"The Little Church Around the Corner"
One East 29th Street, New York
MUSIC NOTES:
The Solemnity of
St. Michael & All Angels
September 30, 2001
Harold Edwin Darke (1888-1976) is a leading figure in the revival of
Anglican church music that began around the end of the 19th century
and continues to the present day. Darke received his formal training
at the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with
Charles Villiers Stanford, and later at Oxford. His career was
centered in London, and for 50 years (1916-66) he was organist at
St. Michael's Church, Cornhill, and gained an international reputation
as a concert organist. Among his many choral compositions,
the Mass in F, written in 1926 for the composer's home parish,
is one of his best known works. Restraint, reflectiveness and
clarity of text are the hallmarks of Darke's liturgical music, and
these qualities abound in the Mass in F. One's sense of the
composition being grounded in the key of F is often undermined by
excursions into modal harmony, lending the work a certain gravity and
ethereal quality that composers of this period often sought for
liturgical music.
Sir Edward Bairstow (1874-1946) was a contemporary of Harold Darke,
and worked in the same framework of a vigorous revival of English
church music. In 1913 he was appointed to York Minister as organist
and choirmaster, a position he held for the rest of his life.
The text for his splendid anthem Let all mortal flesh keep silence
is taken from the orthodox Liturgy of St. James, and speaks directly
to today’s celebration of the feast of St. Michael and All Angels.
Musically, the text draws on orthodox choral traditions, such as the
tenor and bass singing in octave unison, and word-painting such as when
upper voices only sing the words and lift itself above all earthly thought.
There is a gradual build-up of tension to the dramatic declamatory
Alleluias, and then, arc-like, the piece moves back towards the haunting
and subdued sonority of its opening.
Sir Edward Bairstow (1874-1946) was a contemporary of Harold Darke, and worked in the same framework of a vigorous revival of English church music. In 1913 he was appointed to York Minister as organist and choirmaster, a position he held for the rest of his life. The text for his splendid anthem Let all mortal flesh keep silence is taken from the orthodox Liturgy of St. James, and speaks directly to today’s celebration of the feast of St. Michael and All Angels. Musically, the text draws on orthodox choral traditions, such as the tenor and bass singing in octave unison, and word-painting such as when upper voices only sing the words and lift itself above all earthly thought. There is a gradual build-up of tension to the dramatic declamatory Alleluias, and then, arc-like, the piece moves back towards the haunting and subdued sonority of its opening.
