St Paul’s Cathedral Choir

Every year on Advent Sunday St Paul’s Cathedral in London holds an Advent Carol Service. This recording captures the mood and structure of this event, presenting a selection of the music which might be performed in its liturgical order.

The Church’s preparation for the coming of Christ begins in contemplative mood with the plainchant processional Laudes Regiae and the famous Mattins Responsory (‘I look from afar … ’). The wealth of music that follows is typical of the approach of this choir: traditional favourites such as Hosanna to the Son of David and the Parsons Ave Maria rest alongside contemporary works from composers such as John Rutter, Richard Lloyd and Philip Wilby. This album—and the hypothetical service—comes to an end with a joyous arrangement of the great hymn O come, O come, Emmanuel; an organ toccata on the same theme by Andrew Carter acts as the voluntary.

After almost a decade, Hyperion is delighted to welcome back the world-famous St Paul’s Cathedral Choir under its new director of music, Hyperion artist and also director of The Cardinall’s Musick, Andrew Carwood. Joined by the St Paul’s Mozart Orchestra and a quartet of renowned soloists, Carwood leads sparkling performances of a selection of Mozart’s sacred music. Although they were commissioned to be sung at church services in Salzburg, all these compositions are suffused with Mozart’s typically unerring sense of dramatic pacing and a sensuous, operatic treatment of solo lines, as well as crisp and energetic choral writing.

This sequence of music for Lent, Passiontide and Easter represents a journey through perhaps the most dramatic part of the Church’s year. It is a season which has inspired many composers to write some of their most potent pieces, and contrasts the seriousness of intent and poignancy found in, say, Lotti’s Crucifixus with the exuberance of music such as Philips’s Ecce vicit Leo.

Other favourites in this anthology include Mendelssohn’s I waited for the Lord, Bruckner’s Christus factus est, and the beautiful Gibbons setting of Drop, drop, slow tears with the soloist Anthony Way (who caused such a stir in television’s The Choir). There are also two important new works, by John Sanders and Brian Chapple.

A celebration both of Easter and of exceptional singing.

Hyperion’s long series of St Paul’s recordings is graced by an addition dedicated to music for Epiphany, a companion disc to Advent at St Paul’s. In the Christian Church year, Epiphany is the period after Christmas commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the Magi, celebrated on 6 January.

The programme embraces music from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, from Bach to Bingham, and includes many long-established favourites by Wesley, Cornelius, Howells and others.

This recording was made to mark the tercentenary of the formal opening in 1697 of St Paul's, rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London. It consists of four notable pieces written for the cathedral between 1697 and 1755.

John Blow wrote a new anthem for the opening ceremony. I was glad when they said unto me is a setting of the text which Bishop Compton took for his sermon during the service. Handel's Te Deum and Jubilate, written for the Peace of Utrecht, was first heard in the Cathedral on 5 March 1713. William Boyce's anthem Lord, thou hast been our refuge was written in 1755 for the Festival of the Sons of the Clergy, the charity that raised (and still raises) funds for needy clergymen and their families. Like all the pieces recorded here, it is music that demands to be heard in the spacious acoustic of the building for which it was written.