Purcell: Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, 1695

The potential of music as a means of adding dignity and grandeur to state occasions has surely been lost on a few rulers in history. Portraits of antique kings and queens are more often admired (or the reverse) for their artistic qualities, as opposed to the enhancement in the status of their subjects they were originally intended to confer. Similarly, the appeal of ceremonial music from former ages is for modern listeners primarily aesthetic.

This 75-minute collection brings together music heard at a staggering variety of British royal occasions. Zadok the Priest has been included in every coronation service held in that building ever since the coronation of King George II and Queen Caroline in Westminster Abbey on 11 October 1727. There is music for the coronation of King James II in 1685 (Purcell’s I was glad), and a later setting of the same verses by Parry for the coronation of Edward VII in Westminster Abbey on 9 August 1902.

Of course, there’s music for Queen Elizabeth II – Walton’s Coronation Te Deum and Orb and Sceptre for the coronation on 2 June 1953 and Bliss’s march Welcome the Queen, which commemorated the return of the monarch from her Commonwealth tour in 1954.

The British national anthem hardly needs an introduction. Benjamin Britten’s distinctive arrangement was first performed in Leeds on 7 October 1961 and has been heard countless times since.

Henry Purcell’s career combined positions at the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey and as composer of music for the church and for the people. He is considered by some as the greatest English composer of all time – a position not challenged until the music of Edward Elgar some two centuries later.

‘Despite the abundance of younger stars … none of them yet match Chance’s intelligent delivery and supreme ability to get inside the English language’: so said The Guardian of Michael Chance, one of the world’s most celebrated countertenors and a leading exponent of historically informed performances of the Baroque repertoire.

The Choir of Clare College, founded in 1866, continues the venerable tradition of choral singing from Cambridge. As well as performing its liturgical function at daily services at Clare College Chapel, the choir has given premieres of works by composers from Herbert Howells to John Rutter, who was the college’s first music director.

Purcell’s life was relatively short – he died at 36. However, the range of music produced during his career (he is thought to have started composing aged nine) is remarkable. This collection spans both his sacred and secular writing, from his music for the funeral of Queen Mary (which was also performed at his funeral service in Westminster Abbey) and the Te Deum and Jubilate Deo written towards the end of his life, to songs and works written for the stage including music for the play Dioclesian.

Original works and arrangements blended together to create an exciting album of brass music adding several pieces to the repertoire.

The University Brass Ensemble is an orchestral brass grouping rather than a brass band and consists of four trumpets, three French horns, three trombones and two tubas with timpani. This disc features both well known and new works, and includes pieces by Handel, Purcell, Schein, Burrell and Hugill.

The CD was commissioned by the University of Hertfordshire to contain its ceremonial academic march, The Hatfield Procession and other similar music. Also included is a work commissioned from Howard Burrell for publisher Philip Sturrock’s wedding blessing ceremony in September 2000. Handel was a great composer for specific occasions and this disc features various movements from the Water Music along with the famous "La Rejouissance" from the Firework Music that all trumpet players love to play! Finally in a moment of relaxation the ensemble lets its hair down in a re-working of The Hatfield Procession. Hearing is believing!