Composer: Ian King
Performer: Jonathan Hope, Zechariah Oyedele, Jack Parry, Harriet Perfect, Sacha Fullerton, Deryck Webb, Catherine Perfect, Nicholas Perfect, Clive Letchford, Timothy Burton, Sebastian Field, Matthew Clark, David McKee, Gloucester Cathedral Choir
Conductor: Adrian Partington
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Somm
Catalogue: SOMMCD0649
Release: 2022
Size: 1.37 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
The Gloucester Service
01. I. Magnificat
02. II. Nunc dimittis
03. We Beseech Thee, Almighty God (Collect for the Fifth Sunday of Lent)
04. O Clap Your Hands
05. O God, Who by the Leading of a Star (Collect for Epiphany)
06. Jubilate
The Gloucester Girls’ Service
07. I. Magnificat
08. II. Nunc dimittis
09. Almighty & Everliving God (Collect for Candlemas)
10. The Christmas Truce
11. God, Who as at This Time (Collect for Whitsunday)
The St. John Passion
12. No. 1, After Jesus Had Spoken These Words
13. No. 2, So the Soldiers
14. No. 3, Then They Took Jesus
15. No. 4, Then Pilate Took Jesus
16. No. 5, So They Took Jesus
17. No. 6, Meanwhile, Standing Near the Cross
18. No. 7, Since It Was the Day of the Preparation
19. Almighty God, Give Us Grace (Collect for the First Sunday in Advent)
SOMM Recordings is delighted to announce the first recordings of church music by Ian King composed for, and performed by, Gloucester Cathedral Choir. Led by the Cathedral’s Director of Music, Adrian Partington, with Nia Llewelyn Jones, conductor of the Girls’ Choristers, and Assistant Director of Music Jonathan Hope as organist, the choir presents first recordings of 11 works composed between 2012 and 2020 by Ian King. All were first performed in the imposing surroundings of Gloucester Cathedral, where this recording was made in June 2021.
Ian King died shortly before the sessions took place but had worked closely with Adrian Partington in planning this recording and was delighted that these choral works were to be committed to recording by the choir for which they were written. The programme includes the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis commissioned for the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in 2016, a setting of the St. John Passion, specifically designed for liturgical use, and a wonderfully atmospheric realisation of Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, The Christmas Truce.
Adrian Partington commented: “I believe that in time Ian King will be recognized as a significant composer of Anglican Church Music. It has been a privilege for me to conduct all these wonderful works; I am delighted that the Gloucester Cathedral Choir has made their premiere recordings. These, and the rest of Ian’s choral output, deserve to be widely known and performed. I hope our recording will bring them to the attention of other conductors and choirs”.
This recording continues the relationship between SOMM Recordings and Gloucester Cathedral Choir. Their premiere recording of Ian Venables’ Requiem, with shorter pieces by Ivor Gurney, John Joubert and John Sanders was hailed by BBC Music Magazine as “highly commendable… luminous and majestic”, by the Daily Telegraph as “subtle but gripping”, while Choir & Organ’s five-star review declared it “intensely beautiful”.