David Bednall
English composer David Bednall writes music that draws both on his own background as an improvising organist and on various aspects of the English musical tradition, especially the choral.
Born in 1979 in Salisbury, England, Bednall attended the Sherborne boys' school and went on to the Queen's College, Oxford, where he became Organ Scholar, but had only a small involvement with composition. He conducted the school's Chapel Choir and took it on tour to France in 2000. That year he was appointed Organ Scholar at Gloucester Cathedral, and in that capacity he took composition lessons from David Briggs. He wrote his first significant work, Behold, O God Our Defender, on September 12, 2001, in memory of those killed the previous day. Bednall continued his career as an organist at Wells Cathedral between 2002 and 2007, rising from Sub Organist to Assistant Organist.
Accompanying the Wells Cathedral Choir, Bednall ventured into improvisation, winning prizes in that field and in organ performance at his examination for admission as a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists in 2002. With choirs at his disposal both as accompanist and as conductor, Bednall began to compose for them more prolifically. The Wells Cathedral Choir recorded a CD of his music, Hail, gladdening Light, for the Regent label, and his work became better known. Two large works, a Missa Sancti Pauli and a Requiem, were performed in London, and his Christmas cantata Welcome All Wonders was recorded by the Wells Cathedral Choir for the Signum label in 2011.
Bednall has listed as "personal idols" the composers Herbert Howells, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi, Richard Wagner, Giacomo Puccini, Richard Strauss, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Gustav Mahler. At the top of the list is Howells, who, he has said, "has been the biggest influence on me of any composer, and I love his work, not just for its famous qualities of sensuousness and beauty, but for its craft, skill, infinite shading and variety, and the fact that it can always move me." Bednall's Stabat mater has been performed in New York and his 40-voice motet Lux orta est iusto, written for performance alongside Thomas Tallis' Spem in alium, closed the 2015 Proms. His CD Sudden Light, appearing in 2017, collected his best-known shorter choral works. Bednall has won prize crossword pens from the Times and Telegraph newspapers.
© James Manheim /TiVo
Discography
10 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Awake, My Soul: Choral Works by Gary Davison
Wells Cathedral Choir, Matthew Owens, David Bednall
Classical - Released by Resonus Classics on Apr 27, 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Kenneth Leighton: The World's Desire & Other Choral Works
Wells Cathedral Choir, David Bednall, Matthew Owens
Classical - Released by Hyperion on May 1, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sing Joyfully
Ardingly College Schola Cantorum, Richard Stafford, David Bednall
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released by Stone Records on Mar 4, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
British Church Composers, Vol. 5: Percy C. Buck
The Sheldon Consort, Rupert Gough, David Bednall
Classical - Released by Priory Records on Feb 2, 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
I Heard an Angel Sing
Wells Cathedral Girl Choristers, Rupert Gough, David Bednall
Classical - Released by Herald on Feb 2, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bednall: Welcome All Wonders
Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford
Classical - Released by Signum Records on Dec 10, 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Shropshire Lads
Stephen Foulkes, David Bednall
Classical - Released by Diversions on Aug 18, 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Oliver Tarney/David Bednall (SATB)
Oliver Tarney, David Bednall, Lyndhurst Singers, Oxford University Press Music
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released by Oxford University Press Music on Jun 11, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Francis Jackson: Sacred Choral Works (world premiere recording)
The Exon Singers, David Bednall
Classical - Released by Delphian Records on Oct 16, 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo