Edward Bairstow was a composer associated with English churches in the early part of the last century; he later taught at Durham University, where one of his students was Gerald Finzi. He has almost been forgotten, but this attractive disc by the Choir of St. John's College Cambridge under David Hill makes a case for his revival among lovers of Anglican church music. The nine selections here include a cappella, organ-accompanied, and orchestral music. Bairstow succeeds better in the smaller dimensions; although the Five ...
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Edward Bairstow was a composer associated with English churches in the early part of the last century; he later taught at Durham University, where one of his students was Gerald Finzi. He has almost been forgotten, but this attractive disc by the Choir of St. John's College Cambridge under David Hill makes a case for his revival among lovers of Anglican church music. The nine selections here include a cappella, organ-accompanied, and orchestral music. Bairstow succeeds better in the smaller dimensions; although the Five Poems of the Spirit (1944) offer heartfelt responses to seventeenth century English religious poetry like Sir Walter Raleigh's marvelous "Purse and Scrip," Bairstow was not a terribly interesting orchestrator. Most attractive are the two Evening Services, in D major and G major, with organ. Bairstow integrates the heavily chromatic language of late Romantic organ music into his more modest setting, often setting dense organ lines in antiphony with lyrical choral lines setting the...
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