Set I
Matin Responsory
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (Nunc Dimitus)
Text: Traditional Anglican English Translation of Aspiciens a longe - c.C9th
Arr. David Willcocks
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Attr. John Francis Wade
Translation: Frederick Oakeley
Arr. David Willcocks
2 Carols, H.91
Gustav Holst
I. A Welcome Song
II. Terly, Terlow
There Shall A Star
Felix Mendelssohn
Movement No.3 from the unfinished oratorio
Christus, Op. 97
Text: Compiled by Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen from both Lutheran and Biblical sources
Translation: William Bartholomew
Cœur de Jésus Enfant
Alexandre Guilmant
Text: Raoul de Navery (a.k.a. Eugène de Tourville)
Winter Wonderland
Music: Felix Bernard
Lyrics: Richard Bernhard Smith
Arr: Greg Jasperse
Few works have both the metaphorical and literal resonance of Willcocks' Matin Responsory. All at once eerie and delicious; haunting and comforting, Palestrina's spliced, and reimagined Renaissance polyphony becomes immediate, and atmospheric. And it's even more fun to sing than to listen to - if you haven't heard it before, welcome to the season of Advent at an Anglican Cathedral. This is The Choir of King's College, Cambridge.
Though this tune and (originally Latin Adeste Fideles) text have been attributed to everyone from King John IV of Portugal to Cistercian monks, it's origin is traditionally given to John Francis Wade (and occasionally speculated to be Jacobite propaganda). Now, it just oozes Christmas in the English speaking world, and y'all know it, so sing along with us!
Composed almost ten years apart, these two pieces give quite different impressions of Holst (H. 91 is not an opus, btw - it was a publisher's decision to lump them together, and that's just a catalogue number). 1907's A Welcome Song is Edwardian Holst; steeped in English folksong tradition, and full of pastoral simplicity, while by contrast, 1916's Terly, Terlow, with its simple narrative and Mixolydian allegretto has a decidedly medieval flavour, and seems more, uh, "Holstean." You'll understand when you hear them sung side by side.
As a past Bel Canto director used to say, "There are works that audiences love to listen to, but choirs hate to sing, and there are works that choirs love to sing, but audiences hate listening to. Then there are then ones that choirs love to sing, and audiences love to hear."
Ah, Mendelssohn. Drama without emotional excess. Romantic expressiveness in structured, classical form with rich, harmonic voicing. He's like spiced eggnog poured over maple walnut ice cream.
This delicate, devotional cantique is a bit of a divergence from Guilmant's better-known French Romantic organ flamboyance. Also, the text is by a French Canadian. cgpt: there is also an interesting story to tell the audience about the Sacred Heart devotion, Raoul de Navery's text, and why a French Catholic composer would set this particular subject in the late nineteenth century.
If you're going to sing this, we say go all-in on the schmaltz.