A Garland for the Queen

To celebrate a coronation 70 years ago, the Arts Council of Great Britain commissioned 10 leading composers to provide choral works in honor of the new Queen, Elizabeth II. In doing so, it was in effect recreating the famous choral compilation, The Triumphs of Oriana, that had attended the accession of Elizabeth I nearly 400 years earlier.

Sheet music

The resulting Garland for the Queen is unlikely to leave such a lasting impression, and was not particularly well received following its premiere by the Cambridge University Madrigal Society in the Royal Festival Hall. As critic John France noted, "it is conventionally regarded as being a generically substandard work from its ‘composer collective’."

That said, it is hard not to enjoy the works as prepared by the "collective" - Arthur Bliss, Arnold Bax, Michael Tippett, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Lennox Berkeley, John Ireland, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, Alan Rawsthorne and Edmund Rubbra. The first performance was led by Boris Ord, who recently appeared here leading music for an Easter service. He and his choir then recorded the program for a 1953 UK Columbia LP.

Today's post is devoted to what I believe to be the second recording of the "garland," as done by the Exultate Singers, conducted by Garrett O'Brien. That ensemble was previously heard here in a program of choral music composed for the 1953 coronation. (Both records were issued to commemorate the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.) The Singers also have appeared on the blog in a Vaughan Williams choral program.

Ad in The Gramophone, June 1977

In his Gramophone review, Roger Fiske wrote that the Singers "have a clean fresh youthful quality, especially the two soprano soloists. They have all been meticulously trained and agreeably recorded." He did complain about the sameness of the settings and the inability to understand the texts.

The latter complaint is a valid one, especially so in that RCA did not include texts with the LP. It's a shame because the words are by notable poets of the time - Henry Reed, Clifford Bax, Christopher Fry, Ursula Wood, Paul Dehn, James Kirkup, Walter de la Mare, Edmund Blunden, Louis MacNeice and Christopher Hassall. I have partially remedied the text void by hunting down the words for six of the 10 compositions.

Southwark Cathedral

I believe this program was recorded in London's Southwark Cathedral, where O'Brien was on the music staff.

In the process of posting three of the Exultate Singers' LPs, I have yet to find a photo of the group or its conductor. There is an ensemble with the same name today, but it doesn't seem to be related. RCA managed to misspell O'Brien's first name on the cover of this LP. Sic transit gloria mundi musicale.

ADDENDUM - A friend of the blog found a photo of Garrett O'Brien and the Exultate Singers, dating from a program in Grimsby, England in 1972 and taken from the local Evening Telegraph. He admits it is "laughably poor," but we can see O'Brien at the left and note that he wore sideburns in the fashion of the time, also glasses. See below.