Choir Information
Performance Information
John Shippen, who most recently has supported the Cartmel Choral Society, shared the following with miserere.org and kindly gave permission for it to be included here:
“I have managed to find a copy of Christ’s Hospital Singers in a far cupboard and am startled by its contents. The disc was created under the leadership of Malcolm McKelvey, the director of music, for the Christ’s Hospital 1978 Endowment Appeal, of which I was the secretary. I was actually teaching in the Geography department, but I had been Organ Scholar of St Edmund Hall Oxford (as well as Geography Exhibitioner) and Malcolm was happy for me to accompany services and the Chapel Choir of 120 voices. The organ was a five-manual Rushworth and Dreaper, with the fifth manual pipes in the west gallery including a Tuba Magna on 24 inches of wind. I see we included on the disc CS Lang’s ‘Eastern Monarchs’ with the whole school and tubas at both ends! Malcolm had also organised the A Capella Choir with the 24 ‘third row’ trebles and 20 altos tenors and basses: these would fit into a coach and the choir stalls of cathedrals such as Chichester, Gloucester, Exeter and St Paul’s.
Later, we had in the Choir the remarkable Charles Hazlewood (of BBC fame) and four other future Organ Scholars at Oxford and Cambridge. In 1978 we had just acquired a late entrant who was the RSCM Chorister of the Year – Andrew March. Andrew and Paddy Castledine performed an incredible ‘Sound the Trumpet’ for the record. Malcolm had also asked my old Teddy Hall contemporary, Tom Jeffers (German Dept), to lead a Glee Club consisting largely of the ATB members of the A Capella.
And so to the Allegri. There were in the choirs’ music cupboard copies of an undecorated version in English and ‘minim’ notation. I’m afraid I don’t have a copy handy. As I remember, we noted in manuscript (like Mozart) what we could remember of the King’s recording but adjusting the abbellimenti to the voices we had: the disc lists five soloists. Despite the purity of Andrew’s first treble and the contrasting warmth of Paddy’s second part it was asking a lot to perform all the verses. Moreover Christ’s Hospital Chapel resonates in Gb and Db (see the keys used by CS Lang) so you may have noticed that our performance was a semi-tone down (G flat minor) To put it in a nutshell we invented our own version for a charity appeal record to suit our voices. The ornaments were hand-written on manuscript paper. It was never published.” (email received from John Shippen)
Recording Information
Recording by Julian Sturdy / Alan Brandon of Wealden Studios – Pinnacle Cottage, Shipbourne Road, Tonbridge, Kent
Release Information
Tracklist
A1 – Praise to Thee, Lord Jesus – Heinrich Schütz – English translation by Lucy E. Broadwood, edited by Dr W. H. Harris
A2 – Non nobis, Domine – Roger Quilter (words by Rudyard Kipling)
A3 – The Lamentations of Jeremiah (The First Part) – for unaccompanied male voices (ATTBB) – Thomas Tallis, edited by Philip Brett
A4 – Sound the Trumpet – Henry Purcell (Andrew March / Patrick Castledine – trebles)
A5 – Tres Magi de Gentibus – C. S. Lang (Director of Music, Christ’s Hospital 1929 – 1946)
B1 – Hear my prayer – Felix Mendelssohn (Andrew March, treble)
B2 – Miserere (Psalm 51) – Gregorio Allegri (Andrew March, treble)
B3 – Praise the Lord for our Foundation – The Christ’s Hospital Foundation hymn – Words by The Venerable Archdeacon A. W. Upcott, D. D. Music (tune “Middleton”) by Robert Wilkinson (Director of Music, Christ’s Hospital, 1902 – 1929)
Physical Archive Details
Artwork & Liner Notes
Media Samples
miserere.org has completed a digital restoration of this album which will be published here soon.