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EX CATHEDRA
Jeffrey Skidmore – conductor
Martyn Rawles – organ
Running order:
I was glad – Charles Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
Faire is the heaven – William Harris (1883-1973)
Blessed are all they – Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
Reges Tharsis – John Sheppard (1515-1558)
This is the record of John – Orlando Gibbons
Crucifixus a 8 – Antonio Lotti (1667-1740)
Lover’s Ghost – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Dance to your daddy – Northumberland arr. Ian Humphries
Dieu! qu’il la fair bon regarder! from Trois Chansons – Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Anyone who had a heart – Burt Bacharach (1928-2023) arr. Skidmore
Blessed are the peace makers – Martin Bates (1951-2022)
Here, there and everywhere – John Lennon (1940-1980) & Paul McCartney (b.1942) arr. Rose
INTERVAL
O Lorde, the maker of al thing – John Joubert (1927-2019)
Three portraits – John Joubert
The Cloud Capp’d Towers from Three Shakespeare Songs – Ralph Vaughan Williams
Greater love hath no man – John Ireland (1979-1962)
Requiem: Libera Me – Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Jerusalem – Charles Hubert Parry
Blake Reimagined – Liz Dilnot Johnson (b.1964)
And I saw a new heaven – Edgard Bainton (1880-1956)
Scroll down for texts and translations
Welcome note
Welcome to this unique programme of music to celebrate and explore the first 20 years of Ex Cathedra, from its founding early concerts in 1969 (Moon landings) to 1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall) when Ex Cathedra was poised to move from amateur to professional with a major investment from Birmingham City Council. It tells the story of the making of a choir, a journey from a teenage vocal quartet singing carols for charity, to a group of friends singing music they loved, to a cultural asset for the city and the region. The national and international profile was to come next in the 1990s with major collaborations with the newly formed Birmingham Royal Ballet, the opening of Symphony Hall and the launch of a major award-winning schools singing project The Sandvik Vocal Skills Project.
Every now and then I’m asked to give a class at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire to offer guidance to students who want to start their own ensemble. Ex Cathedra is a good role model. It is important to emphasise that a lot of people were involved from successful philanthropic businessmen like Geoff Henderson, Graham Mackenzie, Bob Marchant, to politicians such as Sir Dick Knowles and Roger Taylor, a successful and imaginative Chair – John Pulford – and someone to motivate them and bring them together: Jill Robinson. This gave us the essential, ‘relatively’ secure, financial basis needed to flourish.
Of course the music always came first with Ex Cathedra and the repertoire list for these 20 years is startling and eclectic from Machaut to Messiaen and from Byrd to Bacharach. And we could boast some great singers and musicians over this period. When you look at the personnel on recordings and in concert programmes it is an impressive list of alumni. The singers were teachers, lawyers, nurses, librarians, doctors, computer programmers, research scientists, homemakers, schoolchildren and students. Some had aspirations to be professional musicians but were willing to be part of the Ex Cathedra ‘pro bono’ cause.
From within the group I also formed a Consort – Le Nuove Musiche (catchy!) – which I directed from the alto voice, performing Monteverdi’s wonderful, mature six-part madrigals with two violins and continuo. Initially the Ex Cathedra Orchestra (ECO) was with modern instruments using many of the region’s best players. Louis Carus and Colin Gough were regular leaders, and CBSO’s Felix Kok and Paul Willey led our first St Matthew Passion in Town Hall. Richard Weigel was our principal oboist and Alan Whitehead led the trumpet section in Bach’s Mass in B minor. We also collaborated with period orchestras – Amsterdam Baroque and the Academy of Ancient Music and leading ensembles like Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts. In 1983 we formed our own period instrument orchestra – The Ex Cathedra Baroque Orchestra – which was the first outside London and was led for 20 years by the inspirational Mica Comberti.
It’s my story and it’s the choir’s story. And it’s Birmingham’s story. The music always took centre stage but the personalities involved were remarkable. Looking back it seems as if the stars were aligned. At this current transitional point in the 55 year long history of Ex Cathedra it is important to understand how it started, why it was so special and perhaps try to understand how a choir now described as one of the best in the world could be created by me and a few friends in Bournville!
Appropriately Faire is the heaven takes place in the idealistic Utopian Birmingham village of Bournville, world-famous not only for chocolate production but also its world-leading town planning. From a council estate in Northfield I went to Bournville Grammar Technical School (as it was called then) and was a chorister at St Francis Church. This programme includes music from Ex Cathedra’s first 20 years or so (1969-1989) when I was a school-boy, a student and then full-time teacher in four comprehensive schools in the region. All the singers, and players, and the conductor, performed for fun! For love! Well-loved, popular and typically innovative and eclectic repertoire was mixed with commissions from John Joubert, Anthony Pither and Martin Bates, and much of tonight’s music brings to mind the group’s ‘legendary’ trips to Cork, Lyon, Frankfurt, Leipzig and Milan. We won the BBC choral competition Let the peoples sing and gave performances at Civic functions: Birmingham’s bid for the Olympics in Lausanne, Montreux and the boat party on Lac Leman: the G8 summit and lavish banquets with chefs brought over from Lyon! Performing at these special occasions built the ethos of the choir.
Nurturing talent has always been a key feature in all of Ex Cathedra’s work and in the early years singers like Paul Agnew and Nigel Short (and many others) sang with us as schoolboys and students, and, now nationally highly-respected singing teachers, Bronwen Mills and Helen Groves enhanced the top line. Our ‘outreach’ work is more formal these days but equally effective with our flourishing Academy of Vocal Music and blossoming relationships with the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the University of Birmingham.
This special concert which describes the making of a great choir is dedicated to Ros Bradley, a fabulous soprano with Ex Cathedra in the 1970s and 80s, who died recently. She was one of the many leading lights that helped create Ex Cathedra.
Programme Note
Marriage
Sir Hubert Parry’s setting of verses from Psalm 122 I was glad is a truly iconic work. The Psalm itself is an expression of a desire and commitment to peace and prosperity and has been sung at every coronation since that of King James II in 1685. Parry’s anthem was written in 1902 for the coronation of King Edward VII. It was revised in 1911 for the coronation of George IV and for subsequent royal ceremonies, including the more recent weddings and the coronation of King Charles III. It was also performed at the marriages of Jeffrey and Janet Skidmore (1974) and Peter and Katie Trethewey (2004)! Ex Cathedra seems to encourage long-term relationships.
The vision of heaven on earth continued to attract the attention of many leading composers in the early part of the 20th century. Sir William Harris has local connections and was a member of staff at the Birmingham and Midland Institute and assistant organist at Lichfield Cathedral. Faire is the heaven is probably his best piece and was written in 1925 while professor of organ and harmony at the Royal College of Music. The text is taken from Edmund Spenser’s Hymn of Heavenly Beauty (1596).
Research
I first sang Orlando Gibbons’ most famous verse anthem This is the record of John when I was a 12 year-old chorister here in this church, with my inspirational teacher and choirmaster, Wally Jennings, singing the verse. Lifelong interest in researching little-known repertoire and performance practices began here and continues to this day with the recent innovative work of Dr Bill Hunt, one of my PhD students at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Blessed are all they was first performed on Boxing Day 1613 for the wedding of Lord Somerset in Whitehall Chapel. It is an exquisite verse anthem. I first sang it with the Clerkes of Oxenford in Christchurch Cathedral in 1970 just before I went up to Magdalen as an Academical Clerk to read music. The piece was sung at our wedding in the college in 1974 directed by the great David Wulstan himself. 10 years later Roy Batters (Classics teacher) sang the main solo on Ex Cathedra’s first LP of Baroque Choral Music in 1982.
John Sheppard was Informator Choristarum at Magdalen College, Oxford and his music was a speciality of the college choir under Bernard Rose and the Clerkes of Oxenford (the most influential choir of this time) which was directed by another inspirational teacher David Wulstan. Reges Tharsis is a favourite with its soaring treble and alto lines (transposed up a minor third, of course) and was first performed by Ex Cathedra in the legendary concert in Bournville Church in 1970. The edition we’re using tonight was transcribed by Rachel Green, a sixth form pupil at John Willmott school, where I was Head of Music for 14 years (1980-1994).
BBC competition Let the Peoples Sing!
This was a landmark moment for the choir giving us national and international approval! In 1979 we won the regional final and in 1980 the national final. The winning announcement was made just before our first Monteverdi 1610 Vespers in a packed Lichfield Cathedral. It was quite a performance!
Among the pieces we performed in the competition were the Crucifixus a 8 by Lotti, The lover’s ghost, a Vaughan Williams folk song arrangement, and Ian Humphries’ Dance to your daddy, probably one of the best known traditional Geordie folk songs, made even more famous by the popular 1970s First World War TV series When the boat comes in.
Antonio Lotti spent most of his working life at St Mark’s, Venice, first as an alto singer, then organist, and finally as ‘maestro di cappella’. Hasse, a leading contemporary composer, described his music as ‘the most perfect of its kind’, while Burney, writing in 1770 of a performance in St Mark’s, said ‘it affected me even to tears’. The Crucifixus a 8 certainlymakes a great emotional impact, with its carefully controlled but potent use of dissonance.
The lover’s ghost was written in1913 as part of a set of Five English Folksongs. Forsaking riches for true love, this intensely passionate and melancholic melody is one of Vaughan Williams’ finest arrangements.
International
Trips abroad became a feature of our work, skilfully generated by Jill Robinson in her position in the International Department of Birmingham City Council. Birmingham’s twin cities Milan, Lyon and Leipzig were popular destinations.
In Lyon we performed Debussy’s Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans which represent his only unaccompanied choral music. Ex Cathedra first performed these three songs in 1982 in Ledbury Parish Church, as part of the Hereford Three Choirs Festival. Two of them were written in 1898 for an amateur choir while Debussy was at the country home of Lucien Fontaine, a wealthy patron of the arts. The third was added in 1908, when all three were published. The ease with which Debussy transferred his unique musical language to this medium is nothing short of remarkable, showing his typical finesse and sensitive treatment of the graceful 15th century poetry.
Dinner engagements, festivals (including Three Choirs), the Olympic bid, parties on various scales were always a delight for the choir. Many of my arrangements were written for occasions like these and Bacharach’s Anyone who had heart was arranged for a Heart Foundation fundraising dinner in the Council House, and aimed to set the pulse racing! Martin Bates composed Blessed are the peacemakers as a succinct but meaningful tribute to Bob Geldof, who had been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, to be performed on Lac Leman as part of Birmingham’s Olympic bid in the 1980s. Here, there and everywhere was our (and the audience’s) favourite Beatles song arranged by Gregory Rose and first performed in the late 60s by the Unauthorised Version, a Magdalen Kings Singers-type ensemble with Sir John Saunders as one of its distinguished members.
INTERVAL
Commissions – Cork International Choral Festival
Birmingham’s John Joubert is one of England’s leading composers and Ex Cathedra is proud to have had a long association with him. John died on January 7 2019, two months before his 92nd birthday and his funeral took place on January 24th in St Nicholas Church, Kings Norton, where he is buried. John was a very special man of extraordinary talent and a valued friend. His love and knowledge of choral music was inspirational to us all. He was the first composer Ex Cathedra worked closely with and our relationship extended over a long period of time. We will continue to champion his music as best we can and I believe it will be considered truly great one day. I have known his choral music for most of my life, from schoolboy to now. Three Portraits were the first of many pieces John wrote for Ex Cathedra. We gave the premiere performance, at John’s invitation, at the Cork International Choral and Folk Dance Festival in 1983. It was Ex Cathedra’s first adventure into ‘foreign’ travel and the related stories are part of Ex Cathedra folk-lore! My Oxford tutor David Wulstan, who at the time was Professor of Music at Cork University, was one of the hosts for the festival. These three, skilfully-crafted and characterful songs set texts by the Tudor poet John Skelton, Henry VIII’s favourite teacher and referred to by Erasmus as one of Britain’s leading literary lights. The three songs are dedicated to Joubert’s daughter Anna, his wife Mary, and his sister Margaret.
A few years later in 1985 Ex Cathedra commissioned its first Joubert work South of the Line, which was performed at the opening of the Adrian Boult Hall. We subsequently recorded the work on our own label with the first recording of the Rorate coeli motets. John’s award-winning anthem O Lorde, the Maker of al thingmakes a fitting start to the second half of the concert. It was written in 1962 and is one of his first great miniatures
We also performed Vaughan Williams’ Three Shakespeare Songs in Cork. They were written during the Festival of Britain in 1951 (a good year) for the British Federation of Music Festivals and first performed on June 23 in the Royal Festival Hall conducted by Armstrong Gibbs. They were test pieces for the annual competitive festival. They set three famous texts, two from The Tempest and one from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They are wonderful miniatures but have all the hallmarks of Vaughan Williams’ mature style found in his large-scale masterpieces.
Remembrance
Ex Cathedra is made up of special people some of whom are no longer with us, so at this time of year we can remember them: Peter Middleton, Ken France, Romesh Velu, Ruth Gleave, Roy Batters, Chris Bullough, Geoff Faultless, Martin Bates, Jonathan Gibbs, Mica Comberti and Ros Bradley.
I first sang Cheshire-born John Ireland’s Greater love hath no man as a teenage Lay Clerk at St Philips with Roy Massey, one of the country’s leading choir-makers, and was overwhelmed by the passionate unaccompanied outburst at the words ‘greater love’. The poignant compilation of texts is a powerful acknowledgement of sacrifice, giving and remembrance. Written in 1912 it all too soon became tragically relevant.
Fauré’s Requiem was our first orchestral concert (with Mozart’s Requiem), in St Paul’s Church and the Libera me demands eternal peace. The terrifying horn outburst at the day of judgment was played by Paul Herbert (Director of Music at MAC for many years) and it made me and the audience jump out of our skins!
Aspirations (Leipzig – Dresden)
It has always been clear to Ex Cathedrans that music has the power to make the world a better place, and there have been many reminders of this over the years. We performed the Bainton in Dresden after the Wall came down in 1989 and it’s safe to say there was not a dry eye in the house at the words ‘A New Jerusalem’.
Parry’s And did those feet with organ accompaniment has its two verses placed either side of Liz Dilnot Johnson’s Blake Re-imagined. In 1916 Parry was commissioned to set to music Blake’s idealistic, visionary poem And did those feet in ancient time. Now widely used and familiar as the patriotic hymn Jerusalem, this is an opportunity for us to reclaim it as a stirring piece of music set to a text by one of our greatest metaphysical poets. A hundred years later Blake Reimagined is a rallying call to action to rebuild a better world. It was commissioned in the middle of the pandemic from Malvern-based composer Liz Dilnot Johnson, who has become another Ex Cathedra composer-in-residence. This inspirational piece with its fusion of English and jazz improvisation, makes use of Parry’s hymn Jerusalem, with its stirring, romantic harmonies, full of longing, and with snatches of the famously uplifting melody never far away. It was written in the summer of 2020 for our anniversary virtual video – Ex Cathedra: Our First 50 Years – partly in response to the challenge that it was not possible for a composer to set Blake’s visionary words And did those feet because Parry’s setting was so definitive. Liz responded with this new piece which many have referred to as a work of genius, reimagining Parry’s harmonies and Blake’s words for two contrasting choirs. One choir improvises short supplicatory phrases – ‘Bring me’, ‘I will’, ‘Till we have built ….’ while the other choir responds with gospel-like chords but following Parry’s harmonies. Both choirs sing together, still with the freedom of aleatoric improvisation, the phrase ‘Till we have built … in England’s green and pleasant land’ ending with a solo tenor calling twice the words ‘Bring me…’ You are invited to sing Parry’s two verses with all the passion you can muster.
Edgar Bainton’s And I saw a new heaven dates from 1928. He was a pupil at King Henry VIII Grammar School in Coventry where he showed great ability at an early age and went on to study at the Royal College of Music. His choral works featured at the Three Choirs Festival and he championed Elgar in Australia, where he emigrated in 1934. He conducted the first performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in Sydneyin 1936. Although a prolific composer, his most famous piece is this anthem, setting St John the Divine’s inspirational words found in Revelation, the last book in the New Testament. These wonderful words describe not only a New Heaven, but also a New Earth and a New Jerusalem. They are an attempt to describe a perfect world and human aspirations. Surprisingly, few composers have set them, although James MacMillan’s setting in our commission Seven Angels (2014) is another fine example. Bainton’s beautifully melodic setting effortlessly reaches the heart of this richly emotive text and is a suitable final tribute to the Ex Cathedra vision.
Performers
EX CATHEDRA
Jeffrey Skidmore conductor
Martyn Rawles organ
Soprano: Marianne Ayling, Phoebe Boateng, Alison Burnett, Alexandra Burstow**, Evelyn Byford, Naomi Hedges, Joy Krishnamoorthy, Margaret Langford, Alice Madden^, Rebecca Mills, Hannah Rowe^, Shirley Scott, Sally Spencer, Maria Willsher***
Alto: Harriet Ballantyne, Erin Davies, Georgi Davies, Molly Fry^, Rebecca Lloyd, Anna Middleton, Katy Raines-Rami, Nicola Starkie, Laura Toomey***
Tenor: Steve Davis, Tony Dean, Alex Dixon^, Nick Drew, Dan Marles**, Iain Sloan
Bass: Oliver Barker*, Jeremy Burrows, Christopher Churcher, John Cotterill, Richard Green, Bill Robinson, Peter Scurlock, William Swinnerton***, Josh Thompson**
* denotes Ex Cathedra Graduate Scholar
** denotes Ex Cathedra Student Scholar
*** denotes Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Student Scholar
^ denotes University of Birmingham Student Scholar
~ denotes Ex Cathedra Enhanced Scholar
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Texts and Translations
I was glad – Charles Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
Words from Psalm 122
I was glad when they said unto me, “we will go into the house of the Lord.”
Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is builded as a city that is at unity in itself.
O pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee.
Peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces.
Faire is the heaven – William Harris (1883-1973)
Words: Edmund Spenser
Faire is the heaven,
Where happy souls have place
In full enjoyment of felicitie;
Whence they do still behold the glorious face
Of the Divine, Eternall Majestie;
Yet farre more faire be those bright Cherubins
Which all golden wings are overdight.
And those eternall burning Seraphins
Which from their faces dart out fiery light;
Yet fairer than they both and much more bright,
Be th’Angels and Archangels
Which attend on God’s owne person without rest or end.
These then in faire each other farre excelling
As to the Highest they approach more neare,
Yet is that Highest farre beyond all telling
Fairer than all the rest which there appeare.
Though all their beauties joined together where;
How then can mortall tongue hope to expresse
The image of such endlesse perfectnesse?
Blessed are all they – Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
Text from Psalm 128 (Book of Common Prayer)
Soloists: Alice Madden, Alexandra Burstow, Dan Marles, Laura Toomey, Nick Drew, Jeremy Burrows
Blessed are all they that fear the Lord:
and walk in His ways.
For thou shalt eat the labour of thy hands:
O well is thee, and happy shalt thou be.
Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine upon the walls of thine house;
Thy children like the olive branches, round about thy table.
Lo, thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.
The Lord from out of Sion shall so bless thee,
that thou shalt see Jerusalem in prosperity all thy life,
Yea, that thou shalt see thy children’s children,
and peace upon Israel.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, and is now, and ever shall be world without end.
Amen.
Reges Tharsis – John Sheppard (1515-1558)
Reges Tharsis et insulae munera offerent
The kings of Tharsis offered gifts of the islands
Reges Arabum et Sabadona Domino Deo adducent
The kings brought frankincense and myrrh to the Lord God
Et adorabunt eum omnes reges: omnes gentes servient ei
And all the kings will worship him and all the people serve him
Gloria Patri
Glory be to the Father
This is the record of John – Orlando Gibbons
Text: John 1.19-23
Soloist: Nick Drew
This is the Record of John,
when the Jews sent priests & Levites from Jerusalem to ask him:
Who art thou?
And he confessed and denied not, and said plainly:
I am not the Christ.
And they asked him: What art thou then? Art thou Elias?
And he said: I am not.
Art thou the prophet?
And he answered: No.
Then said they unto him: What art thou? That we may give an answer unto them that sent us.
What sayest thou of thy self?
And he said: I am the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness:
Make straight the way of the lord.
Crucifixus a 8 – Antonio Lotti (1667-1740)
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis
He was crucified also for us
sub Pontio Pilato passus
under Pontius Pilate he suffered
et sepultus est
and was buried
Lover’s Ghost – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Well met my own true love;
Long time I have been absent from thee,
I am lately come from the salt sea,
And ‘tis all for the sake, my love, of thee
I have three ships all on the salt sea,
And one of them has brought me to land,
I’ve four and twenty mariners on board
You shall have music at your command
The ship wherein my love shall sail
Is glorious for to behold,
The sails shall be of shining silk,
The most shall be of the fine beaten gold
I might have had a King’s daughter,
And fain she would have married me,
But I forsook her crown of gold,
And ‘tis all for the sake my love of thee
Dance to your daddy – Northumberland arr. Ian Humphries
Dance to your Daddy, my little laddie,
Dance to your Daddy, my little lamb.
And you’ll get a coatie and a pair of breekies,
You will get a whippie and some bread and jam.
Dance to your Daddy, my little laddie,
Dance to your Daddy, my little lamb.
You shall have a fishie in a little dishie,
You shall have a fishie when the boat comes in.
Dance to your Daddy, my little laddie,
Dance to your Daddy, my little lamb.
And you’ll get a coatie and a pair of breekies,
You will get a whippie and some bread and jam.
Dance to your Daddy, my little laddie,
Dance to your Daddy, my little lamb
Dieu! qu’il la fair bon regarder! from Trois Chansons – Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Dieu, qu’il la fait bon regarder
God, what a vision she is
La gracieuse, bonne et belle
one imbued with grace, true and beautiful
Pour les grans biens que sont en elle
For all the virtues that are hers
Chascun est prest de la loüer
everyone is quick to praise her
Qui se pourroit d’elle lasser?
Who could tire of her?
Tousjours sa beauté renouvelle
her beauty constantly renews itself
Dieu! qu’il la fait bon regarder
Lord, what a vision she is
La gracieuse, bonne et belle
one imbued with grace, true and beautiful
Par deça ne delà la mer
on neither side of the ocean
Ne scay dame, ne demoiselle
do I know any girl or womn
Qui soit en tous biens parfais telle
who is in all virtues so perfect
C’est un songe d’y penser
It’s a dream even to think of her
Dieu, qu’il la fait bon regarder
God, what a vision she is
Anyone who had a heart – Burt Bacharach (1928-2023) arr. Skidmore
Anyone who ever loved could look at me
And know that I love you
Anyone who ever dreamed could look at me
And know I dream of you
Knowing I love you so
Anyone who had a heart
Would take me in his arms and love me, too
You couldn’t really have a heart and hurt me
Like you heart me and be so untrue
What am I to do?
Every time you go away, I always say
This time it’s goodbye, dear
Loving you the way I do
I take you back, without you I’d die, dear
Knowing I love you so
Anyone who had a heart
Would take me in his arms and love me, too
You couldn’t really have a hear and hurt me
Like you hurt me and be so untrue
What am I to do?
Knowing I love you so
Anyone who had a heart
Would take me in his arms and love me, too
You couldn’t really have a heart and hurt me
Like you hurt me and be so untrue
Anyone who had a heart would love me, too
Anyone who had a heart would take me
In his rms and always love me too
Why won’t you? Yes
Anyone who had a heart would love me too
Anyone who had a heart
Would surely take me in his arms and always love me.
Blessed are the peace makers – Martin Bates (1951-2022)
Text: Matthew 5:9
Blessed are the Peacemakers,
For they shall be called the Son of God,
Happy are those who work for peace,
God will call them his children.
Here, there and everywhere – John Lennon (1940-1980) & Paul McCartney (b.1942) arr. Rose, transcribed: Stephen Davis
To lead a better life,
I need my love to be here
Here making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there’s something there
There running my hand through her hair
Both of us thinking how good it can be
Someone is speaking but she doesn’t know he’s there
I want her ev’rywhere
And if she’s beside me I know I need never care
But to love her is to meet her ev’rywhere
Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies,
Watching her eyes, and hoping I’m always there
I want her ev’rywhere
And if she’s beside me I know I need never care
But to love her is to meet her ev’rywhere
Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies,
Watching her eyes, and hoping I’m always there
I will be there
And ev’rywhere
Here, there and ev’rywhere
INTERVAL
O Lorde, the maker of al thing – John Joubert (1927-2019)
Text: King Henry VIII
O Lorde, the maker of al thing,
We pray Thee nowe in this evening
Us to defende through Thy mercy,
From al deceite of our en’my
Let neither us deluded be,
Good Lorde, with dreame or phantasy,
Oure hearts waking in Thee Thou pepe,
That we in sin fal not on slepe
O Father, through Thy blessed Sonne,
Grant us this oure peticion,
To whom with the Holy Ghost always,
In heav’n and yearth be laude and praise
Three portraits – John Joubert
Text: John Skelton (1460-1529)
Soloist: Alice Madden
I To Mistress Isabel Pennell
By saintly Mary, my lady,
Your mammy and your daddy
Brought forth a goodly baby!
My maiden Isabel,
Reflaring Rosabel,
The fragrant camamel:
The ruddy rosary,
The sovereign rosemary,
The pretty strawberry;
The columbine, the nept,
The gillflower well set,
The proper violet;
Ennewed your colour
Is like the daisy flower
After the April shower;
Star of the morrow gray,
The blossom on the spray,
The freshest flower of May;
Maidenly demure,
Of womanhood the lure;
Wherefore I make you sure,
It were an heavenly health,
It were an endless wealth,
A life for God himself,
To hear this nightingale,
Among the birds smale,
Warbling in the vale,
Dug, dug
Iug, iug.
Good year and good luck,
With chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck!
II To Mistress Margery Wentworth
With margerain gentle,
The flower of goodlihead,
Embroidered the mantle
Is of your maidenhead.
Plainly I cannot glose;
Ye be, as I divine,
The pretty primrose,
The goodly columbine
Benign, courteous, and meek,
With wordes well devised;
In you, who list to seek,
Be virtues well comprised.
With margerain gentle,
The flower of goodlihead,
Embroidered the mantle
Is of your maidenhead.
III To Mistress Margaret Hussey
Merry Margaret
As midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon
Or hawk of the tower:
With solace and gladness,
Much mirth and no madness,
All good and no badness;
So joyously,
So maidenly,
So womanly,
Her demeaning
In every thing,
Far, far passing,
That I can indite,
Or suffice to write
Of Merry Margaret
As midsummer flower
Gentle as falcon
Or hawk of the tower.
As patient and still
And as full of good will
As fair Isaphill,
Coliander,
Sweet pomander,
Good Cassander;
Steadfast of thought,
Well made, well wrought,
Far may be sought,
Ere that ye can find
So courteous, so kind
As Merry Margaret,
This midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon
Or hawk of the tower.
Three Shakespeare Songs – Ralph Vaughan Williams
II. The cloud-capp’d towers
Text: William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1 (Prospero)
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself.
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Greater love hath no man – John Ireland (1979-1962)
Soloists: Maria Willsher, Oliver Barker
Many waters cannot quench Love, neither can the floods drown it.
Love is strong as death.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends.
Who His own Self bare our sins in His own Body on the tree,
that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.
Ye are wash’d, ye are sanctified, ye are justified, in the Name of the Lord Jesus;
Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
That ye should shew forth the praises of Him Who hath call’d you out of darkness into His
marvellous light.
I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service.
Requiem: Libera Me – Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Soloist: Oliver Barker
Libera me Domine de mort aeterna
Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death
in die illa tremenda
in that last dreadful day of judgement
quando coeli movendi sunt et terra
when the heavens and the earth shall shake, and
dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem
you will come to judge the ages through fire
Tremens factus sum ego et timeo
I am made to tremble and I fear
dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira
his wrath will come and dash all to pieces
Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae
That day, day of wrath, disaster and disaster
dies magna et amara valde
greatest and most bitter day
Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine
Rest eternal grant unto them, Lord
et lux perpetua luceat eis
and let perpetual light shine upon them
Jerusalem (part 1) – Charles Hubert Parry
Text: William Blake
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among those dark Satanic mills?
Blake Reimagined – Liz Dilnot Johnson (b.1964)
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear! O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of Fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant land.
Jerusalem (part 2)
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear! O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of Fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant land
And I saw a new heaven – Edgard Bainton (1880-1956)
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth:
For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away;
And there was no more sea.
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down from God out of heaven, prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying,
Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and
he will dwell with them and they shall be his
people, and God himself shall be with them and be
their God.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away
Meet the… musician
In this programme, we invite you to meet Tony Dean.
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