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Five Spirituals from A Child of Our Time - Michael Tippett(1905- 1998)

In November 1938, Herschel Grynspan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew living illegally with his aunt and uncle in Paris, vainly attempted to gain official papers from the German authorities. Frustrated and angered by the persecution of his mother, he shot a German diplomat - an act which resulted in a violent pogrom in Germany. The boy was imprisoned and later disappeared after being handed over to the Nazis. Tippett used this story as the basis for his oratorio, extending the specific details into universal significance. A Child of Our Time was begun two days before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, and was completed two years later. T. S. Eliot was asked to supply the libretto, but on studying the composer's detailed synopsis he advised Tippett to write his own text. The chorus fluctuates between dramatic involvement and detached comment, and at crucial points in the drama it uses the modern equivalent of the Lutheran chorale - the Negro spiritual. The Spirituals appear at appropriate moments in the course of a Child of Our Time in much the same way as Bach introduced chorales in his cantatas and the Passions. Tippett saw spirituals as having two elements which were appropriate for inclusion in his oratorio - firstly, a simple straight forward and sincere depth of feeling which has a direct emotional appeal to the listener and secondly, the fact that the spirituals were the folk medium of the American Negroes who were also a race of people who suffered exploitation and ill-treatment.

The solo parts are sung by members of the choir.

i Steal away (Soprano: Gillian Shearer, Tenor: Nicholas Cameron)

ii Nobody knows (Soprano: Gillian Shearer, Tenor: Nicholas Cameron) 

Hymn to St. Cecilia, Op 27 Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Hymn to St. Cecilia was written in 1942 and is a setting for unaccompanied 5-part chorus (SSATB) of words by W.H.Auden. Britten was born on St Cecilia's Day 1913.

The solo parts are sung by members of the choir. Soprano: Eilidh McEwan, Mezzo: Laura Kelly, Tenor: Nicholas Cameron, Bass: Ronald Nairne.

Take Him, Earth. For Cherishing - Herbert Howells (1882 - 1983)

The motet Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing was written in June 1964 "In the honoured memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States of America". The text is taken from Hymnus circa Exsequias Defuncti by Prudentius(348-413) in a translation by Helen Waddell.

Rejoice in the Lamb, Op 30 Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Festival Cantata for Treble, Alto, Tenor, and Bass soloists, Choir and Organ. Words by Christopher Smart

Funeral Ikos - John Tavener (b. 1981)

Unaccompanied motet for six voices (SSATBB) written to a text taken from The Order for the Burial of the Dead Priests in a translation from the Greek by Isabel Hapgood.

Divo Aloysio Sacrum - James MacMillan (b 1959)

James MacMillan was born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire and read music at Edinburgh University and took Doctorate studies in composition at Durham University with John Casken. After working as a lecturer at Manchester University he returned to Scotland, settling in Glasgow where he teaches part-time at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Of Divo Aloysio he writes:

"These words are inscribed above the front door of the Jesuit church of St. Aloysius in Glasgow where I have attended Mass for a number of years. They are used in the middle section of this short motet which calls for the intercession of St. Aloysius, one of the most famous and beloved Jesuit saints. The outer sections involve a simple falling major scale which receives a constantly shifting reharmonisation at each occurrence. The middle section is constructed out of a rising scale. The work is dedicated to the choir of the church and its conductor Dan Divers!"