Henry Aldrich: Sacred Choral Music II – Review by Laudate Magazine
"The CD is enterprising and ambitious, and is well worth buying or downloading, particularly by lovers of 16th- and 17th-century choral music.”
13th January 2025
Henry Aldrich: Sacred Choral Music II – Review by Laudate Magazine
"The CD is enterprising and ambitious, and is well worth buying or downloading, particularly by lovers of 16th- and 17th-century choral music.”
13th January 2025
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The name of Henry Aldrich (1648-1710) is not likely to be well known to many readers – although, as we shall see, most of the music will be more familiar than we might expect. Aldrich was a man of diverse and very considerable abilities, in the fields of theology, philosophy, architecture, and music. He became Dean of Christ Church, Oxford in 1689, and was Vice Chancellor of the University from 1692 to 1695, a tenure of similar length to that of his contemporaries.
The recordings of Aldrich’s music form part of a project to promote knowledge and performance of his choral works. Modern performing editions are edited by Dr Dean Jobin-Bevans, Professor of Music at Lakehead University, Canada.
The choir of Oriel College, numbering just over 20 singers, and under the direction of David Maw, is to be congratulated on a fine sound. Solo parts, excellently sung, are by members from the choir. In summary, the CD is enterprising and ambitious, and is well worth buying or downloading, particularly by lovers of 16th- and 17th-century choral music. (Aldrich did compose a considerable body of original church music, some of which may be heard on Convivium Records CR052, an earlier part of the Aldrich project, as reviewed in a previous edition of Laudate.)
The 16 tracks on the present CD include six arrangements of works by other composers, and nine pieces which are ‘after’ other pre-existing such works (that is, effectively re-compositions), although the distinction is sometimes less clearcut than the above might suggest. The final track, ‘Hie sede Carolus’ (the only one with Latin rather than English text), may itself be at least partly a re-composition (see further below).
The arrangements are of pieces that were well known at the time – two by Orlando Gibbons (‘Give sentence’ and ‘Blessed is the man’); two by Richard Farrant (‘Hide not thou thy face’ and ‘Call to remembrance’; Michael Wise’s ‘Thy beauty, O Israel’, and Tallis’s ‘O pray for the peace of Jerusalem’. The last of these is in fact an arguably less than entirely satisfactory combination of two Latin motets, ‘In man us tuas’ and ‘O nata lux’. Details of the relationships between other originals and Aldrich’s arrangements are set out in Dean Jobin-Bevans’s excellent programme notes.
Dr Jobin-Bevans defines the re-compositions are ‘new choral compositions based on pre-existing … sacred choral models’. These involve some important changes to the music selected, and are thus more than just contrafacta (in the manner of the anonymous re-texting of Taverner’s votive antiphon ‘Mater Christi’ as ‘O God, be merciful unto us’ – a change made in order that a familiar piece might still be sung in circumstances where a Latin (and ‘popish’) text would no longer be acceptable). It is noteworthy that Aldrich produced more re-compositions during the last quarter of the seventeenth century in England than any other composer.
Aldrich’s models were drawn from Palestrina (three), Tallis (two), and one each from Byrd, William Mundy, John Blow and Giacomo Carissimi (1605-74). Judging from Aldrich’s work as a whole, Carissimi was something of a favourite. Interestingly Purcell was not touched. Jobin-Bevans doesn’t identify models for most of the re-compositions on the CD although Grove 2001 provides a crib, as no doubt does an article listed there by R. Shay:'”Naturalizing” Palestrina and Carissimi in Late Seventeenth-Century Oxford: Henry Aldrich and his Recompositions’, Music and Letters, lxxvii (1996).
Aldrich composed odes for the Oxford Act, an annual academic event held in the Sheldonian Theatre, one of which (perhaps the earliest) was ‘Hie sede Carolus’. Jobin-Bevans states that the music recorded as track 16 is ‘the second of two choruses with anonymous Latin texts, set to music by Aldrich for the 7 July 1682 Act’. The text is in praise of Charles (Carolus) II. Robert Shay, in his article on Aldrich in Grove 2021, says that ’18th-century inscriptions in several of the sources suggest that these works were largely crafted of borrowings from Carissimi’. Whatever the truth of this, the music of track 16 is attractive and at times dramatic, ending with seven-part vocal writing. The Restoration Consort (Rachel Byrt and Emilia Benjamin (violins) and Gay Amherst (cello) accompany. All other tracks have organ accompaniment (whether or not the originals did).
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The name of Henry Aldrich (1648-1710) is not likely to be well known to many readers – although, as we shall see, most of the music will be more familiar than we might expect. Aldrich was a man of diverse and very considerable abilities, in the fields of theology, philosophy, architecture, and music. He became Dean of Christ Church, Oxford in 1689, and was Vice Chancellor of the University from 1692 to 1695, a tenure of similar length to that of his contemporaries.
The recordings of Aldrich’s music form part of a project to promote knowledge and performance of his choral works. Modern performing editions are edited by Dr Dean Jobin-Bevans, Professor of Music at Lakehead University, Canada.
The choir of Oriel College, numbering just over 20 singers, and under the direction of David Maw, is to be congratulated on a fine sound. Solo parts, excellently sung, are by members from the choir. In summary, the CD is enterprising and ambitious, and is well worth buying or downloading, particularly by lovers of 16th- and 17th-century choral music. (Aldrich did compose a considerable body of original church music, some of which may be heard on Convivium Records CR052, an earlier part of the Aldrich project, as reviewed in a previous edition of Laudate.)
The 16 tracks on the present CD include six arrangements of works by other composers, and nine pieces which are ‘after’ other pre-existing such works (that is, effectively re-compositions), although the distinction is sometimes less clearcut than the above might suggest. The final track, ‘Hie sede Carolus’ (the only one with Latin rather than English text), may itself be at least partly a re-composition (see further below).
The arrangements are of pieces that were well known at the time – two by Orlando Gibbons (‘Give sentence’ and ‘Blessed is the man’); two by Richard Farrant (‘Hide not thou thy face’ and ‘Call to remembrance’; Michael Wise’s ‘Thy beauty, O Israel’, and Tallis’s ‘O pray for the peace of Jerusalem’. The last of these is in fact an arguably less than entirely satisfactory combination of two Latin motets, ‘In man us tuas’ and ‘O nata lux’. Details of the relationships between other originals and Aldrich’s arrangements are set out in Dean Jobin-Bevans’s excellent programme notes.
Dr Jobin-Bevans defines the re-compositions are ‘new choral compositions based on pre-existing … sacred choral models’. These involve some important changes to the music selected, and are thus more than just contrafacta (in the manner of the anonymous re-texting of Taverner’s votive antiphon ‘Mater Christi’ as ‘O God, be merciful unto us’ – a change made in order that a familiar piece might still be sung in circumstances where a Latin (and ‘popish’) text would no longer be acceptable). It is noteworthy that Aldrich produced more re-compositions during the last quarter of the seventeenth century in England than any other composer.
Aldrich’s models were drawn from Palestrina (three), Tallis (two), and one each from Byrd, William Mundy, John Blow and Giacomo Carissimi (1605-74). Judging from Aldrich’s work as a whole, Carissimi was something of a favourite. Interestingly Purcell was not touched. Jobin-Bevans doesn’t identify models for most of the re-compositions on the CD although Grove 2001 provides a crib, as no doubt does an article listed there by R. Shay:'”Naturalizing” Palestrina and Carissimi in Late Seventeenth-Century Oxford: Henry Aldrich and his Recompositions’, Music and Letters, lxxvii (1996).
Aldrich composed odes for the Oxford Act, an annual academic event held in the Sheldonian Theatre, one of which (perhaps the earliest) was ‘Hie sede Carolus’. Jobin-Bevans states that the music recorded as track 16 is ‘the second of two choruses with anonymous Latin texts, set to music by Aldrich for the 7 July 1682 Act’. The text is in praise of Charles (Carolus) II. Robert Shay, in his article on Aldrich in Grove 2021, says that ’18th-century inscriptions in several of the sources suggest that these works were largely crafted of borrowings from Carissimi’. Whatever the truth of this, the music of track 16 is attractive and at times dramatic, ending with seven-part vocal writing. The Restoration Consort (Rachel Byrt and Emilia Benjamin (violins) and Gay Amherst (cello) accompany. All other tracks have organ accompaniment (whether or not the originals did).
