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Music heard in a church of history
By Roderic Dunnett

‘the versatile singers shared a particularly fine sense of dynamic ebb and flow’

IT WAS to the historic church of St Giles, Cripplegate, that the infant Thomas More was brought for baptism. There, Defoe worshipped, Cromwell was married, and Milton was buried, as was John Foxe, author of the Book of Martyrs. John Wesley’s grandfather served as Vicar, only to lose his living at the Restoration.

Handsomely restored after the Second World War by Godfrey Allen, and now regularly used for concerts, St Giles’s remains an oasis of reverie and reflection in the City of London’s Barbican development. It has a bracing acoustic, resonant and enhancing, which cruelly lays bare faults, but also responds warmly to singing of high quality and precision. And that is what was on offer from the admirably sung recital by the recently formed Eight: Fifteen Vocal Ensemble, conducted by Malcolm Cottle, to celebrate the 50th birthday of the composer Robert Hugill.

As a preface to Hugill’s newly composed cantata The Testament of Dr Cranmer, the choir sang anthems from both sides of the religious divide. By chance, plans used in the post-war restoration of St Giles’s date from 1545, the very year Archbishop Cranmer issued The King’s Primer, from which sprang the modified texts for anthems by Tallis and Tye, couched in the simpler musical terms promoted by Henry VIII’s Reformation.

Tye’s “I will exalt Thee” and “Deliver us, O Lord” both make use of restrained imitation, designed to ensure that the words come across with clarity, as they did superbly here. By contrast, William Mundy’s Vox Patris Coelestis, an extended anthem in the more florid Catholic tradition, which some have surmised was composed for Queen Mary’s wedding to Philip II, is a glorious outpouring of elaborate, full-blooded Renaissance polyphony, and an undoubted masterpiece.

The eight-strong choir, beautifully paced, showed impressive control and an attractive feel for seamless long line. Its intonation was near-faultless throughout; and all Eight: Fifteen’s versatile singers shared a particularly fine sense of dynamic ebb and flow. Many of these qualities were evident in Ad te levavi and Populus Sion, Advent settings drawn from Hugill’s impressive emerging series of anthems, entitled Tempus per Annum, based on the Latin introits for the Church’s year.

Here a clear sense of design, with unpretentious but interesting harmonies, a delivery by turns passionate and tender, and some yearning imitations and inspired four-part writing yielded gloriously rich and warm a cappella singing. Another, Rorate coeli desuper, with its lilting vocal lines, acquired an almost Orthodox feel.

Hugill’s setting of the collect “Lighten our darkness”, with effective contrary motion, neat parallelings, and a fine, unadorned underlay from the evening’s cello soloist, Jonathan Cottle, was illuminated by lovely spare textures, underlined by the pure singing of the choir. The soloist also furnished strikingly well articulated performances of cello works by Bach, Britten and Kodály.

The principal work, however, was Hugill’s 20-minute cantata The Testament of Dr Cranmer, also for unaccompanied voices. Enfolded by the psalm De profundis and the Lord’s Prayer sung in English and Latin, the work includes a setting of words Archbishop Cranmer is said to have uttered shortly before his execution in Oxford, when he retracted his rejection of Protestantism and reaffirmed his adherence to the reformed Church.

In places, Hugill’s clear and expressive word-setting seemed to aspire to the same kind of Protestant simplicity as that achieved by his Henrician predecessors. Perhaps too much so: ostensibly contrasted sections felt samey, both in musical demeanour and unvarying key centre. What was needed, one felt, was more arresting stylistic contrasts, so as to emphasise salient moments of the text, especially the key passage where Cranmer refers to “the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart”, and his dramatic abjuration of the Pope and reaffirmation of his views on the doctrine of the sacrament.

Yet there was plenty to admire here — not least some fine moments for upper voices at the point where Cranmer condemns his hand to burn first; intelligent pacing of the narrative; some rich, warm texturings; and a notably well-managed conclusion.

Let us hope the composer’s plans for a full-length oratorio about Archbishop Cranmer may in due course may be carried through.