Prima Facie Records

A ST LUKE PASSION AND SACRED CHORAL WORKS (PFCD281) £12.50/£17.50

Compositions by Andrew Downes; Morgan Pearse (Baritone), Philharmonia Voices, Philharmonia Orchestra, David Trippett (Conductor)

1-2 A St Luke Passion, Op. 50 (1992)
1. Part 1 [18:41]
2. Part 2 [15:35]

3 The Lord is my Shepherd, Op. 65 (1997) [02:53]
4 The Souls of the Righteous, Op. 31 No. 2 (1984) [02:19]
5 In Peace I Will Lie Down and Sleep, Op. 31 No. 3 (1984) [01:55] Soloist: Paula Downes
6 O Love The Lord, All Ye His Saints, Op. 31 No. 1 (1984) [02:19]

7-12 Motet and Mass: O Magnum Mysterium, Op. 2 (1973)
7 Motet [02:01]
8 Kyrie [01:30]
9 Gloria [03:37]
10 Sanctus [00:50]
11 Benedictus [02:01]
12 Agnus Dei [02:13]

13 What Shall I Do to Show How Much I Love Her? Op. 5 (1973) [03:14] Soloist: Hannah Cooke
14 Ave Maris Stella, Op. 4 (1974) [01:17]
15 O Vos Omnes, Op. 23 (1981) [02:55]
16 Te Deum, Op. 110 (2017) [05:09]
17 Ave Maria, Op. 6 (1974) [01:571]

Total Time [70:26]

Reviews

"The net result is a complex and modern sacred work that never fails to astound." Maureen Buja, Interlude

"...well crafted, technically impressive and thoroughly professional...this CD will hopefully lead to wider appreciation of Downes's considerable gifts." ***** Philip Reed, Choir and Organ

"There is no mistaking an individual compositional voice especially in the a capella writing which manages to be both harmonically original and dramatically compelling." "All the works on this disc reveal the care and skill of a composer who knew how to write for choirs and the sonic qualities of the spaces in which they regularly sing. This is memorable and singable music that deserves not just a wider audience but more performers too." Tim Hochstrasser, Plays To See

About this Album

This is the premiere recording of Andrew Downes’ A St Luke Passion, performed by The Philharmonia Orchestra and Philharmonia Voices, conducted by David Trippett. Commissioned by the Wolverhampton Civic Choir in 1993 to be performed alongside Britten’s 1948 Cantata St Nicolas, Downes’ A St Luke Passion is the centre piece of the album which includes several a capella works. This is the first album in a trilogy of recordings of the large-scale choral works of Midlands composer Andrew Downes (1950-2023), who spent his entire life in Birmingham and the rural Midlands.

Combining contrapuntal ingenuity and textural athleticism, Downes’ choral works paid homage to Tudor church music. However, his music was not solely rooted in the western tradition, for he sought out inspiration from African drumming, modal scales from North Indian classical music, jazz and rock music. Downes loved the “smooth, timeless quality” of plainsong, and in particular the contrapuntal works of Palestrina and Monteverdi, whose freer approach to instrumentation provided inspiration for his St Luke Passion, which was scored for choir, tenor soloist, keyboard, percussion and strings. When the crowd arrests and drags Jesus away, the cello line bursts forth accompanied by a menacing snare drum. In the tussle between Pontius Pilate and the crowd, Downes has the chorus and orchestra play in different time signatures simultaneously. “This multi-dimensional effect is straight out of African tribal music where each player has a regular pattern, but in a different time from everyone else”, Downes explains. When Jesus is nailed to the cross, Downes called on the clang of an anvil to bring to life the most psychologically disturbing parts of the text. Swinging from Bernstein-like exuberance to African-inspired rhythmic passages, Downes finds an unexpected unity with ancient ecclesiastical music to create a message of communion across musical styles, eras and places in his St Luke Passion.

Credits

Morgan Pearse, Baritone
Philharmonia Voices
Philharmonia Orchestra
David Trippett, Conductor

Front cover image Unsplash
Session photo of choir: Matthew Johnson
Session photo of conductor and string section: Christopher Jonas
Portrait photo of Andrew Downes: Paul Cartwright
Portrait photo of David Trippett: Mustafa Beg
Portrait photo of Morgan Pearse: Oleg Singareev

To read the sleevenotes for this album, please see the Prima Facie blog, Recitative

Andrew Downes was born in Handsworth, Birmingham, in 1950, into a well-known Midlands family of musicians. He won a choral scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge, where he specialised in composition, and in 1974 went on to study at the Royal College of Music with Herbert Howells, who wrote of him as ‘one of the most effective composers coming to me these days’. His emergence as a leading international composer was combined with a strong academic profile as an innovative and inspired educator: he created and was Head of the School of Composition and Creative Studies at the Birmingham School of Music (now Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) for 30 years, and following his retirement, devoted himself solely to composition. His output includes an opera, six symphonies, numerous concertos and chamber works, song cycles, piano music and a large body of choral and sacred music. Over 20 CDs of his music have been issued on a range of labels. His numerous commissions included The Marshes of Glynn, for the Royal Opening of Birmingham’s Adrian Boult Hall in 1986; anthems for the BBC Radio 4 Daily Service; and the overture Towards a New Age. Downes’s Concerto for Four Horns and Orchestra was commissioned for and premièred by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 2002, and recorded by Czech Radio the following year. His Sonata for Violin, Horn and Piano was premièred by the Brahms Trio Prague in 2008, and released on the Czech Philharmonic’s Artesmon label. Downes’s Piano and Horn Concertos were premiered at Birmingham Town Hall in 2009 and 2012 respectively. In 2016, the Artesmon label released a disk of Downes' Symphonies and Overtures, recorded by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. He died on January 2nd 2023, leaving a legacy of over 120 works. A prolific composer, he wrote every day until the last week of his life.

David Trippett is Chair of the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Christ’s College. As a pianist and conductor, he has performed in venues from the Liszt Academy in Budapest and the Britten-Pears Festival, Aldeburgh to the Shanghai Conservatory and the Library of Congress in Washington DC. His realisation of Liszt’s Italian opera Sardanapalo between 2017 and 2019 resulted in the work’s first critical and performing editions. Its premiere recording with Kirill Karabits and the Staatskapelle Weimar was among the Guardian’s Top 10 Discs of 2019, receiving Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice and Diapason’s découverte. It became the best-selling classical CD in the UK, and has now been performed in seven countries.

Australian born, Morgan Pearse is widely recognised as one of the most exciting and talented baritones of his generation. He made his professional début with ENO singing Figaro The Barber of Seville and since then has worked at the highest level, performing regularly with major UK and European orchestras, including the BBC Symphony and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Moscow Philharmonic, Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony, AAM, Israel Philharmonic. Recent and future operatic roles include Figaro Le nozze di Figaro (Opernhaus Zurich), Escamillio Carmen and Figaro Barbiere (South Australian Opera), Papageno Die Zauberflöte, Figaro nozze and Valens Theodora (Badisches Staatstheater), Scarpia Tosca (OHP 2024), Enrico Lucia di Lammermoor (State Opera of South Australia and OHP) and Figaro Barbiere (Lyric Opera of Ireland). He has given recitals at various venues including the Wigmore Hall and Ukaria.