BENEDICTUS op.282 (February 1979) Listen to this Work

Dramatic oratorio for tenor, speaker, chorus, solo viola and orchestra

Commissioned by: The Ditchling Choral Society with assistance from The Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust
Instrumentation: Tenor, male speaker(St. Benedict), SATB chorus, semi-chorus(opt.), trebles (opt.), solo viola. (NB the viola part is demanding and best played by a soloist separate from the orchestra. In a cathedral performance the Prelude to part 1 should be performed from the west end, the back of the nave, the Introduction to Part 2 from the central chancel screen crossing, and the Epilogue from the ambulatory behind the altar, the idea being to convey the progress of the novice.)
Orchestra: 2(=picc).1.ca.0.2 - 2220 - perc(2): timp/t.bell/xyl/2 susp.cym/cyms/glsp/SD/mar/tgl/tam-t; pno (=cel); organ (opt.); harp; strings
[Key to Abbreviations]
Note on Lyrics: Text and music by Howard Blake based on "The Rule of St Benedict" and "The Hound of Heaven" by Francis Thompson
Duration: 65 mins
First Performance: Richard Lewis (tenor), Frederick Riddle (viola), The National Philharmonic Orchestra and The Ditchling Choral Society, conducted by Janet Canetty-Clarke, Worth Abbey, May 17th, 1980
First Performance (Revised version): Robert Tear (tenor), Frederick Riddle (viola), The English Chamber Orchestra, The St. Albans Bach Choir, The Cathedral Choir and Royal College of Music chamber choir conducted by Sir David Willcocks, St Albans Cathedral, 25.1.1986

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Recordings Available

Recorded by Robert Tear (tenor),The Bach Choir, Boy Choristers of St Paul`s Cathedral, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Williams,solo viola, Sir David Willcocks,conductor, Abbey Road Studios, 1988. SONY CDHB2

Available from Highbridge

Movements

1: Prelude:Solo viola
2: Chorus:Ausculta, O filii
3: Tenor solo and chorus:Lord who shall dwell
4: Chorus:We have piped unto you
5: Tenor solo and chorus:Lord who shall dwell?
6: Chorus and tenor solo:how lovely is thy dwelling-place?
7: Chorus:Noviter veniens
8: Tenor solo and chorus:I fled him down the nights
9: Chorus:Domine scrutaris
10: Tenor solo and chorus:Suscipe me
11: Chorus:Bless the Lord
12: Chorus:Processu conversationis
13: Postlude:Solo viola

Notes

The viola prelude is available as a separate concert piece. (op.402)

Performances

17th November 2007	Martyn Hill (tenor), St.Alban's Bach Choir and Sinfonia Verdi conducted by Andrew Lucas, Cathedral & Abbey Church of St Alban, St.Alban's Herts 21st anniversary of the premiere of the revised version given in the cathedral in 1986. Also Vivaldi's 'Gloria'
1st April 2007	South West Florida Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Joseph Caulkin, Fort Myers, Florida, USA
22nd April 2006	Erskine Stuart's Melville Community Choir and orchestra led by Deirdre Smith, solo tenor Steven Griffin, solo viola Michael Beeston, conductor Norman Mitchell, Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh
7th November 2004	Darren Abrahams (tenor),Arun Choral Society, Dorset House School Boys Choir, Arundel Cathedral
13th December 2003	William Kendall (tenor),David Halls (conductor), The Rt.Revd Michael Mayne,former Dean of Westminster Abbey(speaker), orhestra & chorus of The Salisbury Music Society, Salisbury Cathedral
9th June 2001	Sara Blake (conductor) Lexden Choral Society, Colchester
18th November 2000	Cantemus Choir, The Chantry Quire, Dorset School House Choristers, Andrew Phillips (tenor), Stewart Harper (conductor), Andrew Benians, (organ), Church of the Holy Spirit, Southsea
4th November 2000	Harrogate Choral Society, Ripon Cathedral Funded by the Millenium Experience Company and relating the work to that of The Venerable Bede as part of a cultural programme for 2000
22nd May 1999	Richard Jenkinson, East Grinstead Choral Society, East Grinstead, Sussex
16th May 1998	William Kendall, David Hill, Bournemouth Sinfonietta & Winchester Cathedral Choir, Sherborne Abbey
19th October 1997	Anders Andersson, Olov Risberg, Lars Anders Tomte, Stockholm Boys Choir, St Gorans Choirs, St Gorans, Stockholm, Sweden
23rd March 1996	James Oxley, The Chichester Singers, Bedales School Choir, Southern Pro Musica, Jonathan Willcocks (cond), Chichester Cathedral
December 1995	Sir David Willcocks, Greenlake Festival, Wisconsin, USA
December 1995	Jonathan Willcocks, Chichester Cathedral
December 1994	Dr Donald Hunt (conductor), Maldwyn Davies (tenor),Thomas Holme (narrator), Scunthorpe & District Choral Society, Scunthorpe Co-operative Junor Choir, East of England Orchestra, Baths Hall, Scunthorpe An all-Howard Blake concert programme, unusually but succesfully combining 'Nursery Rhyme Overture'and 'The Snowman' with 'Benedictus' to a capacity family audience
14th May 1994	Jersey Festival Choir, Royal College of Music Orchestra, Walter Dixon (tenor), Wesley Grove Methodist Church Jersey
4th May 1994	Bridgewater & District Choral Society, St. Mary's Church Bridgewater
19th February 1994	Julian Podger (ten.), David Truslove (cond.), Romsey Choral Society, Chameleon Arts Orchestra, Romsey Abbey
7th November 1992	Crawley Concordia, Jonathan Butcher, Hawth Arts Centre, Crawley
7th November 1992	Portsmouth Choral Union, Jonathan Willcocks, Portsmouth Cathedral
22nd May 1992	Chester Bach Choir, Martyn Hill (tenor), Malcolm Bussey (conductor), Chester Cathedral
7th March 1992	Martyn Hill, Sir David Willcocks, Guildford Philharmonic Choir, Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra, Guildford Cathedral
15th December 1990	Waynefleet Singers, William Kendall, Winchester Cathedral
20th May 1990	Robert Tear, Ditchling Choral Society, Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra, Choristers of Hurstpierpoint College, Janet Canetty-Clarke (cond.), St Bartholomews Church Brighton An all-Howard Blake concert programme including the Clarinet Concerto played by Emma Johnson
2nd June 1989	The Bach Choir & the choristers of St Paul's Cathedral conducted by Sir David Willcocks, The Philharmonia, Robert Tear (tenor), The Revd. Donald Reeves (speaker), Royal Festival Hall An all-Howard Blake programme including 'Diversons for cello & orchestra' played by Stephen Isserlis conducted by the composer (first London performance)
18th March 1989	Richard Reaville (ten), Chester Bach Singers & orchestra cond. Martin Bussey, Chester Cathedral
1st March 1989	Sir David Willcocks, Abingdon choir & orchestra, Abingdon, Pennsylvania, USA
17th July 1988	Robert Tear, Bach Choir, RPO, Sir David Willcocks, Rev. John Drury, King's College Chapel, Cambridge
11th July 1988	Maldwyn Davies (ten), Sir David Willcocks, John Chambers (viola), Bach Choir, Philharmonia, Cardinal Basil Hume, choristers of Westminster cathedral, Westminster Cathedral On the Feast of St Benedict
17th May 1988	Edmund Barham, Bjarne Slogedahl, Domkirkens Mottetkor, Kristiansand Symfoniorkester, Internationale Kirkefestspill, Kristiansand, Norway
December 1987	Sir David Willcocks, choir and orchestra, Christchurch Cathedral, New Zealand
27th August 1987	Arthur Davies (ten), Dr Donald Hunt, The Festival Chorus, Three Choirs Festival, Worcester, RLPO., Worcester Cathedral
22nd June 1987	Michael Smith (cond), Llandaff Cathedral Choir & choral society, Maldwyn Davies (ten), Llandaff Cathedral
24th May 1987	Sir David Willcocks, Scottish Philharmonic Singers, BBC Scottish Orchestra, Robert Tear, Ian Aldred,, St John's Kirk Perth, Perth Festival Broadcast on BBC Radio 3, 9 August 1987
16th May 1987	Martyn Hill, Cathedral Cantata Choir, Manchester Camerata, Stuart Beer (cond.),
25th January 1986	Robert Tear, St Albans Bach Choir and Cathedral Choir, The English Chamber Orchestra, Sir David Willcocks (conductor), Frederick Riddle (solo viola), The Dean of St Alban's (speaker), St Alban's Cathedral & Abbey Church World premiere of the revised work
1st May 1985	Student choir and orchestra, Downside Abbey, Devizes
22nd August 1984	Guy Woolfenden (cond)Music Camp singers and orchestra, Pickets Farm Summer Music Camp nr Oxford
30th October 1983	Gregory Massingham, University Choir & Orchestra, St Cecilia Chorale, Howard Blake (cond.), University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia The composer visited Queensland University during September-October 1983 at the instigation of Michael Leighton-Jones, then professor of vocal studies, which gave the composer the opportunity to undertake major revision of both content and orchestration of the work
27th November 1982	Reigate & Redhill Choral Society cond. Jonathan Butcher, St Matthew's Church Redhill
22nd May 1980	Richard Lewis (tenor), National Philharmonic Orchestra, Frederick Riddle (viola), Ditchling Choral Society (director Janet Cannetty-Clark), Worth Abbey, Sussex First performance (unrevised version) for the 1500th anniversary year of St. Benedict at the suggestion of Victor Farwell Abbot of Worth

Reviews

A work inspired by St Benedict’s Rule

by Roderic Dunnett

TOP MARKS to the St Albans Bach Choir for programming the Benedictus by Howard Blake as part of a recent concert: quality revivals of recent but not regularly performed works are as valuable to a composer as the première itself.

Blake’s opus numbers now exceed those of Mozart, and he has a wide following, thanks to his enchanting music for The Snowman and for some other memorable film scores, notably for the Colin Firth and Kenneth Branagh film A Month in the Country. Based on a finely wrought, visceral story by the canny E. H. Carr, it focused on the restoration of a terrifying complete medieval Doom painting (not unlike that recently discovered in Holy Trinity, Coventry). The film was equally unforgettable for the twin cameos of Patrick Malahide as the impossible, violin-strumming incumbent the Revd Mr Keach, and the benign Jim Carter, who played the fire-breathing Methodist minister-cum-stationmaster. Blake, a composer of substance and of agreeably traditionalist leanings, has composed several large choral works that other choirs might consider for the future. The Passion of Mary, his op. 577, a reworking of his earlier Stabat Mater, calls on an additional boys’ choir, as well as a large complement of soloists. Songs of Truth and Glory was written for Donald Hunt and the Elgar Chorale, and first heard at the 2005 Three Choirs Festival. A Charter of Peace was written for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. In addition, Blake’s Christchurch Mass is for choir and organ, and he has set the Jubilate, and provided music for the Series 3 communion service. Together with this goes Blake’s skill as a synthesiser — he is not afraid to be eclectic, but he assimilates his sources confidently — and as an initiator. The shape and concept of his Benedictus is bold, and almost palindromic. Blake sets not the canticle and Psalm bearing that name, but passages from the Rule of St Benedict, which are used to preface, conclude, and intersperse a series of other Psalm settings. Psalmfest might have been an apt title (compare Leonard Bernstein); or else Symphony of Psalms, à la Stravinsky. At the centre of the work, Howard Blake sets a poem from which he clearly derives strong inspiration: 70-80 lines of Francis Thompson’s harrowing, visionary work The Hound of Hell — coincidentally reminiscent of that other, visionary Blake. Three other ingredients play a part: spoken prefaces, delivered here by the Dean, the Very Revd Dr Jeffrey John; a section in which the tenor soloist (Martyn Hill) speaks certain lines; and a striking initial instrumental passage for solo viola, later yielding to bells and organ, and here performed, to searing effect, by Fiona Bonds at the west end, the crossing, and the east end of the Abbey. By turns serene, knotty, and contrapuntally challenging, this viola sequence, as besotting as Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, has a similar intensity to the Thompson setting. Both are remarkable pieces of writing. The St Albans Bach Choir’s performance, splendidly controlled under the unflappable Andrew Lucas — crisp, undemonstrative, and capably businesslike, who graded Blake’s tempi to ideal effect — contained much to admire. From the start, the penitential character of this work, beautifully and sensitively articulated, and as piercing as similar passages in A Child of our Time, was to the fore, just as strikingly as in its Hispanic and Italianate grieving forerunners of the 16th and 17th centuries. The initial tenor outburst was superb, with some searing, angst-ridden woodwind for the unrelenting Psalm 38 (“so spent, so crushed, so beaten and bowed”). Later, Blake allows his soloist to intone, and the effect is shatteringly intense. With sensitive accompaniment — not least from some superlative woodwind — Martyn Hill’s articulation of the central section highlighted the full power of the poetry: the intensity of a pianissimo beginning: “I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him”, or the impassioned, pained desolation of “Yet was I sore adread Lest having Him, I must have naught beside.” Only in the second chorus from St Benedict, taken from the Prologue, did Blake seem to lower his guard and produce a movement perilously close to a triter kind of music. The power and invention of much of the rest ensured an enlightening and inspiring evening in the Abbey, whose stones still bear the stamp of Roman Verulamium.

Roderic Dunnett, CHURCH TIMES, 1/2008

A score written from the heart, effective and fresh.

Christopher Grier, Evening Standard, 5/6/1989

Drawing inspiration from the great traditions of the past, Benedictus belongs unmistakeably to the living tradition of inspirational choral music ...

The Catholic Herald, 9/12/1988

Benedictus ... flows directly out of the English choral style as much as it enjoys the influences of the mainstream turn-of-the-century European composers ... impassioned and sincere.

Kenneth Walton, Daily Telegraph, 5/1987

Thompson's words [inspire] some of the most turbulent and personal music in the work. Great opportunities for the tenor as the long aria works up ... to a jubilant coda for chorus of exactly the right length and weight. A serious and impressive work.

Hugo Cole, The Guardian, 4/1/1986

Benedictus is a major work to date by a musician of wide experience ... Eschewing avant-garde methods, Howard Blake relies here upon enhanced diatonicism and devotes his impressive skills to sensitive word-setting and assured pacing of the linked sections in the development of a satisfying large-scale structure in three parts. A prelude, interlude and epilogue for unaccompanied solo viola evoke the aloneness of the central character, a Novice called to the monstic life, a masterly imaginative stroke. The scoring for choir and orchestra is unfailingly effective. The music ranges through moods of despair and anguish to a final affirmation. Its moods encompass sweetness, yet avoid sentimentality, and there is plenty of lively choral music spiced with syncopated rhythms. Benedictus deserves its considerable success with choral societies and audiences. Repetition increases respect for its solid virtues and sincerity.

Music and Musicians International, 1986

Related Works

'PRELUDE FOR SOLO VIOLA' op.402 (1989)
The Prelude from "Benedictus" as a concert piece.