Kings College Cambridge

A collection of Easter music sung sung by the Choir of King’s College Cambridge in the famous Chapel and made available as an audio album for the first time. Taken from the BBC’s 2020 Easter broadcast, these recordings capture the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge under the direction of Daniel Hyde, performing for his first Easter from King’s since taking up the post of Director of Music. Highlights include a selection of movements from Charles Wood’s St. Mark Passion, as well as much-loved Easter music by Bob Chilcott, Bainton, Casals and Duruflé. © King's College Recordings

"Proud Songsters" is a journey through the distinctive musical genre of English Song. This collection of twenty songs – familiar and lesser known – are performed by some of the finest former members of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge with one of this generation’s most exceptional pianists. Each of the nine alumni featured on this album sang as young adults at King’s, alongside pianist Simon Lepper, an other graduate of King’s. The songs included on the album span settings of Shakespeare songs, those of prominent 20th century composers like Vaughan Williams, Britten, Finzi, Clarke and Howells through to contemporary works by Jonathan Dove, Iain Bell and Celia Harper. © King's College Recordings

These three choral works by acclaimed contemporary composer Errollyn Wallen continue the timeless tradition of reflecting on the human spirit through sung words. Peace on Earth, See that I am God and Pace reach across centuries of traditions and cultures to mould their expression and they range from the intimate to the majestic. Peace on Earth is a contemporary carol and a setting of Wallen’s own words: the bleakness of winter in a turning, troubled world conveyed through a slowly spinning ostinato over which the voices sing (as they themselves hear other unseen voices sing) of the hope for light and peace. See that I am God was first performed in 2014 by St Paul’s Cathedral Consort to celebrate 20 years of the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood in the Church of England. The text is by Julian of Norwich, the 14th-century religious visionary, and her words inspired a dramatic setting where the consummate combination of voices and organ depicts the mystery and exhilaration of faith. Pace is best understood as a single human breath; as a single line; as a world’s long, long journey to light. Born in Belize, Errollyn Wallen gave up her training at the Dance Theater of Harlem, New York to study composition at the universities of London and Cambridge. She founded her own Ensemble X, and its motto ’We don’t break down barriers in music… we don’t see any’ reflects her genuine, free-spirited approach and eclectic musicianship. She has been commissioned by outstanding music institutions from the BBC to the Royal Opera House and performed her songs internationally. © King’s College, Cambridge

Bruckner's Mass No. 2 in E minor, WAB 27, was composed for mixed chorus, not for an English cathedral choir with boy sopranos, and listeners will make up their own minds about this departure from tradition. It's interesting that the late Choir of King's College, Cambridge, director Stephen Cleobury chose this work for his final recording with the choir: it's far from the group's usual wheelhouse, or his own, yet one can understand his motivations. The work is a real challenge for the singers, with long stretches of polyphony blooming into moments of radiant faith. Sample the Credo and listen to the glorious Resurrexit, and the appeal of Cleobury's approach becomes clear. The young singers do everything that's asked of them, and in its way, this is a virtuoso performance. In the short motets that make up the balance of the program, the ages of the singers are less of an issue, and the performances have the feel of a group that revels in its own space. The Locus iste is memorable in its soaring quality. Ultimately listener reactions here will depend on how they feel about the extension of boy singers into this repertory, but the album makes a fine swan song for Cleobury's always progressive and remarkable career. © TiVo

Following releases by cellist Guy Johnston and organist Richard Gowers, King’s College presents the latest album in its alumni series, Bach’s iconic ‘Goldberg Variations’ as arranged and performed by the harpist Parker Ramsay. Parker Ramsay’s artistry is distinguished by its breadth and crossing of instrumental boundaries and genres at the harp, organ and harpsichord. He was the first American to hold the post of Organ Scholar at King’s, following in a long line of prestigious predecessors, and as a harpist specializes in repertoire for early harps and new music for the modern pedal harp. The album is accompanied by extensive notes by leading Bach scholar Burkhard Schwalbach, Pulitzer Prize winning music critic Tim Page and Parker himself. © King's College Cambridge

The retirement of the knighted Stephen Cleobury as the director of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, in 2019 brought with it various valedictory events, including this Easter 2019 live performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244. The big Bach works aren't necessarily in the wheelhouse of the English collegiate choirs, but Cleobury and the choir have performed the St. Matthew Passion on various occasions, including at least once with Sophie Bevan, the present fine soprano soloist. All of the soloists are strong, obviously welcoming the chance to participate in what was something of a landmark in English choral music. Lovers of the Cambridge choirs will want this in their collections regardless, but how about general followers of the St. Matthew Passion and its performances? Certainly, this is quintessentially English Bach, although the all-male boys-and-men choir of about 25 members is probably closer to what Bach intended than the warmer small adult groups that are the norm these days. If you're looking for a sense of awe at the events of the Crucifixion, this may not be the place to find it, but Cleobury's careful work may grow on listeners. In a rather cavernous King's College acoustic, he achieves good separation of the work's double choirs, and the lengthy instrumental introductions of the work's glorious arias are sharp and full of detail that connects to the vocal line. Although this is not an intensely dramatic St. Matthew Passion, it is one that unfolds according to its own logic, and it will reward multiple hearings. © TiVo

This release is likely to get a good deal of publicity due to its status as the final release of Stephen Cleobury as director of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. However, as president of the Herbert Howells Society, he may not be through with performing the music of this composer just yet. Cleobury deserves kudos for this rather challenging double album; he might easily have compiled a set of favorites of some kind, and enjoyed general acclaim. Instead, he has chosen to go out with a piece of work that makes a deeper connection with tradition. Even though he did not succeed Howells as an organist at Cambridge, he certainly lived and breathed his music, and is as fine an interpreter of it as anyone alive. So, this music is a little Howells survey as well as a Cleobury valedictory, and it succeeds notably on both counts. In addition to choral music, and a set of organ pieces brilliantly realized by Cleobury, there's the lyrical Cello Concerto, performed by Guy Johnston on cello, with the Britten Sinfonia under Christopher Seaman. It's a fine, somehow intimate reading. For Cleobury in his element, sample around on CD 1: the English Mass of 1956, which represented an intentional simplification of Howells' dense, ornate style, is ideally suited to Cleobury and his boys-and-men choristers, but perhaps the highlight of the whole is the limpid Magnificat, a gloriously lyrical, unique response to that text. A fine bookend to Cleobury's Cambridge career. © TiVo

Nine extraordinary meditations by one of the twentieth century’s musical titans, performed on the magnificent King’s College Chapel organ by former organ scholar Richard Gowers. Written in 1935, La Nativité du Seigneur is one of Messiaen’s most popular organ works, and a piece that helped to establish the then 27 year-old as an important figure in contemporary music. Premiered in February 1936 at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris, where Messiaen was organist for more than sixty years, the debut performance was shared between three of his close friends; with Daniel-Lesur, Jean Langlais and Jean-Jacques Grunenwald each tackling three movements. A testament to Messiaen’s devout Catholicism, each movement follows a portion of the Christmas story, from the Virgin Birth to Epiphany, with the number of movements symbolic of the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy. Significantly, the work contains early examples of Messiaen’s signature compositional elements, such as birdsong, rhythmic inspiration from Hindustani and Carnatic musical traditions, and the ‘modes of limited transportation’, which he would later publish in "La technique de mon langage musical". Born in 1994, Richard Gowers is a British organist, pianist and conductor. After becoming a prize-winning Fellow of the Royal College of Organists at the age of 17, he won first prize at the 2013 Northern Ireland International Organ Competition and studied at the Mendelssohn Conservatoire in Leipzig. From 2014 to 2017 he held the distinguished position of organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge and in September 2017 he became Chapel Choir Organist at the Old Royal Naval College Trinity Laban. His career as a concert organist has seen him perform in prestigious venues around the world, including Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral. © King's College