Schütz's Beautiful 'Christmas Story'

The Christmas Story by Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) is a glorious work from the early Baroque period, here, appropriately enough, performed by the Heinrich Schütz Choir and a starry group of singers and instrumentalists directed by Roger Norrington (now Sir Roger) in this 1970 recording.

Roger Norrington

The performance is graced by the presence of one of my favorite singers, tenor Ian Partridge, who assumes the important role of the Evangelist. His recitatives are interspersed with Intermedia, which are taken by characters from the familiar story - the angel and angelic host, the shepherds, the three kings, the high priests and scribes, and Herod.

Ian Partridge

Partridge came in for particular praise from the critics. Jeremy Noble wrote in The Gramophone that "his combination of simplicity, excellent German diction and sensitivity to every nuance of the biblical words is beyond praise."

Felicity Palmer

The Angel is Felicity Palmer, now Dame Felicity, who also is splendid. There are familiar names among the other roles as well. The shepherds are James Bowman, Derek McCullough and Philip Langridge; the wise men Langridge, Martyn Hill and Christopher Keyte, and Herod Eric Stannard. The instrumentalists include Robert Spencer on chittarone, and David Munrow and Philip Pickett on recorders, along with the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble.

The performance was - as were many records of the day - a combination of traditional and historically informed practices. Noble complained about revisions to the orchestration: "it seems odd to take one of the works for which Schütz has given us a specific instrumentation and then reorchestrate it (to a much greater extent than is implied in the informative sleeve-note, by the way)."

Heinrich Schütz

A quick note about the composer, edited from Wikipedia: "Heinrich Schütz was a German early Baroque composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and one of the most important composers of the 17th century. He is credited with bringing the Italian style to Germany and continuing its evolution from the Renaissance into the early Baroque. Most of his surviving music was written for the Lutheran church, primarily for the Electoral Chapel in Dresden."

The sound from this disc is excellent.

LINK

Gramophone, October 1971

More Vaughan Williams First Recordings: 'Sancta Civitas' and 'Benedicite'

Let's continue our series of Vaughan Williams recordings from early UK vinyl incarnations. Following the Hodie post of a month ago, today we have more choral/orchestral works - Sancta Civitas and Benedicite. 

As with Hodie, David Willcocks conducts the London Symphony and the Bach Choir, adding the King's College Choir for Sancta Civitas. The soloists are again among the best that the UK had to offer - baritone John Shirley-Quirk returns for Sancta Civitas, with soprano Heather Harper the soloist in Benedicite. Tenor Ian Partridge makes a brief but effective appearance in the first work.

The recordings derive from January 18-20, 1968 sessions in London's Kingsway Hall. Leading the recording team were producer Christopher Bishop and engineer Christopher Parker.

Ralph Vaughan Williams and David Willcocks, circa the 1940s

Sancta Civitas

In his Gramophone review, Roger Fiske remarked that neither Sancta Civitas nor Benedicite are heard in the concert hall - they require elaborate forces and are too short to command a program by themselves.

The longer work, Sancta Civitas, calls for orchestra, three choirs (one off-stage) and two soloists, one of whom (the tenor) has only one line. It lasts barely more than a half-hour. Still and all, Fiske called it "a masterpiece and among Vaughan Williams' greatest achievements."

While the composer termed Sancta Civitas an oratorio, it will not remind you of The Messiah, or closer to Vaughan Williams' time, The Dream of Gerontius. As with the latter work, however, Vaughan Williams' intent was spiritual. In his notes, Michael Kennedy quotes the composer as writing, "The object of all art is to achieve a partial revelation of that which is beyond human senses and human faculties, of that in fact which is spiritual." The work is from 1923-25, and sets texts from the Book of Revelation and other sources.

As Fiske wrote, the performance is superb, and the recording is all one could wish. (Perhaps a bit more than one would wish; it is quite bright sounding.) Shirley-Quirk and Partridge are excellent.

John Shirley-Quirk and Ian Partridge

Benedicite

In his High Fidelity review, Alfred Frankenstein noted that Benedicite "is quite different from Sancta Civitas. It is rugged, vigorous, effervescent with reminiscence of English folk song in tune and text."

The text leaflet optimistically calls the work a setting "of the familiar canticle." A canticle is a liturgical setting, in this case "Benedicite, omnia opera Domini, Domino" in the Latin Rite, or "O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord" in the Book of Common Prayer. Vaughan Williams set the latter version, interpolating a 17th century poem by John Austin.

Heather Harper

The work, which dates from 1930, is half as long as Sancta Civitas, but no less worthy. Frankenstein considered it "one of the most important of Vaughan Williams' numerous brief choral works." Here, the soloist is Heather Harper, who distinguishes herself, as do the choral and orchestral forces under Willcocks.

The download includes reviews, texts, and front and back cover scans. Although I possess both the original HMV and Angel pressings of this coupling, I made use of a lossless transfer of the HMV from Internet Archive, which seemed marginally cleaner than my LPs.

In later posts, I will have more of Willcocks' Vaughan Williams choral recordings from the 1960s. 

William Wordsworth - String Quartets and Songs

I transferred this LP in response to a request on another site, but I might as well post it here too, even though it is newer than what I usually offer.

The composer is William Wordsworth, who had a famous name to be sure, and in fact he was a descendant of the poet's brother Christopher. Wordsworth the latter lived from 1908-88.

This CRD album, from 1981, was one of the few recordings of Wordsworth's music during his lifetime. The performers (the Alberni String Quartet and tenor Ian Partridge) are most sympathetic and the sound is excellent.

To my ear, the best music on the disc is the composer's setting of three of his namesake's poems, which help give his music some shape and color (although the music for "On Calais Beach" is strangely glum). The string quartets are closely argued, as the liner notes outline, but they also have a dogged quality that I don't care for.

Lyrita's recent CD of Wordsworth's Symphonies No. 1 and 5 have brought his name to the attention of more people. I have an earlier Lyrita issue of the second and third symphonies, which is worth investigating. If you want to learn more about the composer, a good remembrance can be found on MusicWeb. Wordsworth is seen with the recording artists below.