Westminster Abbey Choir, James O’Donnell – Finzi, Bax & Ireland: Choral Music (2017) [Hyperion FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

Finzi, Bax & Ireland – Choral Music – Westminster Abbey Choir, James O’Donnell (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:15 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: hyperion-records.co.uk | Booklet, Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Recorded: February 2016, Westminster Abbey, London, United Kingdom

A trio of English composers perhaps better known for their creative output in other fields, yet who played a crucial role in the development of the Anglican choral tradition in the twentieth century. James O’Donnell and Westminster Abbey Choir present a programme centred on Finzi’s Lo, the full, final sacrifice: the other works may be less familiar but are no less moving.

The Anglican choral tradition is shaped and defined as much by its buildings as by its choirs. Whether it’s St Paul’s Cathedral, the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, or the Chapel Royal, centuries of music have grown from and for these spaces. Westminster Abbey is one building with a long musical legacy but its spacious acoustic is both blessing and curse, as the choir’s latest disc makes clear.
Anthems from Finzi, Bax and Ireland should be a natural fit for the Westminster Abbey choir but again and again here it seems as though James O’Donnell’s musical choices are dictated by the constraints of the space, rather than evolving organically from the needs of the repertoire itself. Tempos are consistently slow – problematic for lighter, more lyrical works such as Bax’s I sing of a maiden and Ireland’s upper-voices anthem Ex ore innocentium – but there’s also an unexpected lack of flexibility and flow within these more stately speeds.
Compare the Finzi performances, for example, to those on the 2002 recording from St John’s, Cambridge. Both God is gone up and the Magnificat may have more heft, more gravitas under O’Donnell but the surging attack and sinewy tone of Christopher Robinson’s singers is much more thrilling. This disparity is particularly evident in the album’s centrepiece – Finzi’s expansive Lo, the full, final sacrifice. The work’s episodic structure begs for distinctively characterised, contrasting sections, yet the Choir of Westminster Abbey remain doggedly consistent, and much needed rhetorical clarity is lost in this space.
The choir’s diffuse tone – breathier in the upper voices than rivals at New College or even King’s, Cambridge – is very effective at softer volumes (Ireland’s Greater love works beautifully) but lacks blade at moments of climax, and some scrappy singing from basses too often gives chords an unfocused foundation on which to build. While it’s good to see Bax’s comparatively neglected anthems getting some attention, there’s little else here that isn’t better served on the rich variety of existing recordings. -Alexandra Coghlan, Gramophone

Tracklist:
Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)
1 My lovely one Op 27 No 1[3’05]
2 God is gone up Op 27 No 2[4’55]
3 Welcome sweet and sacred feast Op 27 No 3[7’36]
4 Let us now praise famous men Op 35[3’11]
5 Lo, the full, final sacrifice Op 26[15’15]
6 Magnificat Op 36 My soul doth magnify the Lord[10’25]
Arnold Bax (1883-1953)
7 I sing of a maiden that is makeless[4’56]
8 This worldes joie Winter wakeneth all my care[6’41]
John Ireland (1879-1962)
9 Greater love hath no man Many waters cannot quench love[6’18]
10 Ex ore innocentium It is a thing most wonderful[3’44]
11 Te Deum in F We praise Thee, O God[7’29]

Personnel
Sebastian Braw-Smith, Jeremy Suppey, Daniel Livermore, treble
Julian Stocker, tenor
Julian Empett, bass
Simon Ponsford, countertenor
Jonathan Brown, bass
Daniel Cook, organ
Westminster Abbey Choir
James O’Donnell, conductor

Download:

mqs.link_FinziBaxIrelandChralMusicWestminsterAbbeyChirJamesDnnell2017Hyperin2496.part1.rar
mqs.link_FinziBaxIrelandChralMusicWestminsterAbbeyChirJamesDnnell2017Hyperin2496.part2.rar