Songs Of Praise

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Cat No: 8553876

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099487627

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: Songs of Praise

Description
Songs of PraisePopular English Hymnsand AnthemsIn quires and places where they sing here followeth the anthemWith this instruction the Book of Common Prayer of 1622 motivatedseveral centuries of English composers to focus their creativity into the hugecollection of short choral works that are the English Anthems. A specificallyEnglish musical form, anthems are not part of the liturgy but extra-musicaladornments to the Anglican rite. Outside Britain a similar composition would bedescribed as a motet, an ancient form in which only a few composers workedafter the death of J.S. Bach.This recording Songs of Praise is a sampler from arguably thegolden age of anthem writing, the Victorian period and early twentieth century.Contained in it, beside the work of British composers, is that of two foreignmasters who served as r??le-models; Mendelssohn, the Victorians' most celebratedcontemporary musician, was almost an honourary Englishman; Mozart was anearlier source of inspiration for anyone aspiring to the heights ofspirituality in musical expression.The Tudor period was the first high point of English church music, butlate Victorian anthems and hymns represent more than just musical achievement.The Church of England is the established church of the country and to the latenineteenth-century population this was more than a constitutional irrelevance.Church-going of all denominations was a vital part of many lives and theposition of the church in society was central. New churches and chapels were beingbuilt and old ones rebuilt to become a focus of civic pride. A flourishingmusical life was inevitably an important part of this.What distinguished this new flowering of musical excellence from thosebefore was its downward reach. Previously elite cathedral choirs, imitated byaspiring parish churches, would have sung services in splendid isolation, thecongregation being allowed to chant a few musically unsatisfying psalms.Country parish churches meanwhile had devised their own crude musical arrangements,perhaps with the help of an ad hoc church 'band' and the free churchessang rumbustuous, sometimes raucous evangelical hymns. By the end of thenineteenth century a musical consensus had been achieved. Good hearty hymnsinging had reached the established church and an energetic revival of anthemwriting had whetted the appetite of nonconformists for choral music on a higherplane. Of course, as now, peripheral forms of musical expression stillsurvived; the converted street songs of the Salvation Army contrasted stronglywith the ancient plainsong surviving in the extreme Anglo Catholic wing of theChurch of England. But, by the turn of the century, a remarkable unanimity oftaste extended all the way from Queen Victoria, a Mendelssohn devotee, down tothe humblest parish choir singing their hearts out in Stainer's Crucifixion.Further enrichment occurred in the new century. New composers, Holst,Vaughan Williams, Howells, Walton, energised by the seriousness of purpose theyf
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