Review: "Carols from Queen's" by Choir of Queen's College, Oxford

Review: Carols from Queen's (2015), Avie Records

Smooth is an adjective I usually reserve for my jazz reviews, but “Carols from Queen’s” by the Choir of the Queen’s College, Oxford, is all smooth, so smooth, it will make your holiday even more cheerful

What is great about the selection of the carols on this album is their association with Queen’s College.  Director Owen Rees elaborates the relation in the liner notes. Most notably related to Queen’s is “The Boar Head’s Carol.” 

In addition, the album has a range of composers related to the college. They range from Kenneth Leighton who studied at Queen’s College to Howells who read music at Queen's and was an Honorary Fellow of the college; and Harold Darke and Ivor Atkins were non-resident members of Queen’s. 

Others are related to Oxford: Stephen Stopford was organ scholar at Kebe College where this recording takes place. Rees also notes the relation of Queen’s to the co-editor of Carols for Choir I, Reginald Jacques, who was a student and later organist at Queen’s. The album includes several carols from Carols for Choir I.

Queen’s College, Oxford was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield (d'Eglesfield) in honor of Queen Philippa of Hainault (wife of King Edward III of England). It is the choir featured in the film“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

Regarding “The Boar’s Head Carol,” it is “sung in processing in the College hall: a bass soloist leads, followed by the boar’s head on a great silver charger carried by two chefs, after which comes the choir, halting for the solo verses and advancing during the refrains, and inviting the whole company assembled ‘in the Queen’s Hall’ to ‘be merry.’” Owen Rees, Liner Notes.

The choir performs a beautiful arrangement by Jim Clements of “Gabriel’s message,” with “Gloria”s sprinkled throughout the carol. They continue with the theme with Andrew Carter’s arrangement of “Angelus ad virginem.”

Amazing is the choir performance of Philip Stopford’s “Lully, Lulla, Lullay.” “Basic” is what Owen Rees uses to describe Stopford’s composition although not being disparaging, but describing, deservingly so, the excellence, but suppleness of Stopford’s composition.

Andrew Gant, in his recent book, The Carols of Christmas: A Celebration of the Surprising Stories Behind Your Favorite Holiday Songs, describes “O Holy Night” as an “art song,” however, not an “art song” for choir. He says, “It is meant for a soloist…It doesn’t really work sung by a choir….” (84).

When I read this, I said: “Wait a minute, I just heard a good version for choir.” I searched through the CDs had had recently received: Trinity College, Clare, and Queen’s. Yes, Queen’s proves Gant wrong here. Of course, the “Holy Night” is lent more credence through arraignment by John Rutter.

Several of the late David Willcock’s arrangements are included on this recording: “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “The Sussex Carol,” and “O Come All Ye Faithful,” as well as Peter Warlock’s “Bethlehem Down” where the choir offers a gentle singing of Warlock’s classic.

In looking at Queen’s discography, in the short research I did, I could not find a prior album of carols, although they did do a recording of David Bednal’s “Welcome All Wonders” cantata in 2013. I continue looking.

In summary, Queen’s new recording will be a wonderful new addition to your carol collection.

Would I play this on Christmas Eve for the family?

Definitely.

Director Owen Rees

Soprano

Eleanor Bray

Helen Brown

Joanna Cousins

Merrryn Davies-Deacon

Pippa Ebel

Caroline Halls

Sonia Jacobson

Dabin Dwon

Sarah Mansfield

Fleur Smith

Alto

Helena Bickley

Esther Brazi

Amy Down

Eliot Parrot

Josei Perry

Hannah Street

Henry Taylor

Amalia Tudor Beamish

Tenor

Hugh Bennett

Marco Galvani

Alex Grigg

Lachan Hughes

Laurece Jeffcoate

Ethan Kelly

Felix Leach

Bass

Erik Andreoli

Robert Holbrook

Jake Mercer

Michael Pandya

George Parris

Jonathan Shen

Wiliams White

Organ scholars

Harry Meehan

Rebecca Baker

Recorded January 2015, Keble College Chapel Oxford

 

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Trinity College Advent Carols Service this Sunday, Nov. 25

Trinity College Advent Carols Service this Sunday, Nov. 25

Reposted from Choir of Trinity College's Facebook page (@TrinCollChoir):

This Sunday the choir will sing it’s final service of 2018, the annual Advent Carol Service (this year marking the week preceding Advent Sunday). Attended by 700 hundred people, this is our biggest service of the year, and always a memorable night for the choir, college, and all of our guests and friends from around the world.

As is tradition, music by Bach, David Willcocks and Paul Manz will suffuse the service, alongside a much-loved setting of the Advent Responsory by Richard Marlow, Organist and Master of the Choristers of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1968 to 2006. Our service will also feature music by highly celebrated composers Jaakko Mäntyjärvi and Ēriks Ešenvalds, with both of whom the choir enjoys close friendships, as well as Jonathan Dove’s beguiling ‘Seek him that maketh the seven stars’ and Morten Lauridsen’s world-famous ‘O magnum mysterium’.

But we have a unique connection to the oldest piece in our service, the late Medieval carol ‘Ther is no rose of swych vertu’ in an arrangement by John Stevens (1921-2002). The carol music and text (in middle English and Latin) survive in a 15th-Century manuscript now held in our own Trinity College Library, Cambridge (MS O.3.58). The vellum carol roll, known as The Trinity Carol Roll, is of East Anglian origin and was gifted to the College in 1838 by one H. O. Roe, Esq. ‘Ther is no rose of swych vertu’ is the last carol of thirteen in the collection and probably the best known to carollers today. On Sunday evening it will be sung in an Advent service in Trinity College for the tenth consecutive year, and in what is approximately the six-hundredth anniversary of the carol's composition. We hope you’re able to join us for the occasion!

For more information about the Trinity Carol Roll, visit this entry in the Library’s online ‘Treasures from the Collection’ series:
https://trinitycollegelibrarycambridge.wordpress.com/…/tri…/
And, for a beautiful digitisation of the manuscript, visit:
http://trin-sites-pub.trin.cam.ac.uk/james/viewpage.php…
Tune-in to http://trinitycollegechoir.com/webcasts/live/ at 6pm on Sunday evening to hear our service sung live.

A Picture Print by Currier and Ives

A Picture Print by Currier and Ives

Origins of the print mentioned in Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride"

by Ray Rojas

I was listening to Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride” and I had always been curious about the last verse in which the song sings:

“There’s a happy feeling nothing in the

World can buy

When they pass around the coffee and

The pumpkin pie.

It’ll nearly be like a picture print by

Currier and Ives.

These wonderful things are the things

We remember all through our lives.

Here's a great arrangement of Mel Torme singing "Sleigh Ride":

Specifically, who are Currer and Ives?

Leroy Anderson

“Sleigh Ride” was composed between July 1946 and February 1948 by Leroy Anderson, however, the lyrics were not written until 1950 by Mitchell Parish of “Star Dust,” “Stars Fell on Alabama,” and “Sophisticated Lady” fame (lyrics only).

He also wrote the English lyrics to “Volare” and “Moonlight Serenade.” He even claimed to have written the lyrics to Ellington’s “Moon Indigo.”

Lyricist Mitchell Parish

My question regarding this song was what is a “picture print by Currier and Ives.” I was certain that it must be some mid-20^th Century reference, but it goes back father than that.

It was more of a late-19^th Century reference to the firm of Currier and Ives who produced lithographs that were hand painted in color. Being lithographs, they were massed reproduced from 1835 to 1907.

The company started using the name “Currier and Ives” in 1857. The company described itself as "Publishers of Cheap and Popular Prints.” Over 7500 prints were made in the company’s 72-year history.

They liked to produce pictures of winter scenes.

In 1935, Bernard Herrmann composed a full orchestra piece called the “Currier and Ives Suite.”

Being that these pictures were mass produced, it was not out of the ordinary that Parish would draw this analogy to the dessert gathering of a family sitting for pumpkin pie.

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