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New College chapel
Under Edward Higginbottom’s leadership, the Choir of New College Oxford has gained a worldwide reputation and is known particularly for its stylish performances of Renaissance and Baroque music. Despite this high musical profile, with many recording commitments and a full programme of concerts in this country, on the continent of Europe and further afield, it is still recognisably what New College’s founder, William of Wykeham, envisaged in the fourteenth century: a choir of sixteen choristers and clerks whose duty was, and still is, to provide a sung liturgy in one of the grandest chapels to be built in Oxford.
The Choir has appeared a number of times at the BBC Proms, and in recent years has performed to audiences in Australia, Brazil, Japan, the Low Countries, France, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Singing 'Messiah' in Rome, October 2004
Recordings (over 70 CDs currently available) range from specialist collections (such as the compilation of sacred music drawn uniquely from the Archives of Malta Cathedral) to anthologies of choral music (such as Agnus Dei, which has sold over 300,000 copies worldwide). The Choir collaborated with The King’s Consort in its recordings for Hyperion of Handel oratorios and the complete sacred music of Henry Purcell. Another facet of the Choir’s recording activities is its series of five a cappella Renaissance Masterpieces CDs featuring some of the great polyphonists of the 16th century. The series, recorded for Collins Classics, has recently been reissued on the CRD label.
Copland and his contemporaries
The Choir’s most recent release is the third CD in Avie’s Twentieth-century Masters series. Copland and his American contemporaries is a disc of American choral music written in the last 50 or so years and includes Stravinsky’s Mass for choir and double wind quintet. The first disc of the series, Poulenc and his French contemporaries, includes Poulenc’s Mass in G, and works by Messiaen and Villette. The second, MacMillan and his British contemporaries, consists of music composed in the last 40 years or so and includes works by John Joubert, Tarik O’Regan and Ryan Wigglesworth which were written for the Choir and were first performed in New College chapel. The series was recorded as a result of the Choir’s recent exploration of 20th-century choral music.
The most prestigious recent recording is Handel’s Messiah, released on the Naxos label in early October. This recording provides the only modern reconstruction of Handel’s 1751 London performances when he used boy trebles not only for the choruses but also for the arias.
Another CD celebrating music performed in New College Chapel is Evensong at New College Oxford, a recording of a full evensong, including introit, responses, psalms, anthems and hymns—as well as the well-loved G major setting of the canticles by Stanford. In addition to presenting an aural picture of the Choir’s daily function in chapel during the eight weeks of University Term, the recording commemorates the six hundredth anniversary of the death of the College’s founder, William of Wykeham. The CD booklet contains articles on William of Wykeham, the Choir and music at New College.
The Georgian Anthem, recently released on the CRD label, includes music by Attwood (Come, Holy Ghost), Battishill, Crotch, Walmisley and Samuel Wesley. This CD complements an earlier recording on the Meridan label of works by Boyce, Greene and Hayes (former organist of New College), and other choir recordings released by CRD Records of works by Boyce and Greene.
A very prestigious earlier release, recorded over a period of some eighteen months and sung in German, is Bach’s St John Passion. The recording is unique in that all the soloists, including James Gilchrist (Evangelist) and James Bowman, have at one time sung in New College Choir. Another important recording for the Choir was the world première recording of Pergolesi’s Marian Vespers (Erato). This is an imaginative reconstruction of music that may have formed part of a great service of thanksgiving in Naples on 31 December 1732 celebrating the city’s recovery from an earthquake.
