Richard Gowers - Messiaen: La Nativite Du Seigneur - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Following on from the successful of Passacaglia on a Theme of Benjamin Britten and Other Organ Works (PFCD174-5), organist Simon Passmore returns to the organ of St. Ann's Church, Manchester, for this second volume of organ music by British composer Richard Pantcheff. This new disc comprises works for organ solo, as well as works written for organ with other instruments Violin (Benedict Holland), and Flugelhorn (Neil Fulton). The programme contains highly melodic modal works, including the Sonata for Violin and Organ (Opus 74) and it's forerunner 'Agnus Dei' (Opus 41). The more contemporary Nocturnus I (Opus 90, No. 1) for Flugelhorn and Organ is complemented here by the solo organ work which completes the Nocturnus series of compositions, Nocturnus VI (Opus 90, No. 6). Both works were completed while the composer was living in South Africa. Lastly, the six Chorale Preludes (2021/No. 2) for solo organ are here recorded in full for the first time. Written during the depths of the pandemic, these sparse, elevated, works are like icons in music where time seems to stand still, and the listener is immersed in the intense spiritual dialogue presented in the music. Simon Passmore is originally from Hexham, Northumberland. He was a chorister at Hexham Abbey where he received piano lessons from the Directors of Music, John Green and Michael Haynes, and later with Newcastle University's Head of Keyboard, David Murray. He completed a BMus at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, studying with Murray McLachlan, and went on to take a Postgraduate Diploma in Repetiteur Studies, supported by a full scholarship. Simon was Director of Music at St Ann's Church between 2015-2022, and had previously been organ scholar there from 2011, studying with the late Ronald Frost. Simon currently lives in Altrincham and works full-time at Chetham's School of Music as a staff pian

Guillaume de Machaut was born around 1300 in the environs of Reims, which at that time was a flourishing royal city with a population of almost 20,000, famous throughout Europe for it's textile workshops and trade fairs. Like most cathedrals of Western Europe, Reims is built on the site of an earlier edifice. The Rouelle altar, on the left in the nave, adjacent to the choir screen, was dedicated to the Holy Spirit. But in 1343 a magnificent statue of the Virgin Mary was placed there. In 1341 Archbishop Jean de Vienne established a plainchant Votive Mass for the Virgin, to be performed each week before the Rouelle altar. The Marian Mass was introduced by Guillaume de Machaut and his younger brother Jean as a perpetuation of the archbishop's wish, and it was for that particular liturgy, which was sung every Saturday throughout the year, that Guillaume wrote his famous polyphonic mass. The Messe de Nostre Dame, as it is called in only one of the five surviving manuscripts, is the first complete preserved polyphonic mass known to be by a single hand. It includes the five movements of the Ordinary plus the four-voice Ite missa est. The Mass is not strictly speaking a unified cycle, but there is nevertheless great coherence in it's rhythmic and harmonic languages. The succession of movements shows a broad construction and a harmonious and carefully established stylistic progression, from the Kyrie with it's strong harmonic structure to the Agnus Dei with it's melodic lyricism.

Album Tracks 1. La Nativité Du Seigneur, I / 14