Music for All Saints' Day

I can't offer you any music for Halloween - I don't think I have any records of that genre, with the possible exception of Bobby (Boris) Pickett's great "Monster Mash."

I do have music that honors tomorrow - the Feast of All Saints (Hallows), of which today is the eve (een). This 1980 LP comes to us from All Saints' Church, Margaret Street, London. Its Choir is led by Dr. Eric Arnold, who was All  Saints' director of music from 1968 until his death in 1988.

The program consists of music that would be heard during tomorrow's various services - plainsong, a Mass setting by Mozart, and works by English composers, including Bairstow, Bainton and Henschel.

All are well handled by the Choir of four sopranos and eight lay clerks, accompanied by Arnold and by Harry Bramma during the Mozart mass setting. Bramma would serve as the church's director of music from 1989 to 2004.

All Saints maintained a choir school until 1968, when the boys' voices were replaced by sopranos. The Harrison & Harrison organ dates from 1910. The notes to this record plaintively state that "it now needs a complete overhaul," which was subsequently undertaken and completed in 2003.

Exterior brickwork

The church building itself is considered an important piece of English architecture. Dating from the 1850s, it marks the transition from the Gothic Revival style to the Victorian. Architect William Butterfield utilized a polychromatic brick design for the exterior that would be widely adopted for English domestic buildings in years to come. The interior design, with every surface richly patterned, also is far more decorative than what we usually expect to see in the Gothic style - astonishingly so (see the photo below; the LP cover does not do it justice).

The LP recording is good, in the unobtrusive English style of the time. This appears to be the first album on the Church's own label; I am not sure if others followed, but I do know that the Choir has made a number of recordings for Priory over the years. The download includes cover scans, as always, as well as the text insert.

Follow @BusterBig10Inch

Church interior - click to enlarge