Mother and Child [2003]

Tenebrae recorded this new disc for Signum Records in March 2003 at the Temple Church, London. This recording is of contemporary sacred music entitled Mother and Child – a new work written for Tenebrae by Sir John Tavener – and includes several works previously unrecorded, some of which have been written by members of Tenebrae. Click here to see a presentation of this new disc from Signum Records, listen to some excerpts and see some exclusive footage of Sir John Tavener talking with Nigel Short about the new work Mother and Child.

Tracks

Seek him that maketh the seven stars – Jonathan Dove
The souls of the righteous – Francis Pott *
Magnificat – Giles Swayne
Mother and Child – Sir John Tavener *
Lute-book lullaby – Alexander L’Estrange *
O be joyful in the Lord – Jeremy Filsell *
The seasons of his mercies – Richard Rodney Bennett
My song is love unknown – Francis Pott *

_{[* denotes first recording]}

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Reviews

Recording of the Year 2003 : Classical Web Review
‘This outstanding CD of twentieth century British choral music came my way in the summer. I suspected then that it would be one of my recordings of the year and so it has proved to be. Indeed, by a short head it is my Recording of the Year for 2003. The music on the disc is all first-rate and is performed with stunning virtuosity by Nigel Short and his handpicked choir.

A few weeks after I submitted my review I had the good fortune to hear Tenebrae in concert in the wonderful surroundings of Tewkesbury Abbey. They included in their programme then the items on this disc by Giles Swayne and Sir John Tavener.I can vouch that the choir is as impressive and accurate ‘live’ as they are on disc. The Tavener piece made a tremendous impression in a concert performance and is superbly sung on the CD also. This marvellous disc offers ample reassurance that eloquent and accessible music is still being written today for the English Church. JQ’
Classic Web Review

Recording of Month
‘This is a CD of exceptional stature. It seems to me that everything about it – performances, documentation, sound quality and, above all, the music itself – is of the highest quality. In particular, I rejoice to find that so much of the contents of this programme is either church music or music which has a religious impulse behind it. Those who, like me, often despair at the quality of so much contemporary church music can take heart! With one exception the pieces here were new to me. They are deserving of the widest possible audience so all credit to Signum for recording them.

Tenebrae is a mixed chamber choir of professional singers founded by Nigel Short, the singer, conductor and composer who, inter alia was a member of The King’s Singers between 1994 and 2001. For this recording the choir comprised 8 sopranos, 8 altos (four male, four female) and 7 each of tenors and basses. This is clearly an expert ensemble. Throughout this disc, despite the rigorous demands of the various composers, balance, intonation, tuning and dynamic control are absolutely flawless. They sing a truly demanding programme and the music is challenging in every sense but is of such quality that it must all be extremely rewarding to sing. The choir’s motto is “Passion and Precision” and they certainly live up to it here.

This is an outstanding release in every way. Not only are the music and the performances superb, but also the engineers have captured the results in magnificent, clear and natural sound. In addition there are excellent notes by Jeremy Filsell (and, in the case of My song is love unknown, by Francis Pott.) These notes and all the texts are provided in English, French and German.

Even now, only half way through 2003 I feel certain that this most distinguished CD will be one of my Recordings of the Year – indeed, quite possibly the recording of the year. I hope I have conveyed adequately my enthusiasm for it. If you care about choral music, and especially about church music then I urge you to add this disc to your collection without delay.
Recommended with the greatest possible enthusiasm.

Postscript
May I add a brief postscript to my review of Tenebrae’s exceptional CD?

A few nights ago I was fortunate enough to attend a concert given by Nigel Short and Tenebrae in Tewkesbury Abbey, a large and glorious medieval church in Gloucestershire. The concert was part of the Cheltenham International Festival. The programme included two of the items on the CD, the Swayne Magnificat and John Tavener’s Mother and Child. The remaining items ranged from plainchant to 20th century English music.

All I can say is that the live performance was fully up to the tremendous standards of the CD. The perfect tuning, balance and tonal control evident on the CD were all in abundant evidence during the concert (the entire first half of which was also sung from memory!).

I know that often one wonders how “artificial” a CD may be and how many edits and retakes have been combined to produce the finished product. In this particular case, based on what I saw and heard at Tewesbury I am confident that this CD is a wholly accurate representation of the choir live. “What you hear is what you get”. Hearing this excellent choir live enables me to recommend their disc even more strongly.’
JQ
Music Web [Full Text]

‘a very classy piece of singing …. and a remarkable range of colours thanks to the mixture of voices. There’s that post-collegiate professionalism plus operatic “heft” when required. ... one of the best sounding CDs I have had on the desk this week.’
BBC Radio 3 – CD Review – 21st June 2003

Though Tavener’s Mother and Child is what is mentioned on the disc’s cover, that work occupies only a small part of what is a highly varied and adventurous anthology. It begins with Jonathan Dove’s Seek Him that Maketh the Seven Stars, an effective work more memorable because of its textural effects and organ filigree than for strictly vocal reasons (although the reiterated ‘Seek Him’ chord suggests and Anglican-Poulenc hybrid).

Francis Pott’s two works show an altogether different category of mind. The Sous of the Righteous is a conscious recreation of the ambience of Byrd’s Justorum Animae but with, of course, a greatly expanded harmonic palette, making very effective use of Tenebrae’s blended but powerful sound. At over nine minutes, it’s not short, but My Song is Love Unknown is really a cantata at 17’31”. It is a highly dramatic work, slowly expanding over a large scale, making the fullest use of the choral resources available and with a very challenging organ part (superbly played by Jeremy Filsell). I am not sure that I have yet detected Pott’s own voice in his music, but I am very much aware of a tremendous musical mind – definitely worth hearing.

Filsell also contribute a piece, O be Joyful in the Lord, a homage to Sebastian Forbes, Graham Whettam and Walton. It wears its influences on its sleeve, and is straightforwardly effective and engaging. Swayne’s African-influenced Magnificat is by now quite a familiar work, and the singers sound very comfortable with its jaunty idiom, as they also do with Tavener’s latest gentle, pulsing pan-religious style, epitomized in Mother and Child. It contains many beautiful moments, but at over 12 minutes is a shade too extended for its material.

Where Tenebrae really shines (pun intended) is in the kind of pan-consonant cluster-writing characteristic of Alexander L’Estrange’s Lute Book Lullaby and Richard Rodney Bennett’s superbly crafted Donne setting, The Seasons of His Mercies. Such impeccable tuning and blend give the opportunity for every note in these saturated textures to resonate. Excellent.’
International Record Review
Ivan Moody, August 2003

‘The austere, peaceful and reflective ambience of the Temple Church, in a courtyard within London’s Inns of Court, makes a fine setting for a disc of contemporary sacred music, sung by Tenebrae. The church achieved a recording landmark when Sir George Thalben-Ball and soloist Ernest Lough made a world-famous recording of Mendelssohn’s Hear my Prayer here in 1927. Three-quarters of a century on and it is preparing for another milestone in June, when Sir John Tavener’s epic seven-hour commission for six choirs The Veil of the Temple will be performed here from dusk until dawn. The Tavener work receiving its premiere recording today, however, is more modest in scale, at under 13 minutes. The choir, led by Nigel Short, are recording within the cavernous Round Church (built in 1185, 55 years before the chancel, though both were badly bombed in the Second World War). Its acoustics serve the piece well, giving the loud, slowly expanding sections a space-filling quality.

For his text, Tavener took a poem (written by a friend, Brian Keeble) about a mother and her child playing. The text is a celebration of the spiritual bond between them. ‘I think it is a religious text,’ says Tavener, ‘but it needed a kind of a relief from the regular set of poetical phrase’. So he added a refrain – ‘Hail Maria, Hail Sophia’ – after each verse, which he says accentuates both the feminine and religious aspects of the work. Despite the Christian connotations of its text, Tavener sees it as a universally spiritual work. ‘I write music that is universal… that’s not specifically Christian, that’s not specifically Hindu, that’s not specifically American Indian.’

The Eastern flavour is enhanced by the use of a Tibetan temple gong, which – after some suggested changes of beater by Tavener – creates a poignant and powerful effect. The recording team are able to amplify it above the choir and organ, though Tavener ponders how best to achieve the desired effect when the work is given its performance premiere, at the Salisbury Festival (in the Cathedral, by candlelight) in June. He things the choir and organ would drown out its sound – its normal usage, within Buddist or Hindu ritual, would be within a far more intimate setting.

The disc, which will take its title from the Tavener work, will contain 10 pieces in total, all by living composers, and several of them premiere recordings. The other nine works are by Jonathan Dove, Philip Moore, Francis Pott, Giles Swayne, Alexander L’Estrange, Jeremy Filsell and two tracks from Richard Rodney Bennett. The disc – released on June 6 – will also launch Signum’s new contemporary music imprint, Signum 2’
Tavener Celebrates Motherhood
Gramophone Magazine – July 2003

‘The selling point here is Sir John Tavener’s new Brian Keeble setting Mother and Child, commissioned by Tenebrae for the Salisbury Festival. It is outwardly simple, though crashing organ chords and the awesome noise of a giant Hindu temple gong erupt unexpectedly through the music’s smooth surface near the end.

‘Like Tavener, the equally devout Francis Pott writes long, as his opulently textured My Song is Love Unknown tells. He could learn something from the pithiness of Giles Swayne’s Magnificat, the understatement of Richard Rodney Bennett’s The Seaons of his Mercies, and the clarity of Jonathan Dove’s Seek Him that Maketh the Seven Stars, also on this disc along with derivative works by two choir members.
Under Nigel Short’s direction Tenebrae’s singing is clear, pure, precise.’
Evening Standard – Stephen Pettit, Tuesday 3rd June 2003

‘Tenebrae’s second album rolls out on Signum’s newly-created label for contemporary works, delivering a world premiere recording for Tavener’s eloquent anthem Mother and Child and first outings on disc for works by Francis Pott, Alexander L’Estrange and Jeremy Filsell. Pott’s impassioned My Song is Love Unknown stands out as a small masterpiece of choral writing, expertly done by Tenebrae’s carefully-chosen team of professional singers and multi-talented organist Filsell.’
Classical News – June 2003

On the evidence of this album, Tenebrae’s fan-base deserves to extend to anyone inspired by excellent choral singing. The professional chamber choir’s second disc on Signum’s new contemporary label contains world-premiere recordings of works by Francis Pott, Alexander L’Estrange and Jeremy Filsell. Tavener’s Mother and Child has about it the appealing artlessness of his finest choral works, while Pott’s My Song is Love Unknown emerges as a miniature masterpiece.
Modern Choral Works – Classic FM Magazine – Andrew Stewart

‘Well known for exploring the Renaissance repertoire from intriguing thematic viewpoints, Signum turns to recent choral music with a collection that draws its title from a new Tenebrae-commissioned Tavener score, but is no less appealing for its mix of work by other contemporary choral composers. One of them, Giles Swayne’s Magnificat, famous for its inclusion of Zulu warrior chants, is fast becoming a modern classic, and this performance is appropriately rowdy and rhythmical.

From among the other more outgoing items in this well-balanced collection, its energy is matched only by the brightness of Jonathan Dove’s Seek Him that Maketh the Seven Stars and Jeremy Filsell’s appropriately Anglican setting of the Jubilate.
Of the more contemplative numbers, the floating, bitter-sweet airs of Alexander L’Estrange’s Lute Book Lullaby conceal some tricky discords, sung by Tenebrae with the same assurance that it brings to the more blended astringencies of Richard Rodney Bennett’s Donne-inspired The Seasons of His Mercies.

Tavener’s effort is a pleasing 12-minute Marian ‘icon’. Altogether more challenging is Francis Pott’s My Song is Love Unknown, in which the verbal felicities of Crossman’s poem, familiar in John Ireland’s metrical setting, take second place to a powerfully dramatic and extended treatment of the text.’
BBC Music Magazine – Nicholas Williams, August 2003