Bernstein, Britten, Duruflé and Rutter in West London
November 23, 2024
7.30 pm
St Stephen’s
Gloucester Road
London SW7 4RL
For its winter concert this year, CML returns to St Stephen’s, Gloucester Road for a concert of choral music by Bernstein, Britten, Rutter and Duruflé.
When the Dean of Chichester, Walter Hussey, wrote to Bernstein to commission the Chichester Psalms, he confessed that he would be pleased if the score had “a hint of West Side Story” about it. Hussey had his wish, sometimes literally, as Bernstein recycled material from discarded theatre scores. It was Bernstein who insisted on setting the psalms in the original Hebrew, and the composer also threw into the mix some features more commonly associated with traditional church music as well as his own great gifts as a melodist. The result is one of the most distinctive pieces in the choral repertoire, heard on this occasion in the colourful arrangement for organ, harp and percussion.
Benjamin Britten composed his Ceremony of Carols in 1942, at the same time as the Hymn to St Cecilia and in similar style, scored for three-part treble chorus, solo voices, and harp. Originally conceived as a series of unrelated songs, it was later unified into one piece with the framing processional and recessional chant in unison based on the Gregorian antiphon Hodie Christus natus est.
The work, composed on board ship as Britten returned to England from the USA in 1942, is a touching evocation of a boyhood lost but never forgotten.
Feel the Spirit is a cycle of seven familiar spirituals vividly brought to life in John Rutter’s expressive arrangements, written in 2001.
Maurice Duruflé’s Messe cum Jubilo is based on the first of several plainchant settings used in masses for feast days, celebrating aspects in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. While the vocal line takes its cue from the actual plainchant melody and its constantly shifting metre, Duruflé’s modern setting embraces a much broader tonal spectrum than the original medieval modal scales.
