Sunday 12th February 2023 Second Sunday before Lent

O Lord God  Percy C Buck  The Collect for Sexagesima  

This is an anthem published in 1918 for the boys of St Paul's Cathedral. It is in two parts. Today it was sung by the soprano and alto section of the choir.

O Lord God, who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do:

Mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Sir Percy Carter Buck (25 March 1871 – 3 October 1947) was an English music educator, writer, organist, and composer.

Early life and education

Percy Buck was born in West Ham, London, and studied at Merchant Taylors' School, the Guildhall School of Music under Charles Joseph Frost (1848-1918) and Francis Davenport, and then at Royal College of Music, where his teachers were Walter Parratt, C.H. Lloyd and Hubert Parry.

Career

From 1891 until 1894 he was organ scholar at Worcester College, Oxford, where he became friends with William Henry Hadow, Classics Tutor there at the time, who became the first editor of the Oxford History of Music in 1896. Buck was appointed organist at Wells Cathedral (1896–99), then Bristol Cathedral (1899–1901). He became director of music at Harrow School in 1901 and held that post until 1927. While at Harrow, Buck served on the editorial board of the ten-volume anthology Tudor Church Music.

From 1910 to 1920, Buck was Professor of Music at Trinity College, Dublin; this was a non-residential post, succeeding Ebenezer Prout. His pupils during this period included Ina Boyle. In 1919 Sir Hugh Allen invited him to join the staff of the Royal College of Music, where he set up a teacher's training course, contributing his own lectures on psychology. In 1925, Buck became the King Edward Professor of Music in the University of London.

In 1926 he started the RCM Junior Department with Miss Angela Bull, a "feeder system" for students financed by the London County Council. Several successful students have gone through this program and it continues to this day. From 1927 to 1936, he was music adviser to the London County Council, where he developed new facilities for further training of children with special talent, and where he overhauled the music in the curriculum of schools. Buck received a knighthood in 1937 on retiring from the University of London, while continuing his duties at the Royal College, supervising teachers and taking the occasional composition student, including Madeleine Dring for two years from 1938.

Personal life

Buck married Lucy Bond, daughter of the surgeon Thomas Bond. She died in 1940, aged 68. There were three sons (one killed in World War I) and two daughters. But during his time at Harrow Buck began a clandestine and long-term relationship with Sylvia Townsend Warner, whose father was a History master at the school. He was 41, she was 19. From 1917 Warner, who was to pursue a career as a poet and novelist after the publication of her first novel, Lolly Willowes in 1926, also worked as one of the editors of Tudor Church Music.

Percy Buck died at the Stoneycrest Nursing Home, Hindhead, Surrey, after a short illness.

Works

Musical compositions

Buck's compositions include a piano quintet (Op. 17), a string quintet (Op. 19), a violin sonata (Op. 21), and a piano quartet (Op. 22). These were all unpublished, and many of his early manuscripts were later destroyed in World War II during an air raid. The three organ sonatas - Op. 3 (1896), Op. 9 (1902) and Op. 12 (1904) were published in Leipzig and so survived, along with some piano works and songs. The orchestral work Croon, in the style of an Irish lullaby, was performed at The Proms in September 1917. There was also an orchestral overture, Coeur de Lion Op. 18.

Buck composed a number of hymn tunes - fourteen of them were included in the 1916 edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern - most notably Gonfalon Royal, written in 1913 as a setting for the Christian hymn "The Royal Banners Forward Go", to be sung at Harrow School (Gonfalon is a Norman word for a banner).

Writings

He is possibly best remembered today for his writing and editing. He edited The English Psalter (London, 1925) with Charles Macpherson. The Oxford Song Book of English national and folk songs for schools was issued in 1929, followed by The Oxford Nursery Song Book in 1934. His books include The Scope of Music (1924, derived from the Cramb lectures he delivered in Glasgow the previous year), and Psychology for Musicians (1944), written long before the subject became fashionable in the 1960s. He was on the editorial board for OUP's Tudor Church Music and revised the first two volumes of the Oxford History of Music (1929 and 1932), also contributing a new introductory volume (1929).

The Organ: a Complete Method for the Study of Technique and Style (London, 1909)

Unfigured Harmony (Oxford, 1911)

Organ Playing (London, 1912)

The First Year at the Organ (London, 1913)

Acoustics for Musicians (Oxford, 1918)

The Scope of Music (Oxford, 1924)

A History of Music (London, 1929)

The Oxford Song Book Volume 1 (1929)[14]

The Oxford Nursery Song Book (Oxford, 1933)[15]

Psychology for Musicians (London, 1944)

Taken from Wikipedia.

Sunday 5th February 2023 Candlemass

 Nunc Dimittis in C     C V Stanford

The Nunc Dimittis, also called The Song Of Simeon, tells of the words of Simeon, who was promised by God that he would see the Messiah.  When Jesus was presented at the Temple and dedicated to God in the Jewish Tradition, being the first born son, Simeon recognised that Jesus was the Messiah.  The words are

Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace:  your word has been fulfilled.
My own eyes have seen the salvation  which you have prepared in the sight of every people;
A light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.


Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) thought to be one of our great British composers was actually Irish, born in Dublin, although educated at The University of Cambridge and then studied music in Leipzig and Berlin.

Whilst an undergraduate, he was appointed organist of Trinity College, Cambridge and was one of the founding professors of the Royal College of Music, where he taught composition for the rest of his life.  He was also Professor of Music at Cambridge.  His pupils included Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams whose fame went on to surpass his own.

He is best remembered for his sacred choral compositions for church performance in the Anglican tradition. Along with Hubert Parry and Alexander Mackenzie, he was thought responsible for the renaissance of music in the British Isles.

CV Stanford from Wikipedia

Sunday 29th January Fourth Sunday of Epiphany

A Prayer of St Richard of Chichester  L J White

This is a simple setting of a beautiful old prayer from our local saint, St Richard. Although written for treble voices, today it was performed by the Sopranos and Altos, with the tenors and basses joining the altos when the sopranos sang the descant.

St Richard's Prayer

Thanks be to Thee, my Lord Jesus Christ

For all the benefits Thou hast given me,

For all the pains and insults Thou hast borne for me.

O most merciful Redeemer, friend and brother,

May I know Thee more clearly,

Love Thee more dearly,

Follow Thee more nearly.

Richard of Chichester (1197 – 3 April 1253), also known as Richard de Wych, is a saint (canonized 1262) who was Bishop of Chichester.

In Chichester Cathedral a shrine dedicated to Richard had become a richly decorated centre of pilgrimage. In 1538, during the reign of Henry VIII, the shrine was plundered and destroyed by order of Thomas Cromwell. Richard of Chichester is the patron saint of Sussex in southern England; since 2007, his translated saint's day of 16 June has been celebrated as Sussex Day.

Icon of St Richard in Chichester Cathedral

Taken from Wikipedia

L J White.

Len White was for many years Deputy Head of St Andrew’s School. He lived with his sister, within walking distance of the church, which had a fine musical tradition, and was Choirmaster until his death in the 1970’s. He had music published, including two masses and settings of A E Housman’s ‘A Shropshire Lad’. Among his unpublished music is a wonderful setting of the ICEL texts of the Mass, written in the last years of his life. It is amazing to me that it never became more widely known, for it is much better than the stuff which became the staple musical diet for forty years. White’s setting is full of good tunes, singable by the people, and with a great organ accompaniment. 

Len White brought  a freshness and lightness – and an Englishness – to the music at Willesden Green, which is in contrast to the earlier choir books with their heavy adaptations of Gounod and Mozart to Cranmer’s words!

Scott Anderson

Sunday 22nd January 2023 Third Sunday of Epiphany

Like as the Hart   Vincent Novello

This is an anthem for general use. The words are taken from psalm 42 verses 1 and 6.

Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks, so longeth my sou after thee, O God.

Why art thou so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted with in me.

O put thy trust in God.

Vincent Novello (6 September 1781 – 9 August 1861), was an English musician and music publisher born in London. He was a chorister and organist, but he is best known for bringing to England many works now considered standards, and with his son he created a major music publishing house.

Vincent was the son of Giuseppe Novello, an Italian confectioner who moved to London in 1771.  As a boy Vincent was a chorister at the Sardinian Embassy Chapel in Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he learnt the organ from Samuel Webbe; and from 1796 to 1822 he became in succession organist of the Sardinian, Spanish (in Manchester Square) and Portuguese (in South Street, Grosvenor Square) chapels, and from 1840 to 1843 of St Mary Moorfields. He taught music privately throughout his career. One of his most notable pupils was musicologist and music critic Edward Holmes. He was an original member of the Philharmonic Society, of the Classical Harmonists and of the Choral Harmonists, officiating frequently as conductor. In 1849 he went to live at Nice, where he died.

Many of his compositions were sacred music, much of which was very popular. His great contribution, however, together with Christian Ignatius Latrobe, lay in the introduction to England of unknown compositions by the great masters, such as the Masses of Haydn and Mozart, the works of Palestrina, the treasures of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and innumerable, now well known great compositions. His first work, a collection of Sacred Music, as performed at the Royal Portuguese Chapel, which appeared in 1811, has the additional interest of dating the founding of the publishing firm Novello & Co which carries his name, as he issued the collection from his own house; and he did the same with succeeding works, until his son Joseph Alfred Novello (1810–1896), who had started as a bass singer, took over as head of the business in 1829 at the early age of nineteen.

It was Alfred who really created the business, and he is credited with introducing cheap music and of departing from the method of publishing by subscription. From 1841 Henry Littleton assisted him, becoming a partner in 1861, when the firm became Novello & Co., and, on J.A. Novello's retirement in 1866, sole proprietor. Having incorporated the firm of Ewer & Co. in 1867, the title was changed to Novello, Ewer & Co., and still later back to Novello & Co., and, on Henry Littleton's death in 1888, his two sons carried on the business.

Taken from Wikipedia

Sunday 15th January 2023 Epiphany

 The Lamb      Music John Tavener (1944 - 2013), Words William Blake (1757-1827)

Tavener was born in Wembley, London.  He was a music scholar at Highgate School, where a fellow scholar was John Rutter. The school choir was often used by the BBC when they needed a boys' choir. He began to compose whilst at school and was also a pianist good enough to perform with the National Youth Orchestra. In 1961 he was organist and choirmaster at St John's Presbyterian church, Kensington, a post he held for 13 years. He went to the Royal Academy of Music in 1962 where he decided to concentrate on composition and gave up the piano.

He came to prominence with his Cantata "The Whale" in 1968. In 1971 he began teaching at Trinity College of Music in London. In 1977 he converted to Russian Orthodox Church.  Orthodox liturgy became a major influence on his composition.  

"The Lamb" written in 1982 for his nephew's third birthday has become a choral classic.  It was composed in a single afternoon for unaccompanied SATB choir, using William Blake's poem.

He was knighted in 2000 for his services to music. John Rutter describes Tavener as having the "very rare gift" of being able to "bring an audience to a deep silence."

William Blake was largely unrecognised during his life, he is now considered to be one of the seminal figures of poetry and art in the Romantic age. He was born in Soho and although his family were English Dissenters, he was baptised.  The Bible  was a profound influence on his work. In 1772 Blake was apprenticed to James Basire, an engraver, for 7 years. At the end of his term aged 21, he became a profession engraver.  He had been taught an outmoded style and it is thought that this tuition held him back from greatness during his lifetime. 

In 1779, Blake began as a student at the Royal Academy where he was somewhat rebellious against Joshua Reynolds.

In 1800, Blake moved to Felpham, illustrating poetry by William Hayley.  He was unhappy in his work and returned to London after 3 years.

William Blake
Wikipedia

Sunday 8th January 2023 Epiphany

The Nativity Carol  Words and music  John Rutter

John Rutter was born in London in 1945 and had his first musical training at Highgate School as a chorister. He studied music at Clare College, Cambridge where he wrote his first published music and had his first recording whilst still an undergraduate.
His compositions cover a wide variety of musical genres but he is well know by all choirs who must have some Rutter in their repertoire. He formed the Cambridge Singers and spends his time composing and conducting.

He was awarded a CBE for services to music in the 2007 Queen's New Year Honours List.

John Rutter from Wikipedia

Sunday 4th December 2022 Advent 2

How Beautiful Upon the Mountains   from "Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion"

John Stainer 1840-1901 Words Isaiah 52 v. 7

Stainer was born in Southwark, London, the son of a cabinet maker. He was a chorister at  St Paul's Cathedral at the age of 10 and at 16, appointed organist at St Michael's College, Tenbury.  In 1960, he became organist at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was allowed to study for a degree so long as it did not interfere with his duties and in 1864 gained his BA, and 2 years later his MA.  He was eventually an examiner for Oxford music degrees.

In 1872 he was appointed organist at St Paul's cathedral, in 1877 an honorary fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, and an examiner for the Doctor of Music degrees for Cambridge and London Universities.  He received his knighthood from Queen Victoria in 1888.

John Stainer (Wikimedia Commons)