Sir Edward Bairstow, organist of York Minster from 1913 until his death, typifies the English organist-composer of the earlier part of the twentieth century: conservative, craftsmanlike, often imaginative, gifted with a real feeling for choral sonority and word setting. I sat down under his shadow, which appeared in 1925, was one of the earliest publications of the then newly-established music department of the Oxford University Press. Its mystic, slightly oriental flavour suggests connections with Bairstow’s exact contemporary, Holst.

from notes by Collegium Records © 1997