Bernard Rose was for decades a leading figure in English church music as both a composer and choral conductor. Most famously he was Organist and Informator Choristum at Magdalen College, Oxford between 1957 and 1981. His roll-call of pupils includes many distinguished names such as Geoffrey Bush, Gordon Crosse, Patrick Gowers, Joseph Horovitz (who contributes a generous personal tribute to the booklet), Michael Hurd and Kenneth Leighton. He formed lasting friendships with many equally noteworthy musicians amongst whom were Gerald Finzi, Herbert Howells, Leopold Stokowski and Egon Wellesz. His distinguished career is described in a most interesting booklet note by his son, Gregory Rose.<\/p>\n
Rose\u00a0fils<\/em>\u00a0has followed in the footsteps of his father by becoming a celebrated composer and choral conductor in his own right. It\u2019s fitting, therefore, that he should be the conductor of what I suspect may be the first CD devoted completely to his father\u2019s music. Be in no doubt; this album is certainly not a mere act of filial piety. All the music included here \u2013 much of it in first recordings – is well worth hearing and the performances are uniformly excellent.<\/p>\n Much of the programme is devoted to sacred music but Rose\u2019s secular output is also represented. I was very taken with\u00a0Upon Westminster Bridge<\/em>, a setting of Wordsworth\u2019s celebrated lines, \u2018Earth has not anything to show more fair\u2019. This is a captivating piece and it put me in mind of Finzi\u2019s part songs, not least in the lovely section that includes a tenor solo (\u2018Never did sun more beautifully sleep …\u2019)\u00a0If I could tell you<\/em>, an Auden setting, is another quintessential English part-song. Gregory Rose points out echoes of Vaughan Williams and Holst but, for me, Finzi\u2019s shadow also hovers in the background.<\/p>\n Bernard Rose was steeped in the English liturgical music tradition from an early age: he was a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral (1925-1931) where he also showed a precocious talent as an organist. Given this background and his long stint at Magdalen College it\u2019s scarcely surprising that church music should have been so much a feature of his compositional output. Mention of Salisbury Cathedral leads me inevitably to\u00a0Praise ye the Lord<\/em>\u00a0and the set of coincidences that are associated with the piece. It was dedicated to Douglas Guest on his appointment as Organist at the cathedral in 1950. Guest and Rose were born on the same day, studied together at Cambridge and died within three days of each other. The dedication of\u00a0Praise ye the Lord<\/em>\u00a0is a wonderful mark of friendship. It\u2019s for unaccompanied double choir and sets words from Psalm 149. The music is jubilant and rhythmically vital and the piece provides an excellent end to the programme.<\/p>\n Before that we hear two of Rose\u2019s settings of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis. The C minor set has organ accompaniment. The canticles written for Chichester Cathedral are\u00a0a capella<\/em>\u00a0and, as Gregory Rose says, have \u201cechoes\u201d of Tudor music. That said, the music is firmly of the twentieth century. In these unaccompanied canticles Rose makes ingenious use of different divisions of his choral forces so that the textures are varied and interesting.<\/p>\n For the first piece on the programme,\u00a0Feast Song for Saint Cecilia<\/em>, Bernard Rose invited Gregory to write him a text. The piece features fine, flowing vocal lines and there\u2019s a recurring and highly effective part for a solo soprano. I like very much the two Christmas pieces that Gregory Rose has selected. In particular\u00a0The Christ Child<\/em>, a setting of G.K. Chesterton is very beautiful and thoughtful, communicating very directly with the listener.<\/p>\n I enjoyed all the music on this disc. Bernard Rose is extremely well served here by the voices of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. Occasionally you can tell by the pronunciation that the choir isn\u2019t Anglophone but they sing Rose\u2019s music extremely well and Gregory Rose\u2019s direction is surely uniquely authoritative. Some of the music includes organ accompaniment which is played by Ene Salum\u00e4e. She also pays the short solo piece,\u00a0Chime<\/em>. I wouldn\u2019t say that the organ in Tallinn\u2019s Methodist church is the most compelling instrument I\u2019ve ever heard but it\u2019s perfectly serviceable. Both organ and choir are well recorded.<\/p>\n This is a fine tribute to an important figure in the music of the English church. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bernard Rose was for decades a leading figure in English church music as both a composer and choral conductor. Most famously he was Organist and Informator Choristum at Magdalen College, Oxford between 1957 and 1981. His roll-call of pupils includes many distinguished names such as Geoffrey Bush, Gordon Crosse, Patrick Gowers, Joseph Horovitz (who contributes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/efk.epcc.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhttp:\/\/www.musicweb-international.com\/classrev\/2017\/Jan\/Rose_choral_TOCC0307.htm<\/p>\n