Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.

Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.

Click cover art to view larger version
Track(s) taken from CDP12105

Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost – Lake MacDonald

First line:
Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost
composer
2003
author of text
based on 1 Corinthians 13 and Psalm 68: 13

Wells Cathedral Choir, Malcolm Archer (conductor), Rupert Gough (organ)
Recording details: November 2003
Wells Cathedral, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: August 2004
Total duration: 2 minutes 31 seconds
 

Reviews

‘The Wells Cathedral Choir again shows its stuff—and it's glorious … because of this choir's sturdy, full-bodied singing, both exuberant and reverent, and its natural, sensible, unaffected phrasing and enunciation. Hymn lovers need no encouragement or further discussion; these inspiring texts and timeless tunes speak for themselves’ (Classics Today)
This is a very serviceable, not very poetic hymn that enables us to think about the great passage in St Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity …’ (1 Corinthians 13: 1). It in many ways reflects the life of its author.

Christopher Wordsworth (nephew of the poet William Wordsworth) had a brilliant academic career. As headmaster of Harrow he initiated a great moral reform. In 1836 he was made a canon of Westminster, which in those days did not entail living on the premises as it does now, but only moving in for the three months of the year in which he was on duty. In 1850 he took up the Abbey parish of Stanford-in-the-Vale-cum-Goosey, in Berkshire. It sounds a typical, rather easy life, as a country vicar, moving with his family three times a year to be ‘in residence’ in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. In fact he was a very diligent and hard-working parish clergyman. His hymns were written to teach his parishioners about all the seasons of the Christian Year. In 1868 he was appointed Bishop of Lincoln where, among other things, he published a commentary on the whole of the Bible.

The tune ‘Lake MacDonald’ was composed by Malcolm Archer in 2003, while he was directing the Montreal Boys Choir course at Lake MacDonald in the Laurentian Hills. This idyllic spot has hosted the course over many years and Malcolm Archer has directed it five times. It has also been the inspiration for other composers including Alan Ridout. The tune was written especially for the words ‘Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost’, which the composer has always felt need to be sung to a 3/2 time signature, not only to capture the lyrical quality of the words, but also their natural syllabic stresses.

from notes by Alan Luff © 2004

Waiting for content to load...
Waiting for content to load...