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Track(s) taken from CDA68020

Three prayers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

composer
author of text
translation © SCM Press

Westminster Abbey Choir, James O'Donnell (conductor)
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Recording details: May 2013
St Alban's Church, Holborn, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Adrian Peacock
Engineered by David Hinitt
Release date: October 2014
Total duration: 15 minutes 11 seconds

Cover artwork: Demeter Mourning for Persephone (1906) by Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919)
© The De Morgan Centre, London / Bridgeman Images
 

Reviews

‘This is an exquisite performance of the Duruflé Requiem, beautifully evoking the inherent intimacy of the version with chamber orchestra and organ accompaniment, yet wielding great power at the climaxes, where the weight of the Westminster Abbey organ comes into its own. The playing of the Britten Sinfonia is superb, Robert Quinney's fluid immensely colourful organ-playing a joy to behold and Roderick Williams a supremely compelling soloist. The Abbey Choir boys occasionally sound pressured (as in their exposed divided 'Christe eleison') but for the most part this singing is simply divine, and James O'Donnell moulds and shapes every moment with infinite care, the chant-infused lines dovetailing impeccably … as a beautiful listening experience it is in a class of its own’ (Gramophone)

‘This disc offers a stimulating programme, beautifully performed and very well recorded. The choir is on excellent form and the soloists drawn from its ranks also deserve separate commendation, helping to make this a fine contribution to this year’s remembrance observations’ (International Record Review)» More

‘This is a powerful performance and the four massive organ chords towards the end, representing the Four Angels before the Throne of God, give a wonderful sense of theatre within the resonance of the Abbey’s acoustics’ (Cathedral Music)» More

‘The soberness of the Westminster singers catches the essence of the music: a language derived from Fauré, but reined in by a truly ingenious use of plainchant, which is distributed through the texture in a manner worthy of the greats of the Renaissance’ (AllMusic, USA)» More

Organist of York Minster for twenty-five years until his retirement in 2008, Philip Moore is one of the few cathedral organists of our time who has an equal reputation as a composer. He modestly describes his settings of Three prayers of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as ‘straightforward’, but his music beautifully captures the essence of these moving testaments of faith—their eloquent sincerity, their fluctuations of confidence and doubt, their moments of anguish, and their very real humanity.

The German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed in a Nazi concentration camp in April 1945, just two weeks before the camp was liberated by the Allies. A committed opponent of Hitler’s regime, Bonhoeffer had been denounced as a pacifist and enemy of the state as early as 1936. His arrest in 1943 led to two years in prison, and his fate was sealed when documents came to light in 1945 revealing his close links with the German Resistance. Having lived, preached and lectured in England and America, Bonhoeffer was already an international figure in the 1930s, but the publication after the war of his Letters and Papers from Prison confirmed his stature as an extraordinary man of faith, a rare combination of penetrating intellect, gentle humour and true Christian humility.

The first two of Moore’s responses to the Bonhoeffer texts are each coloured by one dominating melodic interval, a minor second in ‘Morning prayers’ and an augmented fourth in the stark, declamatory invocations of ‘Prayers in the time of distress’. Music was important to Bonhoeffer, and ‘Evening prayers’ is based on the melody of one of his favourite hymns, the Advent chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, beginning as a fugue in flowing 5/4 metre, the individual strands finally coming together in a quietly harmonized chorale: ‘Into thy hands I commend my loved ones …’

from notes by David Gammie © 2014

Other albums featuring this work

The Evening Hour
Studio Master: SIGCD446Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
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