EdinburghGuide.com
I write having just this moment finished choosing the music for this year’s ‘Festival Worship’, the feast of sacred music which will enhance the services in August, and am so excited I would like to share it with you!
As you know, St John’s maintains the three principal choral services of the Scottish Episcopal tradition every week, Matins, Eucharist and Evensong and this August the music across these services covers some 400 years and includes among its treats a first performance and a whole day devoted to the music of Giovanni Gabrieli, the maestro di cappella of St. Mark’s, Venice who died 400 years ago this year and who raised the art of cori spezzati - literally ‘spaced choirs- to its zenith.
St. John’s has one of Edinburgh's leading church choirs and attending Choral Matins here is a treat
(The Independent)
Matins (9.30am), the morning ‘call to prayer’ features no less than three anniversaries including that of John Ireland, who died 50 years ago and whose canticles and most famous anthem, Greater Love opens our Festival Worship, and the organ music of Leon Boëllmann, whose anniversary has inspired the programming Jean Huré's subtle Te Deum and Fauré's ever-popular Cantique de Jean Racine. The motoric rhythms and pungent harmonies of Hutchings' St. John's, Edinburgh Service, specially dedicated to the Choir of St. John’s and Dove's show-stopper Seek him that maketh the seven stars enliven the final Matins of the Festival.
If you come to Eucharist (10.30am), these days the main service of the day, you will hear Rheinberger's gloriously romantic Mass for double choir, Cantus Missae, written in defiance of the restrictive ideals of the Caecilian movement, Bob Chilcott's A Little Jazz Mass with its toe-tapping rhythm, drums and bass and a world premiere in John Hoyle's Missa Brevis. Over the last few years the Choir of St. John's has built a good relationship with this composer, which has been recognised in this lyrical, vibrant mass and his kind dedication to me.
While the first Sunday of August is devoted to the Launch of the Festival of Spirituality & Peace, later in the month you can Evensong (6.00pm), which has a distinctive spiritual quality all of its own. While much of the music we will perform during August originates from around the world, for Evensong on 19th August it's all firmly in-house. There's music by three members of the Choir including world premieres of Peter Silver's Responses and my own festival anthem, I saw, and Lo, a Whirlwind, coupled with canticles by a former Professor at Edinburgh University. Three major English composers - Finzi, Holst and Tippett - all combine in our final Evensong of the Festival.
I finish with news of our 'festival-within-a-festival' and our celebration of the music of the Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli. As I mentioned earlier he was maestro di cappella of St. Mark’s, Venice. An architectural feature of St. Mark’s is the choir lofts high on either side of the altar which led to a musical style known as cori spezzati. The sound from these choirs would project back and forth across the building, coming together at moments of greatest impact. Music for 4, 8 and 12 part forces is the order of the day here and the fame of this
spectacular music spread across Europe, with numerous musicians coming to Venice to hear it, absorb it and take it back to their countries.
Sunday 12th August 2012 is the 400th anniversary to the day of the death of Gabrieli. I am delighted we will be joined by the early instruments of the Scottish Gabrieli Consort during the morning services- a collection of cornets, sackbuts, early violins, curtails and more! Come to St. John's and hear what all the fuss was about!
Stephen Doughty
Director of Music, St. John's
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