The performances are uniformly excellent; Stephen Layton and his Polyphony vocal ensemble have shown a previous affinity for Rutter’s work and this effort simply reaffirms their commitment to and love for this very special music. Outstanding.

7992 CD $17.98

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Voci Nobili: Britten / Rutter

Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, op. 28 Procession Wolcum Yole! There is no Rose That younge Child Balulalow As Dew in Aprille This Little Babe Interlude In Freezing Winter Night Spring Carol Deo Gracias Recession John Rutter - Dancing Day - Prelude Angelus ad virginem A Virgin most Pure Personent Hodie Interlude There is no Rose Coventry Carol Tomorrow shall be my Dancing Day

Voci Nobili’s second CD features British composers Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols and John Rutter’s Dancing Day. A Ceremony of Carols was inspired by “The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems”, and is written for treble voices and harp. The ‘carols’ are a product of 15th and 16th century writers, most of whom are anonymous. They retain their unique flavour by Britten’s extensive use of old English language in the style of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.” The piece in its entirety shows Britten’s mastery of choral music, with each movement in contrast with the next. In Dancing Day, John Rutter employs the words and melodies of six traditional carols and resourcefully exploits their various rhythmic qualities in this cycle of for SSA voices with harp or piano accompaniment.

7859 CD $15.98

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Compositions and Arrangements

Birthday Madrigals

It Was A Lover And His Lass Draw On, Sweet Night Come Live With Me My True Love Hath My Heart When Daisies Pied

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Fancies

Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred There Is A Garden In Her Face The Urchins' Dance Riddle Song Midnight's Bell The Bellboy's Song

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Five Childhood Lyrics

Monday's Child The Owl And The Pussy Cat Windy Nights Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Sing A Song Of Sixpence

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Gloria

Allegro Vivace Andante Vivace e Ritmico

9361 SONGBOOK $11.95

9362 SONGBOOK $11.95

An Interview With JOHN RUTTER (Classic Magazine)

Britain's best loved living composer? Quite possibly. John Rutter tells Jeremy Nicholas about the attractions of America, staying out of the critical firing line and taking a peek at John Tavener's notes at school…

IIf you sing in a choir - church or choral society - it is a mathematical certainty that you will have sung something by John Rutter. Be it anthem, carol, hymn or his much-loved Requiem, John Rutter's choral man who has given choirs music is ubiquitous. It is now part of the fabric. Singers will tell you 'Oh, we're doing the Rutter this year' just as casually as they might say 'we're doing the Faure'(in the Requiem's first six months, no less than 500 orchestral parts were hired in America alone). It was Rutter's music that opened the service of thanksgiving for the centenary of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at St Paul's Cathedral in July; it was another Rutter work which closed it. He is a great-grand-pupil of that other great choral composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, a fact of which he is justly proud. While he continues to compose, the English choral tradition stretching back to Byrd and Tallis is in safe hands. Here is man who has givren choirs all over the world some of the most accessible and beautiful liturgical works of the last 40 years, standing resolutely against the ghastly. musical inanities of the charismatic movement.

In addition to his composing activities he is a shrewd businessman with publishing and recording interests. His own works are recorded and published but he has his finger on the pulse when it comes to what choral societies need in general. A few years ago he compiled for Oxford University Press a huge volume of popular opera choruses so that societies could do their "opera gala nights" with reference to just the one book rather than sourcing individual publishers for complete opera scores. In a country that used rightly and routinely to award knighthoods to the organists of our major cathedrals, it says something of changing priorities and the British attitude to music that Rutter's name has not appeared on any honors list. Though it will embarrass such a modest man to read this, the lack of official recognition for John Rutter is a disgrace.


IN: The R.E.D. Classical Catalogue lists nearly 70 recorded Rutter works.

JR: Golly!

Far more than most of your contemporaries. And the most recorded is Shepherd's Pipe Carol.

[laughs] Gosh. I'd no idea. Well, the Shepherd's Pipe Carol was almost the first thing I wrote that was published. Every composer wants to write the Great Masterpiece but I started the opposite way round. I wasn't experienced in writing in big forms, so I thought if I write something big and ambitious at eighteen - which I was at the time -it will probably fall flat on its face. If I start small, then even if it's terrible, it will only be terrible for three minutes. I was in the choir at my school in High gate, North London, at an absolutely incredible time. Among my immediate contemporaries were John Tavener, Nicholas Snowman who now runs Glyndebourne, Howard Shelley, David Cullen, who's Andrew Lloyd Webber's orchestrator and a string of others.

What came out of that was that it seemed natural to compose -and we all did. The annual carol service was a highlight -John [Tavener] and I would write a carol each year and compare notes -so carols and singing were part of the furniture. That's where the Shepherd's Pipe Carol came from.

You went to Cambridge where Sir David Willcocks must have been an influence?

Oh yes. I was a member of his harmony and counterpoint class and after one such class he asked me to stay behind at the end, and I thought 'Oh God what have I done wrong?' And he said [good imitation of Sir David] '1 understand you've been writing some Christmas carols. Would you bring them to my rooms tomorrow morning? Shall we say nine o'clock?' So I went along shaking like a leaf, thinking he was going to ask me to leave the country, and he looked over these manuscripts which included the Shepherd's Pipe Carol and he said 'Would you be interested in them being published? ' And I really was gob smacked. He was an editor with the Oxford University Press. Well, two days later they offered me a contract and they have been my publishers ever since. That was in 1967. So not only was David an influence like that, but I learned a great deal from him and we remain friends to this day.

And he taught you something about being a businessman'?

I never meant to be. I conducted my first recording in 1966 for EMI while I was a student at Clare College -in fact it's still in the catalogue [Carols from Clare]. I made some other records but never had a 'home' label. When I was Director of Music at Clare in the mid-1970s, we were the very first mixed chapel choir in the University. I left in 1979 after four very happy years because I simply did not have enough time to compose, but didn't realize how much I would miss having a regular choir. That's how The Cambridge Singers came about, singers with the common background of Cambridge, and by having my own label, of course I had more control over what was recorded and how.

What inspired the repertoire for your latest release?

It's really a personal collection of favorites, ones that have been with me, in most cases, since I was a kid and which are part of my mental furniture. I wanted to express how I felt about the richness of this legacy.

It's a wonderful mix of styles and textures -and you do some tremendous last verse harmonies

[laughs] Well, when you've got a big hymn on a festival occasion, it should be just like the cup final with that crescendo at the end!

Were your parents musical?

No, my father was an organic chemist and my grandfather was a marine engineer in Newcastle-on- Tyne. My mother wanted to be an actress and was said to have some talent, but after the war, you know, kids came along, so she stayed home.

Brothers and sisters?

I have a sister who is a translator. 10 years younger than me, so I was quite a solitary child. But my parents had an old upright in the flat which was only there because it was too big to get downstairs. I think it had been winched in through the window -it belonged to a previous occupant -and they couldn't get it out. And I used to climb up and play this thing -and ordinary old steam piano -not scales and arpeggios like you're meant to, but my own tunes. I would go into a kind of fantasy world and improvise these little pieces for hours and hours, singing and playing on my own, immensely happy. And then I also sang in the choir at Primrose Hill. So the music came from church and school, not family.

Tell me about the director of music at High gate, Edward Chapman [ 1902-81 I. He sounds like an extraordinary man.

Yes. He came from very humble origins, won a scholarship to Pembroke College in the 1920s, studied with Dr Charles Wood [a pupil of Stanford], and put himself through the FRCO without any tuition. He very quickly went to High gate where he stayed for 40 years. Under him we regularly won. Let The People Sing, we sang in the first Mahler cycle in the 1960s under Berthold Goldschmidt, bless him, and then ]ascha Horenstein. We sang on the historic recording of the Britten War Requiem [in 1963] with Fischer-Dieskau, Galina Vishnevskaya and Peter Pears and conducted by the composer in King sway Hall.

You're very thin on the ground as a conductor over here.

I don't do it. On purpose.

But you do In America.

I get asked to conduct a certain amount abroad and I happily do that. But then I like to come home and keep a low profile, because composers work in the shadows and that's fine. And if I started ail that stuff of getting an agent and soliciting conducting work, then, assuming that agent was successful, I would find my time being .swept up with conducting -and that's something I don't want to do.

Then what tempts you over to America?

Well, the conditions are wonderful. And I can go over and be someone else for a few days and then come home and be private. That suits me very well -I enjoy conducting, I enjoy audiences, the excitement and risk of performance, but I wouldn't want it all the time. Too much of it and I wouldn't get much composition done. Plus people in Europe have a suspicion of all-rounders and, here, I don't want to confuse the focus of what I do.

Is that also a kind of self-defense against the attitude to your music in this country from certain quarters?

I do think that the sort of music I write tends to get attacked by the critics -if they take any notice of it at all -because it is too accessible. The fact is that I purposely write in a fairly straightforward way, so that whatever I'm saying, you can tell what I'm saying first time. I thought a very long time ago I would devote my energies to writing the sort of music that doesn't get reviewed, so I've kept out of the critics way and they've kept out of mine. Even though there's been a change and more accessible music is now acceptable, I don't belong in the concert world. But that leaves me with a lot of areas in which I can operate -, practical church music, choral music, music for schools, even a flirtation with the media. I Thoroughly enjoyed writing for TV back in the 1970s. But it's difficult to do both. Richard Rodney Bennett's managed it -and, incidentally, I do think it fascinating that he has taken refuge in New York, Harrison Birtwistle in France and Maxwell Davies on a remote Scottish island.

Is there a musical establishment that they want to get away from?

What are they afraid of? Is it something unfriendly at the heart of the British musical establishment? I don't say I've run away, but I've kept out of the way of the firing line. I'm all for a spectrum in the end. We all have a place and I think everybody deserves a hearing. I think it's a shame if the tide of fashion is against you, so you feel it's useless to compose because you're just going to get attacked or belittled for it. I knew William Walton slightly and he was deeply, deeply hurt -almost crippled as a composer -by the attacks that had been made on him.

You've said that you never wanted 'to write music that would be remarked upon for its originality'. Nevertheless, there is a distinct Rutter sound. How would you characterize it?

Well, someone said to me just last week -we were performing my Requiem which, by the nature of its subject, is contemplative - she said, 'It's funny, your music makes me cry but they're not unhappy tears. Even in the sad bits there seems to be a sense of joy and solace', Someone else said, 'Your music touches peoples' hearts', If that were true, the two nicest compliments would be that and, even if someone didn't like my music, to say I was a good craftsman

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Spreading Good Cheer

Dec. 17, 2003

Choirmaster John Rutter is an English composer who writes more Christmas carols and choral music than just about anyone on earth. CBS Correspondent Vicki Mabrey found the maestro in a small church in Edinburgh, Scotland, giving singing lessons.

“You don’t realize how good it is until you’ve tried it,” says Rutter. “It is wonderful to go to a choral concert, to hear a choir sing. But I think the deepest joy of all is to actually sing.”

Rutter holds these singing days about 20 times a year. “When I agree to do these, I make just one condition, which is that anybody is welcome,” he says. “So long as they are willing to come and bring their voice, they’re welcome.”

The cost of admission: donation to charity. Singing lessons from the master: priceless.

After a full day of tinkering, fine-tuning and some candid critique, these people – who’d never sung together – sounded amazing.

How does Rutter get the sound that he wants? “Communication through body language or through face language perhaps seems to take over,” he says. “There’s a kind of alchemy or magic and if I probe into it too deeply maybe I’ll lose it.”

His requiem was performed recently at Trinity Church in Boston. His works, large and small, are known for their sing-ability. And it begins with just him and his grand piano at this cottage hidden in the English countryside. This is where the extrovert turns inward.

Rutter is first and foremost a composer. He writes a lot of his own lyrics, but also combs books of old poems and sets them to music. He spends hours alone here, playing with sound. But Christmas carols are his trademark. They’re especially popular here in America.

What is it about his music that appeals to people, especially in the heartland of America?

“Maybe it touches people's hearts … perhaps that's why it gets so widely done,” says Rutter.

He’s a prolific writer of carols – that’s where he makes a good deal of his money. And his latest was for the choir at Washington’s National Cathedral. After just five days of composing, Rutter sent “Rejoice And Be Merry” to Washington, where it debuted last week.

“That’s the moment we all live for, because when you sitting composing something, there’s the sheet of paper and there’s the perfect tape playing in your head of the piece that you’re writing,” says Rutter.

“But anybody watching you hears nothing. And of course, you write it down and then you pass that along to the performers and when you have that magic moment you just give them the downbeat and baaah!” Rutter was a musical prodigy, and he was writing at the family piano before he was old enough to go to school. His musical talent gained him entry to Cambridge University, and the choir at Clare College.

Choirs are a tradition at Cambridge, and their haunting chords have echoed across the campus for centuries. Rutter not only sang, he wrote his first works while he was a student. These works caught the attention of his professor, Sir David Willcocks, one of England’s most renowned choir directors.

“I think he was the most gifted composer of his generation. And he showed remarkable facility at an early age,” says Willcocks, who gave Rutter his big break, and convinced Oxford Press to publish his work.

“They thought, ‘Is it right to have such a young man?” So I said, ‘Yes, believe me, you’ll be proud to be associated with him in years to come.’”

One of Rutter’s first hits was “The Shepherd’s Pipe Carol,” written when he was just 19.

But not everyone loves his music. He’s been criticized, especially in England, for being too saccharine – tunes so sweet, as one critic said, that they were all but trail fairy dust.

“Some people say, ‘Well that’s too much heart-on-sleeve.’ Or, ‘You know, there’s not enough there,’” says Rutter. “What can you say? You can’t please everybody. It should be written in gold letters above every composer’s bed.” Although he’s gained an international reputation, Rutter’s career has centered around Clare Chapel and its choir.

For several years after college, he was the choir director. He got married there, and his oldest son, Christopher, was baptized there as well.

Christopher followed in his father’s footsteps, and sang in the choir. But in 2001, right after choir practice, Christopher was struck by a car and killed - it happened just outside Clare Chapel. His funeral was held a week later, in Clare Chapel.

“The sadness, of course, never goes. Anyone who’s been bereaved knows you never really get over it,” says Rutter. “I think anybody who’s experienced what our family has knows that it draws you closer together, and perhaps from that closeness comes a sense of inspiration.”

For two years, Rutter couldn’t find the inspiration. But when he finally emerged, he wrote “Mass Of The Children.”

And although he plumbs the bible for many of his lyrics – surprisingly, he says he’s not a religious man: “I don’t think you have to be religious, or at any rate to seek promote religious faith, to write good religious music.”

So does this mean that he’s more spiritual than strictly religious?

“Yes, I think that's how I would put it,” says Rutter, who has kicked off the holidays rehearsing choirs for a performance of Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall. In the next few weeks, during his busy season, he will visit great halls and churches from America to Europe to the Caribbean.

“I love Christmas. It’s the child in me,” says Rutter. “Maybe I’ve never quite grown up. I still feel just for those few magic days a year, that we have the world as it might be.”


© MMIII, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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