パリー: 告別の歌

名門ウェストミンスター寺院の聖歌隊!

世界遺産にも指定されている英国国教会の教会、ウェストミンスター寺院の聖歌隊は、30名の少年合唱と12名のプロの成人歌手からなる合唱団で、教会聖歌隊の最高峰として知られています。プロの歌手によるLay Vicarsには、ロビン・ブライズ、マーク・ドーベル、ロバート・マクドナルドなど世界的名歌手も名を連ねています。

かつてウェストミンスター大聖堂聖歌隊の音楽監督としても活躍した名合唱指揮者、ジェームズ・オドンネルとウェストミンスター寺院聖歌隊によるニュー・アルバム。パリーの「告別の歌」(Songs of farewell)を中心に、パリーに捧げられたスタンフォードの「8声のマニフィカト」、そしてアラン・グレイやチャールズ・ウッドの作品を含む、第一次世界大戦期の感動的で表現豊かな音楽を歌います。
東京エムプラス

The Songs of Farewell, to canonical texts by various British poets, were written during World War I and finished shortly before Parrys death in 1918 from the Spanish flu. Of course, he was not planning to get that dread disease, and interpretations that make these unaccompanied choral works too death-haunted may go astray. There is a typically gorgeous recording circulating from the small choir Tenebrae, but this more classical reading by the Westminster Abbey Choir under James ODonnell may be preferable, even if it must yield to Tenebrae in the matter of text intelligibility: your mileage may vary. ODonnell has the advantage of being able to produce a sound thats likely to be closer to what Parry had in mind. The work was premiered at the Royal College of Music by the Bach Choir, a giant Victorian and Edwardian body that included hundreds of singers and was at home in the great choral festivals of the era. ODonnell and the Westminster Abbey Choir pair the Songs of Farewell with typical and rather neglected choral pieces of the era from Charles Villiers Stanford (the big double-choir Magnificat, written in Parrys memory, is an especially nice find), Charles Wood, and Alan Gray, whereas with Tenebrae, more modern pieces are mixed in. Hyperions sound from All Hallows, Gospel Oak in London, is another attraction, for ODonnells organ rumbles suitably. This recording sounds like a performance from a hundred years ago, and thats exactly how it should sound.