Saturday 21st June
A varied programme spanning over 500 years of secular and sacred repertoire typifies Abbeydale Singers’ unfettered choices of works for the first concert of the Bradfield Festival of Music, 2025. Starting with the Stanford setting of the medieval (14th Century) ascension hymn “Coelos Ascendit Hodie” (“Today, Jesus Christ has ascended into the heavens”). This rhythmic, antiphonal setting from his “Three Latin Motets” was published in 1905 and is scored for double choir, each in 4 parts. Two other works by Stanford in the programme are secular, compositions with “The Blue Bird” from 1910 describing a blue bird flying over a lake from a poem by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, and the earlier, “A Cycle of Songs” (Op. 68) based on Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Princess,” published in 1898.
“Cantate Domino” (“Sing a new song to the Lord”) draws on a familiar inspiration for sacred works across many ages. The 6 part motet by Claudio Monteverdi that takes its text from psalms 95 and 97 was published in 1620. Also in this programme is a modern setting in Latin, English and Basque by Josu Elberdin.
“Songs of Farewell” were some of the last of Sir Hubert Parry’s works finally completed in the last two years of the first world war, though the idea of setting the 6 poems as motets dates from 1913 and sketches can be found from 1914 and 15. These motets were written when the social and personal impact of the war weighed heavily with Parry losing, or witnessing terrible injury to friends and students including George Butterworth, Ivor Gurney and Arthur Bliss. Parry was known at the start of the war for expressing a belief that disputes between Britain and Germany would never come to conflict, and these motets, both in the musical setting and the choice of original texts reflects the despair of mortal life and an aspiration for a peaceful alternative in heaven. All but one of the motets are settings from 16th, 17th and 19th century British poets and composers, the other being from Psalm 39 in The Book of Common Prayer.
Between 1944 and 1956, Herbert Howells composed a number of choral settings for King’s College Cambridge, Latinised to Collegium Regale, that included the Te Deum. The origin of these settings is thought to be due to a 1 guinea bet in which the Director of Music at King’s, the Dean and the organist of Gonville and Caius set Howells the challenge of writing a canticle setting. Several of these settings have become popular in the Anglican church, despite, perhaps, that Howells is quoted of saying of the first piece that it was: “The only Te Deum to be born of a decanal bet.”
The last three works in the programme will leave inescapable earworms behind! Now a recent choral classic, “Sure on This Shining Light” by the American Morten Lauridsen dates from 2016. The work is a setting of a poem by James Agee, “Description of Elysium,” and both the setting and the text are deeply atmospheric.
“Håll mig kvar” (“Hold Me Fast”) is a poignant love song composed by Malin Gavelin, arranged by Joel Nilson, and is another work popular with choirs the world over.
To conclude, Duke Ellington’s, “It Don’t Mean a Thing (It it Ain’t Got That Swing)” from 1931 is a standard of the jazz genre, set here by the British musician and director of London Voices, Ben Parry.
… doo-ah, doo-ah, …