Magnificat: The Gloucester Service - Herbert Howells, John Rutter, Wayne Marshall, Cambridge Singers
16. 'Magnificat: The Gloucester Service'
From the album ‘Stanford and Howells Remembered’
Composer Herbert Howells
Conductor John Rutter
Organ Wayne Marshall
Choir The Cambridge Singers
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LYRICS:
My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded the lowliness of his hand-maiden. For behold, from hence-
forth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath magnified me:
and holy is his Name. And his mercy is on them that fear him: throughout all
generations. He hath shewed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in
the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and
hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he hath sent empty away. He remembering his mercy hath holpen his
servant Israel: as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
(Luke 1, vv.46–55)
Magnificat: The Gloucester Service
Howells composed over twenty sets of Anglican canticles—probably more than any other composer, and a tribute to his ability to draw varied inspiration from the same texts. In his own words: ‘In all my music for the church, people and places have been a dual influence. The Collegium Regale [1944] is the original source of the series of canticle-settings made for certain cathedrals and Collegiate chapels’. The Gloucester Service of 1946 came next, and is considered by some to be his finest. Its title page bears the inscription ‘for the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, Gloucester’. Like most of Howells’s Magnificat settings, this one establishes the feminine character of the text by beginning just with the soprano voices of the choir, building up only reticently from the sarabande-like opening to a full texture and eventually subsiding into a softly exquisite ‘amen’ that reminds us of Howells’s affinity with Debussy and Ravel. The contemplative Nunc dimittis, according to custom in Anglican settings, repeats the music of the ‘Gloria’ section, but with subtle transformations that are very much Howells’s own.
Stanford and Howells Remembered
This recording is a choral tribute to the sacred music of two visionary composers: Stanford and Howells, who, among their other achievements, made distinctive, lasting and much-cherished contributions to the musical repertory of the English Church.
John Rutter, English composer and conductor, is associated with choral music throughout the world. His recordings with the Cambridge Singers (the professional chamber choir he set up in 1983) have reached a wide global audience, many of them featuring his own music in definitive versions. Among John’s best-known choral works are Gloria, Requiem, Magnificat, Mass of the Children, and Visions, together with many church anthems, choral songs and Christmas carols.
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