Hyperion Records

Hear my prayer, O Lord is part of a larger piece that Purcell seemingly did not complete. The anthem is the last item in the autograph manuscript held in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum, after which come a number of blank pages. Purcell’s barline at the end of the manuscript (going through the staves and not through the intervening spaces) is the type which usually indicates another section is to follow: indeed he usually marks the end of a piece with an elaborate flourish. But how fortunate we are to have this section of the anthem, for it is a masterpiece!

Dating from 1680-82, the work is in eight parts, and sets the first verse of Psalm 102. With a despairing text and large vocal forces at his disposal, Purcell’s imagination was raised to its highest level, yet the melodic material is, on its own, quite simple. The first phrase, ‘Hear my prayer, O Lord’, uses just two melancholy notes a minor third apart, but it is the turning chromaticism of ‘crying’ that gives the scope for such plangency. The harmonic language, always (after the opening phrases) in at least six parts, is exceptional, even for Purcell, but the most extraordinary feature of the anthem is the build-up which Purcell orchestrates from the outset – here is an inexorable vocal crescendo lasting over three minutes, culminating on a monumental discord on the last repetition of ‘come’. With such a powerful piece, we felt that to edit together more than one ‘take’ would detract from the extraordinary atmosphere that this anthem generates: the version performed here is that comparative rarity on modern recordings, a whole ‘take’, without an edit from start to finish – a genuine performance of one of the truly great anthems of the English church music repertory.

from notes by Robert King ©