Hoquetus
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Unless She Sings HCD1111 (£10) Performed by Blackburn Cathedral Girls' Choir |
The opera and oratorio arias, the English art- and folk-song, and the lieder recorded here represent some of the central items from the repertoire of that peerless of all English contraltos, Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953).
Singing lessons began in earnest for Kathleen in 1931 but marriage in 1935 nearly put paid to a musical career altogether. The relationship did not last long, and freed from its discouraging shackles she began to gain singing engagements as she learnt works which were the staple fare of the North of England’s many choral societies: Handel’s Messiah and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. These are represented here by the reflectively undulating pastoral rhythms of the ever-popular aria ‘He shall feed his flock’ and by the typically sweeping, and somewhat sentimental, ‘O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him’, an injunction not without its poignancy given the remarkable patience and persistence that Ferrier had herself to show in order to emerge into the musical world, and then again later, more taxingly, as her body became wracked with a cancer that caused such terrible pain and her early death at the age of just forty-one.
To these typical items for an ‘oratorio singer’ – the title was to emerge later as a jibe from several opera conductors who doubted her acting abilities – she soon added Vaughan Williams’ Silent Noon, which sets sensual words by the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti – one of the founders and high-priests of the nineteenth-century Pre-Raphaelite movement – evoking a love discovered in the beauty of the Englishcountryside where a ‘close-companioned, inarticulate hour’ gives way to a ‘two-fold silence’ which reveals itself as ‘the song of love’.
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A Carol for all Seasons HCD1112 (£10) Performed by the Alteri Choir, |
The word Carol usually means only one thing to most people, a Christmas song either sacred or secular. Many would call to mind ‘0 Come All Ye Faithful’, ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Jingle Bells’ as familiar carols. But these are a far cry from the folk carol whose origins are obscure and whose rhythms owe much to the dance There are some excellent accounts of carol history so it is not necessary to discuss this here. Anyone wishing to go into further depth can do no better than consult the introduction to the Oxford Book of Carols.
However, it is important to stress that carols were sung for all seasons and just about all calendar occasions. During Cromwell’s time as Lord Protector they received a body blow and many survived by going underground. They just about surfaced during the Restoration but experienced further disfavour during the religious revivals of Wesley and others during the eighteenth century. During early Victorian times Davies, Gilbert and Sandys made attempts at revival, as did J. M. Neale, whose work was enduring and inspiring. Even by Neale's time the carol had mostly contracted to Christmas time, one reason being that young people only received gifts for their singing during that season. Some carols were uprooted from other times of the year and forced into the festive season. A good example is ‘The Lamb of God’ (No.17) which was given a totally inappropriate ‘Happy New Year’ refrain.
This C.D. contains carols for all seasons and includes some previously unpublished and unperformed material. There are some which have been neglected, and others that simply languished in long forgotten library books. Four are from manuscript copies in the Lucy Broadwood collection courtesy of English Folk Dance and Song Society.