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Track(s) taken from CDA66916

The Lamentation

First line:
How doth the city sit solitary
composer
1942; SATB + organ; an alternative to the Bendicite at Matins
author of text
Lamentations, selected by the Reverend E M Milner-White

St Paul's Cathedral Choir, John Scott (conductor), Andrew Lucas (organ)
Recording details: June 1996
St Paul's Cathedral, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Antony Howell & Julian Millard
Release date: February 1997
Total duration: 10 minutes 17 seconds

Cover artwork: Two Haloed Mourners (Fragment from The Burial of St John the Baptist). Aretino Spinello (active 1373-died c1410)
Reproduced by permission of The Trustees, The National Gallery, London
 

Other recordings available for download

Westminster Abbey Choir, James O'Donnell (conductor), Peter Holder (organ)
Jesus College Choir Cambridge, Mark Williams (conductor), Benjamin Morris (organ)

Reviews

‘This is one of the most impressive discs I can recall from this choir’ (Fanfare, USA)
Dr Francis Jackson’s book (Blessed City, York, 1996) on Sir Edward Bairstow (1874–1946) contains the five chapters of Bairstow’s incomplete autobiography together with letters to Jackson during the Second World War. One letter, dated 6 August 1942, reads as follows: ‘I have just done a “Lamentation”, the words from the Lamentations of Jeremiah selected by the Dean [of York, the Very Reverend E M Milner-White]. It is just a few chants of irregular pattern, and a refrain; but it is effective.’

It is interesting that this approach to composition is quite different to the complexities of his earlier pieces (If the Lord had not helped me, for example, written in 1910). An extract from his autobiography in the days when he was articled to Sir Frederick Bridge at Westminster Abbey in the 1890s records the funeral of Gladstone held there in 1898: ‘Gladstone’s funeral gave me a grand opportunity of seeing a host of celebrated personages. The choir was a union of all the most celebrated London choirs, together with St George’s Chapel, Windsor. The wonderfully solemn yet simple burial sentences of William Croft (1678–1727) sung unaccompanied by that great choir impressed me very deeply.’

Could it be that, subconciously, Bairstow was seeking something of the simplicity of Croft’s burial sentences in The Lamentation? Certainly this straightforward approach has a strong effect.

from notes by William McVicker © 1997

Other albums featuring this work

Bairstow, Harris & Stanford: Choral works
Studio Master: CDA68259Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
Out of darkness
Studio Master: SIGCD409Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
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