スタンフォード: テ・デウム

スタンフォード没後100周年!
大作「テ・デウム」!

ホルストやヴォーン・ウィリアムズといった著名な作曲家を輩出したアイルランド人作曲家、サー・チャールズ・ヴィリアーズ・スタンフォード。スタンフォードの没後100周年を記念し、イギリスのLyritaからリリースされる本アルバムでは、1898年のリーズ音楽祭で初演されたおよそ45分におよぶ大作 《テ・デウム》 を収録。

ミサ曲 《ヴィア・ヴィクトリクス 1914-1918》 (SRCD382)でも、その手腕を見事に発揮したエイドリアン・パーティントン&BBCウェールズ・ナショナル管のコンビで、この偉大な作曲家の没後100周年を祝福します。
東京エムプラス

Is it too soon to speak of a Charles Villiers Stanford revival? Of course, he has always had his partisans, but for a long time, he was seen as something of a representative of the bad old days. Now, the BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales, under conductor Adrian Partington, have released several strong albums of obscure Stanford works, and people are liking them; this release made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2024. Undoubtedly the highlight here is the secular Elegiac Ode, Op. 21, composed in 1884 to a text by Walt Whitman (it is part of the larger funeral ode for Walt Whitman, When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomd). Stanford devises a flowing, somewhat mystical style for this, entirely distinct from his writing in his big Anglican anthems, and it is fascinating to hear this as a source of Ralph Vaughan Williams later engagement with Whitman. The Te Deum, Op. 66, of 1898, is closer to the characteristic big Stanford style that would have been everywhere among British choral societies a century and a quarter ago. Stanford wanted a choir of 350 singers; here, from the BBC National Chorus of Wales, one gets 150. This is a bit underpowered, but the singing and the orchestral playing are both clean and warm. Hear the choir in the "Miserere nostri" movement of the Te Deum (it is rendered as "Miserere nostril" in the tracklist). Several of the singers have very heavy vibrato, and when they get together in ensembles, the atmosphere gets a bit thick. The Lyrita labels sound at Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff is a bit boxy, but lets face it, this is how the works must often have sounded in Stanfords day, and there is a delightfully idiomatic quality to the whole performance. May there be more where this came from. ~ James Manheim