Twelve original compositions to sacred words, by Francis Grier.

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Product Details

Artist: The Rodolfus Choir
Conductor: Ralph Alwood
Countertenor: James Bowman
Label: Herald (Released: December 1994)

Critic Reviews

This is outstanding by any standards. The Rodolfus is one of Britain’s very finest young choirs, and excellence rules throughout. These short anthems also show Francis Grier at his best: beautifully thought-out, imaginative, varied, inventive writing for choir, especially the a cappella items. The clear, natural soprano tone is a delight, the lads (solos included) are every bit as good. James Bowman ravishes. Sheer pleasure.
Roderic Dunnett, BBC Music Magazine

More Information

Let us invoke Christ was commissioned by John Scott in 1993 for the opening Eucharist of the City of London Festival at St Paul's Cathedral. The text is a fragment from an ancient eucharistic liturgy. I had in mind as I wrote this piece the creative tension between the pomp and circumstance of the occasion and the private intimacy of the individual's communion. I was also keen to take full advantage both of the monumental acoustic resonance of St Paul's and of the equally splendid musicianship of John Scott.

The Three Short Anthems were the first pieces that I wrote for Ralph Allwood, and as such have great significance for me as he has been so generous in commissioning and performing my compositions. They are dedicated to him, and were all written in 1989 for his Eton Choral Courses, from which, of course, the Rodolfus Choir originally sprang. The text of Great is the power of thy Cross, O Lord comes from the Orthodox Vespers in Holy Week, and its atmosphere and music is inspired by the sonorities and liturgy of the Russian and Eastern Orthodox churches. It may be sung for any saint's day, or for the feasts of All Souls or All Saints. The texts of God, who made the earth and sky and Proclaim his triumph, heaven and earth are taken from the Stanbrook Abbey Hymnal, and so are Roman Catholic in origin. They both consist of variations on simple melodies. The former is an introspective prayer to the Virgin, appropriate for any feasts of Our Lady, and for Christmastide; the latter is an extrovert Eastertide hymn of praise (also in homage to Johann Sebastian Bach).

Day after day, O Lord of my Life was specially written for the Rodolfus Choir and James Bowman in 1994. It is a setting of one of the poems of the Bengali Nobel prizewinner, Rabindranath Tagore, from his Gitanjah, in his own English translation. This collection of religious verse is marked by a particular quality of rapt simplicity, and it is this combination of mystical adoration and a burning energy to which I have tried to respond. Whilst not directly imitating any particular features of Indian music, the very slow harmonic rhythm and the ornamented solo line may evoke something of the paradoxical timelessness and personal devotion typical of much Hindu spirituality.

Salve Regina was commissioned by Timothy Byram-Wigfield for the Border Cathedrals' Festival, 1993, and was given its first performance under his baton in St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, with the choirs of Newcastle and Carlisle Cathedrals joining the choir of St Mary's. Timothy had sung in the choir of King's College, Cambridge, when was organ scholar there, and later he became my organ scholar at Christ Church, Oxford; so this piece became a vehicle through which I could thank him for the fruits his musicianship which I had enjoyed over the years. The texts are the 11th-centui Latin Marian antiphon Salve Regina, with which the piece opens and closes; the extend middle section sets sections from the Song of Songs and from the prophesies of Isaiah, which are, in Catholic theology, held to refer to the Mother of God.

The Three Devotions to Christ our Redeemer are all settings of anonymous medieval texts, and are all thoroughly devotional in character. In all three compositions I have tried to convey something of the passion and directness of expression of the word Corpus Christi Carol is a setting of the famous 15th-century poem with its allusions, Our Lady and the theme of the Holy Grail; O King of the Friday is an intense an mystical prayer to the crucified King-Christ; and Christ's Love-Song is an exquisite lyrical song of great beauty from Christ to his love, Man.

The Voice of my Beloved was written in 1991 for the marriage of Andrew and Deborah MacKay in Salisbury Cathedral. It sets verses from the Song of Songs, and is an attempt to respond to the extraordinary mixture of voluptuousness, languidity, desire and excitement evoked by the text.

Dilectus meus mihi, commissioned by David Trendell for performance at the 1987 Edington Festival, also sets verses from the Song of Songs, this time in Latin. I think this occasion I was inspired principally by the lyrical simplicity and ecstatic rapture the text, which I sought to reflect through a very full and virtuosic usage of the different potentials of a large choir in terms of colour, tone and resonance, and the contra between solo, semi-chorus and tutti passages.

Thou, O God, art praised in Sion was commissioned for the 900th anniversary Durham Cathedral. It was first performed there on 20 March 1993, the feast-day of Cuthbert. The Organist and Choirmaster of Durham, James Lancelot, is one of my oldemusical friends, and so it was with pleasure that I dedicated the piece to him. Durhal was the bishopric of St Cuthbert, that Celtic St Francis, and so I was keen to find a te, that could both celebrate the civic cathedral and also the wonders of nature which St. Cuthbert so loved, and from which he seems to have derived his spirituality. I found all this in Psalm 65, which I decided to set in its Prayer Book translation, not only because fondness for it per se but because it also symbolised the best of the traditional of the Anglican Church. It is a pæan of praise, in which 'the valleys also shall ;o thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing'.

© 1996 Francis Grier

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