Each Jubilant Chord

E A C H J U B I L AN T C H O R D

“Traherne and Finzi lived in the same kind of

countryside and the text and music suffuses that,

and if you walked in the hills of the West Country

you can’t help but visualise that when you sing it.

It’s just that wonderful, lilting, soft-edged beauty.”

Toby Spence interview in GRAMOPHONE

MUSICAL SETTINGS OF THOMAS TRAHERNE

This listing has been produced for the TRAHERNE ASSOCIATION by Jerzy Rosankiewicz and Graham Cosway. The items shown below are those known to date; we will be pleased to receive additions/amendments. Recordings are liable to be / have been deleted from catalogues but may be available through specialist retailers. Some seventeen composers have written twentythree pieces of which sixteen pieces are to be found recorded.

GERALD FINZI ( 1901 - 1956 ) www.geraldfinzi

Dies Natalis - Cantata for tenor + string orchestra

1. Rhapsody

2. The Rapture

3. Wonder

4. The Salutation

Publication: Three Choirs Hereford commission 1939 (First performance postponed owing to declaration of World War II )

SEE THE GRAMOPHNE magazine December 2011 for detailed article about Dies Natalis by Jeremy Dibble Professor of Music Durham University.

Recorded :

1. September 1981 by English Chamber Orchestra with WilfredBrown (tenor) conducted by Christopher Finzi (son of composer) EMI CDM 7 63372-2./ World Record Club SCM 50 (HMV HQS 1260

This is perhaps the best known of all Traherne musical settings and is superbly performed.

2. 2008 by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra with James Gilchrist (who sang this work at Hereford Three Choirs Festival 2006) conducted by David Hill. NAXOS8.570417

3. 2008 by Scottish Ensemble /Jonathan Morton with Toby Spence (tenor) WIGMORE HALL LIVE series WHLIVE0021

4. 1997 by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra with Rebecca Evans (sop) Conifer

5. 2010 by BBC Symphony Orchestra Cond Edward Gardner with Susan Gritton – CHAN10590 (Includes Britten’s Les illuminations and Delius A Late Lark).

6. (Dec 1946 ?) Joan Cross with Boyd Neel Orch Boyd Neel conductor

DECCA 1645 - 47 (One of a number of English songs from 78s) There is a 55 sec "snatch" from Dies Natalis on internet.

7. Rebecca Evans - details awaited

8. John Mark Ainsley Corydon Orchestra, Mathew Best conductor. Hyperion CDA 66876.

(NOTE there are believed to be other recordings of this work details please )

To a Poet Op 13a - Tenor & piano

# 3. - Intrada (An empty book is like an infant’s soul )

Publisher : circa 1920s

Recorded : February 1981 Hyperion CDA 66015 (Songs by Finzi & friends)

Two motets : # 2 - The Recovery (Sin ! Wilt thou vanquish me)1923 (work withdrawn)

MALCOLM ARCHER (1952 - )

Malcolm Archer was appointed Organist and Master of the Choristers at Wells Cathedral in 1996. Studied organ with Ralph Downes. Giliam Weir and Nicolas Kynaston and composition with Herbert Sumsion and Alan Ridout. Has written commissioned works (inter alia) Southern Cathedrals Festival, Musica Deo Sacra.

How Like an Angel (from Wonder) -

Publication : - Masters & Mistresses Association commission in memory of Stanley Milne with first performance at Clifton College Bristol 1998.

Recorded : - “Ave Maria” Lammas records LAMM 132D (Girls of Wells Cathedral directed by Malcolm Archer).

GEOFFREY BURGON ( b. 1941 ) www.dnb

Burgon achieved his first concert success with his Requiem at Three Choirs Festival Hereford 1976. His Hymn to St. Thomas of Hereford was composed 1981.

An interest in metaphysical poetry led him to compose a series of song cycles many of which feature the countertenor voice.

The Fire of Heaven - triple chorus

Publication : - 1973

Recorded : - The Fall of Lucifer & other works Silva Classics SILKD 6002

Songs of the Creation - from HEXAMERON

Publication : Walter Hussey legacy commission by Chichester Cathedral ( Southern Cathedrals Festival 1989 )

Recorded : Priory records - Chichester Cathedral Choir - PRCD 570 ( 1991 )

NIGEL BUTTERLEY (1935 b. ) www.grovemusic.com

Australian composer much influenced by RVW., Warlock, Ireland and Britten. Studied with, inter alia, Paul Rainier. In addition to Traherne, has composed settings to Hardy, Blake, Whitman (Leaves of Grass), .

Meditations of Thomas Traherne

Each of the five meditations from Traherne begin with a solitary held note on the piano

Publication : 1968.

Recorded : From Sorrowing Earth - ABC classics 446 478-2

PHILIP LAWSON ( ? )

(Baritone who sung with King’s Singers)

Welcome All Wonders

Publication :

Recorded : Pro Organo Records CD 7194

ANDREW MORRIS

Awaking in Heaven

Publication : Leominster Festival Commission (1995)

Recorded : none to date

Settings of Enjoying the World Aright; Pardon my Ingratitude; Awaking in

Heaven - (Centures of Medtation - 1.29; 1.66; 1.28)

ELIZABETH MaCONCHY ( 1907 - 1994 ) www.grovemusic.com

English composer of Irish descent; Studied with , inter alia, Charles Wood and RVW; encouraged by Grace Williams,

Dorothy Gow Ina Boyle; ( An Important influence was Bartok.)

Sun Moon and Stars

Publication :

Recorded :

1. Alison Smart (sop) and Katharine Durran (piano) Metier MSV CD92025

2. Tracey Chadwell (sop) and Pamela Lidiard (piano)

3. MS420/421CD

PAUL DRAYTON

The Bells

Publication : Hereford Three Choirs Commission (1976)

Recorded:

FRANCIS POTT (b. 1957 ) www.francispott.com

A Meditation (Amalgam from ONE TWO THREE CENTURIES including:

An empty book is like an infant’s soul

A five-minute motet beautifully setting Traherne’s words

Publication : Ricordi (London 2005 ) SATB a cappella

Recorded: None known to date

“MEDITATIONS and REMEMBRANCES” choir of Christ Church Dublin SIGNUM 80

THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING - oratorio for tenor solo, SATB, SATB chorus and organ ( circa 90 mins.)

This work sets a number of poets including Traherne’s Who art Thou ? addressed to the Crucified Lord against the reply from Wilfred Owen’s I am the enemy you killed, my friend (included by Benjamin Britten in War Requiem ).

Publication : 2005 First performance at St. Pancras Church, Tavistock Square, London( where soon after a terrorist bomb blew up a bus )

Recorded: SIGNUM SIGCD 105

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ( 1908 - )

Hymn 97 (Cambridge Hymnal )

Sweet Infancy

Publisher : Cambridge Hymnal 1967 Recorded: none to date

JANE MARIAN JOSEPH ( 1894 - 1929 ) www.oxforddnb

Jane Joseph was a pupil of Holst at St Paul’s Girls School and pursued her musical career in close association with Holst and acted as one of his amanuenses. She advised on the translation of his The hymn of Jesus. As with Holst, Tippett and others, Jane was much involved with Morley College , Lambeth

“Songs of Praise” hymn no. 651 Tune: Eskdale

Sweet infancy

Publisher: 1925 Stainer & Bell (?)

Recorded: none to date

LAURENCE ARMSTRONG HUGHES ( ? ) ww.lah.freeuk.com/laurence.htm

A British composer of tonal/modal music, whose work has been described as “the new lyricism”. Born London and studied at York University (1972 - 1975) and London (1979 - 1981). Performer and composer including settings of works by (e.g.) Housman, Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen, William Blake as well as this one of Thomas Traherne.

Three Mystical Songs for children’s choir, strings. (Dedicated to Ronald Corp and the New London Children’s Choir.)

Publisher : 1996 (circa)

Recorded : None known

DAVID WYLLIE (1933 - )

REGNUM TUUM for unaccompanied children’s choir, soprano and adult’s choir.

This short work written July 2008 sets RAPTURE against the New Testament

Publisher : awaited Recorded : none to date

PHILIP LEDGER (Born Bexhill on Sea December, 1937 - )

A Thanksgiving for Life

Composed 2007 first performed Christ Church Christiana Hundred, Delaware USA. 4 November, 2007. contains words from Innocence; The Third Century of Meditations (4); An Hymn upon St Bartholomew’s Day).

Recorded: REQUIEM The Choir of Christ’s College, Cambridge (RGDC305)

ANTHONY PICCOLO

WONDER

Recorded: Canterbury Choir & Organ in Sounds of Canterbury (York CD 107)

AARON JAY KERNIS

Two Awakenings and a Lullaby (includes: The Salutation)

Recorded: Hila Plitmann (sop) and David Tanenbaum (guitar) Axel Strauss (violin Aaron Jay Kernis Naxos 8.559650 "Awakenings"

TONY HEWLETT-JONES

The Divine Image for unaccompanied choir. Composed 1967 for Eric Sanders and Cheltenham Bach Choir

JONATHAN DOVE

There Was a Child.

Large scale cantata in memory of Robert van Allan. First performed Norwich & Norfolk Festival 2009.

Includes settings by Charles Causley; Langston Hughes; Wordsworth; Keats; Emily Dickenson and others including Childhood and New Worlds by Thomas Traherne.

(See Church Times 22 7 2011)

varous Herefordshire composers

David Wylle; Stephen Gowland; Andrew Morris; Francis Pullen; Patrick Dunachie

"Saints of Hereford Motets"

(unaccompanied choral pieces in honour of

St Ethelbert; St Thomas Cantilupe; Thomas Traherne)

First performance Hereford Cathedral 22 July 2011