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Track(s) taken from CDA68058

Magnificat and Nunc dimittis 'Collegium Sancti Johannis Cantabrigiense'

composer
1961; for the 450th anniversary of the foundation of St John's College, Cambridge
author of text
Magnificat: Luke 1: 46-55; Nunc dimittis: Luke 2: 29-32

St Paul's Cathedral Choir, Andrew Carwood (conductor), Simon Johnson (organ)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
Recording details: May 2013
St Paul's Cathedral, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Jonathan Freeman-Attwood
Engineered by Martin Haskell
Release date: August 2014
Total duration: 7 minutes 17 seconds

Cover artwork: St Paul’s Cathedral, the proposed new high altar (1948) by Reginald Kirby
 

Other recordings available for download

BBC Singers, Sir Stephen Cleobury (conductor), Iain Farrington (organ)
St John's College Choir Cambridge, Andrew Nethsingha (conductor), Glen Dempsey (organ)
Nicholas Trapp (treble), Benjamin Turner (countertenor), Julian Stocker (tenor), Robert Macdonald (bass), Westminster Abbey Choir, Robert Quinney (organ), James O'Donnell (conductor)

Reviews

‘It's thrilling to hear much-loved works by Stanford and Walmisley so well sung, together with less familiar pieces by Alan Gray, Michael Tippett and Charles Wood. Andrew Carwood and the St Paul's Cathedral Choir pay scrupulous attention to the tiniest of details, so that every word and note come across as something precious and sacred. The wonderfully colourful accompaniments of organist Simon Johnson are, by turns, both dramatic and lyrical. This is choral singing at its finest; in every way, listening to this glorious CD is a heavenly experience’ (Gramophone)

‘St Paul's Cathedral Choir gives us here a really fine and outstandingly sung collection of canticles, some of them quite familiar and others decidedly not. In addition, 'canticles' does not refer only to the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis; we also hear settings of the Benedicite, the Te Deum and the Jubilate’ (International Record Review)» More
Sir Michael Tippett (1905–1998) is part of an illustrious line of English composers who, whilst admiring the legacy and music of the church, were at best agnostic, and in some cases out-and-out atheists. Unlike Benjamin Britten, Tippett’s evolving musical genius was on a slow burn. He was thirty before any pieces were published and he could be fiercely self-critical about his work, destroying many of his earliest compositions. Tippett was born in Eastcote in Middlesex but the family soon moved to Suffolk and Tippett was sent off to boarding school, first at Swanage in Dorset, then at Fettes College in Edinburgh and finally at Stamford School in Lincolnshire. In 1923 he began studies at the Royal College of Music. Tippett’s output includes five operas, alongside significant orchestral, chamber and choral works: his cantata A Child of our Time is one of his best-known works.

In 1962, St John’s College, Cambridge, was celebrating its 450th anniversary and Tippett was commissioned to write a liturgical work in celebration. Tippett himself decided to set the evening canticles and the first performance was given in the Chapel by the College Choir under George Guest on 13 March 1962. Controversial at the time and controversial to this day, the setting underlines the revolutionary nature of the text (he ‘hath exalted the humble and meek … and the rich he hath sent empty away’). Tippett was particularly interested in the Trompetta Real stop which had recently been added to the St John’s organ and which, with its trumpets protruding at a 45-degree angle from the casework, was an inspiration from the organs George Guest had discovered on trips to Spain. The Magnificat starts with an ecstatic flourish from the Trompetta and can be a rude awakening to those used to the comfortable and comforting settings of the previous ages. The Nunc dimittis is particularly affecting. Ian Kemp describes the low organ chords as ‘the thumping in Simeon’s heart as he is about to meet his Creator’ and goes on to say that ‘Simeon is too old to voice his own thoughts. All he can do is say “Lord”. An angel plucks the words out of his thoughts and sings them for him’ (Kemp, Ian Tippett The Composer and his Music, OUP, 1987, p374).

from notes by Andrew Carwood © 2014

Other albums featuring this work

Magnificat, Vol. 1
Studio Master: SIGCD588Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
The Feast of St Michael and All Angels at Westminster Abbey
CDA67643
Tippett: Choral images
SIGCD092Download only
Evensong Live 2016
Studio Master: KGS0015Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
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