The Choral Music of Herbert Brewer (1865-1928)
Laudate
Directed by Howard Ionascu
With Joseph Nolan, organ
Let the People Praise Thee
As the Hart Pants
Blessing, Glory, Wisdom and Thanks
Magnificat in Bflat
Nunc Dimittis in Bflat
O Death where is thy Sting
God is our Hope and Strength
Prevent us, O Lord
Magnificat in C
Nunc Dimittis in C
O Lord God
A Solemn Prayer
God Within
Bow Down Thine Ear, O Lord
Magnificat in D
Nunc Dimittis in D
Recorded in St JohnÕs Church, Holland Road, London, UK
On 22-24 April 2002
Priory Records PRCD 797 [76Õ58Ó]
Priory records have carved out an excellent niche for themselves as the
worldÕs biggest label recording church music. Their imaginative
collections have a devoted following and they are not averse from using
otherwise unrecorded groups and giving them a fairly free reign on what
to record. This disc of music by Herbert Brewer is just such an example.
Laudate are a young choir based in London, founded in 1998 and following
the model of such famous establishments as Trinity College, Cambridge in
performing the traditional repertoire of the Anglican Church using a
smallish group consisting of sopranos and altos (rather than the
traditional boy trebles and male countertenors) with the tenors and
basses. It is a grouping that works well in this music. Laudate seems to
consist of 17 singers on this recording, although rather oddly there are
25 in the photo of the choir on the back of the booklet. (What were the
others doing?) The balance that this gives is excellent, especially in
the unaccompanied works such as ÒAs the Hart PantsÓ. In the accompanied
pieces there is an argument for adding more voices to the soprano line.
The balance of the parts in the traditional line-up is more weighted
toward the treble line, and this is a feature that composers in this
field would have had in mind when writing the way they did. This is,
however, but a personal preference; these sopranos hold their own
admirably.
The music itself is superb. Herbert Brewer was the Organist and Master
of the Choristers at Gloucester Cathedral from 1896 until his death in
1928 and is firmly in that school of English organist/composers, founded
by Stanford, who occupied the organ lofts of the great cathedrals
throughout the first decades of the 20th century. It was a period where
English music really had something distinctive to say, based largely on
the resurgent strength of the Church of England in the Victorian era. It
is not necessarily music that is very fashionable today (although vastly
more so than even 30 or 40 years ago) and yet there is so much variety,
beauty and sheer technical competence that it is difficult for even the
most modern of modernist agnostics not to have a grudging respect for
it. The most famous work recorded here is BrewerÕs best-known setting of
the Canticles for the service of Evensong, known in the trade simply as
ÒBrewer in D.Ó It is a marvellous setting full of great swinging
melodies and receives a performance of conviction from Laudate. The same
can be seen in the splendid ending of the great anthem ÒBlessing, Glory,
Wisdom and ThanksÓ in which the choir exhibits excellent control of a
full-bodied fortissimo on the final Amen.
There are one or two quibbles about the recording process. Priory have
long made a point of recoding such discs using only a single microphone,
centrally placed, arguing that this captures the most natural version of
the performance. This may be true, but it also shows a major drawback in
the recording of accompanied music. When we listen to this repertoire
performed live, our ears naturally balance what we are hearing. To get
the same sense of natural balance in a recording is rather more
complicated and is hardly achievable in the single mic format. The
result is that many of the accompanied works end up with the organ
simply sounding too distant. This is, of course, because it is usually
further away from the microphone, behind the choir. Live, the ear would
compensate, taking in the full ability of the organ to fill the
acoustic. That is where ambient mics are so crucial in the recording
process. As an example of the shortcoming that this format produces, the
ending of the service in D should have the choir absolutely struggling
to maintain themselves against the full reeds of the organ. The overall
sound should be simply blazing. What we hear instead is the choir
singing lustily, and the organ, with all reeds present, sounding
contained and somewhat remote. A ÔnaturalÕ balance can be more
convincingly achieved by separate mics on the organ, ambient mics at the
back of the church and careful control of the post recording mix.
Although Joseph Nolan accompanies with much sensitivity and grace there
are a number of uncomfortably loud registration changes from the organ
where thumping piston noise is prominent. This is a shame and, again,
not something that it is impossible to get around.
As a general response, this disc is heartily to be welcomed. The
recording quality is not all it could be, given the drawbacks mentioned
above, but the performances are uniformly excellent, the diction of the
choir being particularly worthy of praise. Howard Ionascu controls the
group well, there is a variety of beauty, excitement and power, and
above all the music is splendid stuff. If Brewer is still an unknown
name, this disc is as good a place as any to start finding out why he
should not remain so.
(Peter Wells)
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