Hyperion Records

This setting of the 100th Psalm was written in August 1934 and intended as a companion piece to the Te Deum in C which preceded it by some three weeks. Britten decided against publishing this first Jubilate setting and it did not appear in print until 1984. The composer had, however, produced a second Jubilate setting in 1961 at the request of the Duke of Edinburgh.

The original Te Deum of 1934 has been described by Peter Evans as ‘self-consciously economical’ and earlier by Constant Lambert as ‘drab and penitential’. Such criticisms could scarcely be applied to the Jubilate Deo which already bears the imprint of a genius at word-setting and contains several characteristic harmonic shifts to intrigue the ear.

from notes by Peter Lamb © 1986