A one-time chorister at Wakefield Cathedral, before embarking (somewhat unwillingly) on a career in academia at Oxford and Edinburgh Universities, Kenneth Leighton is well known for his corpus of church music even though, like Parry, Vaughan Williams and Howells, he did not hold conventional Christian beliefs. Let all the world in every corner sing, a setting of George Herbert’s metaphysical poem, was commissioned for St Matthew’s Church, Northampton, in 1965 and first sung there on 20 September (the eve of the Feast of St Matthew) under the direction of Michael Nicholas. An exultant dithyramb, Leighton’s dance-like anthem—full of his characteristic syncopated rhythms, acerbic harmony of superimposed fourth and fifth intervals, and pungent Lydian inflections (here anchored to C)—is tripartite in design with a more restrained, central portion (‘The Church with psalms must shout’) which expands vocally into five parts.

from notes by Jeremy Dibble © 2025