggs’ musical home and employer was Gloucester Cathedral (though it was a period of transition, swapping roles with his Assistant Organist and Choirmaster, in preparation for his subsequent freelance existence as organist and composer). Gloucester’s organ is unique in English cathedrals, as its reeds are voiced in the French classical style. This was the result of major rebuilds of the 1660 Thomas Harris organ by Hill, Norman and Beard (1971) and Nicholson (1999). Controversial at the time, this Gallic voicing and lower, Continental European wind pressure ensured a snappy start to the note and an ‘open-vowelled’ tone. Free and brassy, with that gloriously flatulent, fairground sound at full blast, it is an instrument à la française that is uniquely apt in Britain for this recording.For Briggs, ‘composition is the same as slowed-down improvisation—it comes from exactly the same place, although of course you have the opportunity to hone and refine your thoughts’. In the same way, improvisation is composition in real time: a captured instant of creativity, and in the hands of masters—be they Cochereau, Briggs, Jimi Hendrix, Mozart impersonator Robert Levin or any jazzer you can think of—a jaw-droppingly wonderful firing of split-second impulses from brain to fingers and feet. Briggs’ improvisations on this recording—before, in the midst of and following the Mass movements, and as responses to the choral plainchant of the Te Deum—display a masterful range of mood and colour. There is delicacy, reflection and repose, alongside mighty bombast and truly gothic ‘shock and awe’ that humble an American president’s bellicose use of the words.Just as the Mass takes its lead from settings by Vierne, Widor and Langlais, immediate comparisons with Cochereau’s teacher Duruflé are tempting in the setting of Ubi caritas et amor. Briggs takes the plainchant in different directions harmonically, however, and avoids a mere refurbishment of the Duruflé setting. This a cappella motet, like the Mass, was composed for a Bristol church—Bristol City Church—and first heard too in Notre-Dame de Paris, at Grand-Messe on 30 July 2006.A few days earlier, in Devon’s Buckfast Abbey, the Exon Singers and conductor Matthew Owens performed Briggs’ setting of Psalm 121 for the first time on a BBC Radio 3 broadcast of Choral Evensong. Without the Frenchified flavours of Briggs’ organ-writing to underpin this work, I will lift up mine eyes is a more overtly English piece, very much in the Anglican mould and sans ail.Perhaps because the evening canticles are so intrinsic to that Anglican choral tradition, Briggs’ Trinity Magnificat and Nunc dimittis—even with organ accompaniment—feel closer to Dover than to Calais. With a fine sense of architecture and alternations of choral texture, this pairing is the most recent work here—composed for the forces on this recording in 2008.Briggs’ musical ocean crossing is the English Channel, but for several years now the Atlantic forms the divide between his earlier British life and his current residence in Boston, Massachusetts. The final work on this disc was composed for that remarkable island of musical Anglicanism amidst the bustling commerce of Manhattan. St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, sustains a fine choir of boys and men, and it was for these forces and their conductor John Scott that Briggs wrote O Lord, support us in 2005. Commissioned by the then Assistant Organist Jeremy Bruns for his wife Kathy, this setting of an exquisite evening collect from the Book of Common Prayer is a tender wash of unashamed loveliness.Meurig Bowen © 2010


  • Wykonawca Various Artists
  • Data premiery 2010-01-01
  • Nośnik CD
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Masaaki Suzuki Plays Buxtehude - Suzuki Masaaki [mp3]


As the composer that Johann Sebastian Bach at the age of twenty walked more than 400 kilometres in order to meet, Dietrich Buxtehude holds a place of honour in the history of music. Luckily, an important portion of his music, mainly vocal works and organ pieces, has also survived. Having spent his childhood and early years in Helsingborg and Elsinore, on either side of the strait that divides Denmark and Sweden, Buxtehude was recruited as organist by the congregation of the great Marienkirche in the wealthy Hanseatic city of Lübeck. On the basis of this, as well as the challenges posed by his organ compositions, it is safe to assume that he was a virtuoso on his instrument. He would also have been a connoisseur of fine organs – the finest of which at the time were to be found in Northern Germany. Two such magnificent instruments still exist in the small towns of Altenbruch and Lüdingworth, some 130 kilometres west of Lübeck, and on them Masaaki Suzuki here performs a varied selection of Buxtehude’s organ works. This ranges from brief chorale preludes to the magnificent Te Deum laudamus and the celebrated Ciaccona in E minor. Although he is most widely known for his on-going, highly praised series of Bach’s cantatas on BIS, Masaaki Suzuki in fact began his professional career as a church organist at the age of twelve, later studying the instrument both in Tokyo and in Amsterdam. For BIS he has previously recorded Bach’s Organ Mass (‘an organist of distinguished musicianship and superior technique’ wrote the American Record Guide) and organ works by Sweelinck, a disc which upon its release was recommended by Gramophone and described in International Record Review as containing ‘performances which are compelling in their stylistic integrity and uncompromising musicianship'


  • Wykonawca Suzuki Masaaki
  • Data premiery 2010-01-01
  • Nośnik SACD
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My Spirit Hath Rejoiced - Dearnley Christopher [mp3]


Settings of the canticles, the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, have played a prominent part in the Office of Evensong since the Reformation. Cranmer’s original Book of Common Prayer of 1549 established the classic pattern for the Anglican Office of psalm–lesson–canticle–lesson–canticle. This pattern survived all the liturgical revisions and upheavals and was reiterated in the definitive 1662 version, which is still adhered to today. The form of Evensong resulted from the fusing together of elements from the Roman Offices of Vespers and Compline, though the liturgical pattern of psalms followed by paired lessons and canticles differs both from its Roman progenitors and from the Lutheran services.The first canticle of Evensong, the Magnificat, acts as a liturgical pivot, providing a transition between lessons from the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Magnificat, whose text is found in Luke 1: 46–55, is a hymn of praise expressing the joy and thanksgiving of the Virgin Mary following the Annunciation.The Nunc dimittis or ‘Song of Simeon’, the second canticle of Evensong, takes its text from Luke 2: 29–32, and acts as a salutation to the arrival of the New Testament message. The words are those uttered in prayer by the aged Simeon who, having witnessed the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, expresses his faith in God’s promise of Salvation and contemplates his approaching death. Except for the anthem (which is, strictly speaking, extra-liturgical), the canticles have afforded the greatest opportunity for musical development within the Anglican rite. The stylistic foundations of the settings most familiar today from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were established in large part by Samuel Sebastian Wesley and Thomas Attwood Walmisley, two of the most important and influential figures in the history of English church music. The finest achievements of both these men in the setting of the Evening Canticles are included on a previous Hyperion issue My soul doth magnify the Lord, which also includes familiar settings by Stanford, Blair, Wood and Brewer. This second disc presents a further seven well-loved settings dating from the late 1800s to the mid-1940s.When Thomas Tertius Noble (1867-1953) resigned from his post at York Minster in order to take up an appointment as musical director at St Thomas’s Church, Fifth Avenue, New York, he must have done so with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. This was to be Noble’s most important post in a career which had begun at the Royal College of Music in 1886, where he studied with Parratt and Stanford, and which led to appointments at Trinity College, Cambridge, as assistant to Stanford (1890-2), and at Ely Cathedral (1892-1898) and York Minster (1898-1912) as organist and choirmaster. Shortly before his appointment to St Thomas’s in 1912, the church had been rebuilt with the aim of creating liturgical conditions akin to those of a cathedral, and on arrival in New York Noble was set the daunting task of establishing the musical traditions there. Noble remained at St Thomas’s until 1947, during which time he founded a choir school fashioned after the familiar choral establishments he had left behind in England. The choir still flourishes today, drawing its repertoire from the vast legacy of English Cathedral Music, including several of Noble’s own works. The Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in B minor (Op 6) were first published in 1898 and dedicated to Sir George Martin. Though writing in a simple, syllabic style, Noble shows an expressive approach to word-setting and achieves musical variety through the constant alternation of vocal textures and colours; simple unison passages contrast with those of more complex chordal writing, and long sustained phrases for boys’ voices alternate with those scored for the three lower voices. The organ part plays a purely accompanimental role; it is harmonically supportive, yet shows little rhythmic or melodic independence.Like Britten, Herbert Howells (1892-1983) was a composer who responded to specific people, places and occasions. His numerous settings of the Morning and Evening Canticles bear witness to this: the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis written in 1946 for the choir of Gloucester Cathedral magically evoke the spacious, reverberant acoustics of the building and the unique blend of the choir. Having served as a chorister and organ student at Gloucester Cathedral under Brewer from 1905 to 1911, Howells was well aware of the wide variety of musical effects that could be produced, as well as the problems created by the sheer vastness of the cathedral. Howells’s skills at adapting his music to suit a particular building, its assets and its problems, is demonstrated to great effect in the Magnificat of this setting, which opens with an extended passage of ethereal beauty scored for boys’ voices with chordal organ accompaniment. Whilst the extremely long echo demands a very slow harmonic, rhythmic and melodic pace, the effects gained by the superimposition of harmonies left ‘hanging’ in the echo are quite stupendous. The ‘Gloucester Service’ contains many of the hallmarks of Howells’s unmistakable style: long, arching melodies in broad phrases; extended passages of diatonic unison writing; chromatic contrapuntal sections; a rich harmonic vocabulary often characterized by a strong modal feeling; supportive yet independent organ-writing; and an impeccable regard for word-setting which is highly expressive yet never over-sentimental.Unlike Howells, Herbert Murrill (1909-1952) is not particularly renowned for his association with the Church and its music. As a composer, he tended to favour the smaller media, though his list of works includes such diverse items as incidental music for films, ballets and plays, a string quartet, two cello concertos and a jazz opera. His education began at Aske’s School, Hatcham, where he won the Musicians’ Company Carnegie Scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music. However, Murrill chose to relinquish the place in order to study at the Royal Academy (1925-8) under Bower, Marchant and Alan Bush. From 1928 to 1931, Murrill was appointed organ scholar at Worcester College, Oxford, studying with Harris, Walker and Allen. While still at University, his jazz opera Man in Cage (1929) was performed at the Grafton Theatre in London, 1930. In 1936 Murrill joined the BBC and embarked on a career that was to lead to his appointment as Head of Music there in 1950. In addition he was professor of composition at the Royal Academy from 1933 until his death. It was during his final year of war service in the Intelligence Corps (1942-1946) that Murrill composed the Evening Canticles in E. Though composed in the same year as Howells’s ‘Gloucester Service’, the two works could hardly be more dissimilar. Murrill’s setting is mainly syllabic and the music is conceived on a vertical rather than a horizontal melodic plane. The Magnificat has a fiery, relentless quality and rhythmic interest is provided by constant alternation in metre. The Nunc dimittis is slow and majestic with a rhythmic Gloria.Throughout his life, Basil Harwood (1859-1949) maintained a close association with the Church and its musical heritage. Born in Gloucestershire, he began his studies as an organist with Riseley at Bristol Cathedral. Later he moved to Oxford to study theory with Corfe at Trinity College and for a short time he had lessons at the Leipzig Conservatory with Reinecke. Harwood held his first appointment as an organist at St Barnabas’, Pimlico (1883-7) and then proceeded to Ely Cathedral where he was organist and choirmaster from 1887 to 1893. It was during his time at Ely Cathedral that Harwood composed the Morning, Communion and Evening Service in A flat (Op 6) of which the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis sung on this recording form a part. Though the service is usually sung with organ accompaniment, it also exists in a version orchestrated by Sir Walter Alcock, a fellow organist and contemporary of Harwood’s. The music clearly shows the influence of Wesley in its rich harmonies, sweeping melodies, delicate phrasing, expressive word-painting, and most importantly in its supremely confident and imaginative handling of vocal textures. After leaving Ely, Harwood’s career centred on Oxford where he was organist at Christ Church (1892-1909), precentor at Keble College (1892-1903), and conductor of the Orchestral Association (1892-8). The year 1896 saw the foundation of the Bach Choir; Harwood became its first conductor in that year and held the appointment until 1900 when he took over as University Choragus (an Office peculiar to Oxford University). Available sources indicate that Harwood’s list of compositions was not extensive; the works that are documented seem to fall into the categories of Church music, organ works and cantatas.Though Harold Darke (1888-1976) was closely associated with the Church and its music throughout his life, it was primarily as a performer and conductor that he gained a worldwide reputation. His studies began at the Royal College of Music where he took organ lessons with Parratt and composition with Stanford. (He later returned to the college as Professor between 1919 and 1969.) In 1916 Darke became organist at St Michael’s, Cornhill, a post which he maintained until 1966. Here Darke gave regular organ recitals, founded the St Michael’s Singers (1919), organized music festivals for which composers such as Howells and Vaughan Williams submitted new works, and made the church a cultural centre specializing in performances of Bach’s music. Darke was President of the Royal College of Organists from 1940 to 1941 and acting organist at King’s College from 1941 to 1944 during the absence on war service of Boris Ord. Darke was a Fellow of the University from 1945 to 1949, and in recognition of his contributions to music he was awarded an honorary Cambridge MA, an Oxford DMus, and he was appointed CBE in 1966. The Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in F, which form part of a Complete Service, were early works, composed between 1910 and 1913 and published in 1923. Darke himself regarded the Nunc dimittis as ‘perhaps one of the best things I’ve ever written’, though he is probably best known for his carol In the bleak mid-winter. The Magnificat of the Evening Service is stylistically very interesting; the vocal textures are forever changing, with solo and unison phrases followed by thick double choir passages, then simple diatonic four-part sections. There are also several unusual and bold harmonic passages especially in the organ part. The Nunc dimittis starts with a tranquil bass solo but culminates in a dense eight-part texture which leads to a majestic Gloria.Herbert Whitton Sumsion (1899-1995) was born in Gloucester and, like his contemporary Herbert Howells, he began his musical training at Gloucester Cathedral as a chorister in Brewer’s choir. From 1916 to 1917 Sumsion became assistant organist at the cathedral, then later, in 1919, he held the same office before travelling to London in 1922 to become organist at Christ Church, Lancaster Gate. In 1926 Sumsion made the long journey to Philadelphia where he had been offered the job of professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Curtis Institute. After two years he finally returned to Gloucester Cathedral as organist and choirmaster, a post which he retained for thirty-nine years. Sumsion’s career was centred on the Three Choirs Festival and as a result his association with such notable composers as Kodály, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst, Howells and Finzi became a close one. Besides composing (mostly for voice and organ), Sumsion was also a skilled organist and conductor, accompanist and chamber music player. He was awarded a Lambeth DMus in 1947 and was appointed CUE in 1961. The Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in G major were written in 1942 to supplement the existing choice of settings already in the repertoire at Gloucester Cathedral. The Magnificat is a gently lilting, lyrical setting, which exhibits moments of extreme tenderness. Sumsion pays careful attention to word-setting and the vocal lines are beautifully shaped. The organ-writing complements the vocal textures with independent melodic interpolations, and in the Nunc dimittis the opening organ solo passage introduces a melodic motif and a triplet figure, both of which are present throughout the canticle.The musical career of Sir George Dyson (1883-1964), like those of so many of his distinguished predecessors and contemporaries, began in the world of Church and organ music. By way of several scholarships, Dyson received formal musical training on the organ and in composition at the Royal College of Music. In 1904 he won the Mendelssohn travelling scholarship which enabled him to study in Italy and Germany for four years. It was during his stay in Dresden in 1907 that Dyson composed the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in D major. On his return to England, Dyson was engaged as music master at the Royal Naval School, Osborne, Isle of Wight (1908), then at Marlborough (1911) and finally at Rugby (1914). After the War, Dyson became head of music at Wellington College and joined the staff of the Royal College of Music. From 1924 to 1937 he was director of music at Winchester College. In terms of composition, these were his most productive years; In Honour of the City appeared in 1928 and the Canterbury Pilgrims in 1931. His list of compositions also includes symphonies and other smaller-scale choral works. Dyson succeeded Hugh Allen as director of the RCM in 1937, and three years later he received a knighthood. He was appointed KCVO in 1953. Besides music, Dyson also wrote several books including The New Music (Oxford 1924), which examined modern compositional techniques, and his official Manual of Grenade Fighting, which was adopted by the War Office in the First World War. Dyson’s setting of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in D is well written, dramatic and descriptive. Like his predecessors Parry and Stanford, Dyson’s approach to text-setting is both accurate and imaginative and his harmonic vocabulary is often bold. The vocal lines are characterized by broad, expansive phrases and Dyson clearly knew the power of unison writing. The overall feeling in this setting is one of exaltation, and it provides a suitable climax for this recording as a whole.Sarah Langdon © 1988


  • Wykonawca Dearnley Christopher
  • Data premiery 2011-03-01
  • Nośnik CD
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