*BENEDICTUS
op.282
(May 1980)
Dramatic oratorio for tenor, speaker, chorus, solo viola and orchestra commissioned by Victor Farwell, Abbot of Worth, for the 1500th anniversary of St. Benedict of Nursia b.480 AD
Published by: Highbridge Music Ltd
Commissioned by: Victor Farwell, Abbot of Worth, for the 1500th anniversary of St. Benedict of Nursia b.480 AD
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 compiled by the composer from "The Rule of St Benedict" and "The Hound of Heaven" by Francis Thompson (see Lyrics)
Duration: 65
mins
First Performance: First performance, unrevised version: Richard Lewis (tenor), The National Philharmonic Orchestra leader Sidney Sax, solo viola Frederick Riddle, Ditchling Choral Society conducted by Janet Canetty-Clarke, Worth Abbey, May 17th, 1980
World Premiere, final revised version: Robert Tear, St. Albans Bach Choir, Cathedral Choir and Royal College of Music chamber choir, English Chamber Orchestra (solo viola Frederick Riddle), Sir David Willcocks (conductor), speaker The Dean of St. Alban's; St Albans Cathedral, January 25th 1986
Sheet Music Available
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Recordings Available
Benedictus
Released: 1989
Recorded: 1989
Artists: Robert Tear (tenor), Andrew Williams (viola), The Bach Choir, Boy choristers of St. Paul's Cathedral, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir David Willcocks
Available from:
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Sony Classical
*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, Amazon and dealers
The full text is available on request
*In 2015 the 12'' vinyl LP has been re-released on ESPRIT, 27 years after its original recording for Sony
Reviews
The Benedictine Order has today spread far from its sixth-century origin on Monte Cassino; and among its present monasteries is that of Worth Abbey in Sussex. Living nearby in the 1970s Howard Blake wrote some music for the Abbey, and became fascinated by the contribution of the Abbey's acoustics to that music. Now comes further music of larger scope, using St Benedict, the Psalms, Francis Thompson and the composer's own words for collective text. And the resulting music turns out to be ideally suited to its purpose: those parents whose children's affection for The Snowman has persuaded them to swear that Blake's music must for sanity's sake never darken their doors again should consider recantation!
If they do they will find greatly different music; though equally skilled, equally suitable for its particular subject. That is, in the present case, moving, devotional, beautiful. The music is also expounded beautifully by the performers concerned: solo tenor, solo viola, chorus, and orchestra. Further, it is very well recorded.
Is the record in line, then, for the warmest possible of recommendations, for the final accolade? No, it is not, for one reason only: the type in the accompanying booklet is so absurdly small that it is well nigh impossible to read.'
Gramaphone Magazine,
2018
Conductor and choir director Jonathan Butcher took the initiative in giving the second performance of Howard Blake’s 'Benedictus' which re-kindled new interest in the work, resulting in it establishing itself as one of the twentieth century’s major oratorios.
Jonathan Butcher,
website conductor and choral director Jonathan Butcher,
2015
First performances and works by twentieth century composers include Peter Maxwell-Davies – Violin Concerto, Roger Steptoe – ‘Cello Concerto with Alexander Baillie, Alan Ridout – Flute and Harp Concerto (World Premiere), Malcolm Williamson – Concerto Grosso. Jonathan took the initiative in giving the second performance of Howard Blake’s Benedictus, which re-kindled new interest in the work, resulting in it establishing itself as one of the twentieth century’s major oratorios. He also conducted the first performance of Wilfred Joseph’s Overture – ‘High Spirits.’ He gave the second performance of Barry Russell’s ‘Town and Country,’ which was first performed at the 2002 Promenade concerts and he premiered a new song cycle by Marcus Barcham Stevens ‘Lost to the Beloved.’ Jonathan also gave the first public performance of the newly discovered ‘Air on a theme of Purcell’ by Gordon Jacob.
Jonathan Butcher,
Havant Orchestra,
2013
The rest of the concert was given over to Howard Blake’s Benedictus. This is a large-scale work for chorus, chamber choir, tenor soloist and narrator, as well as viola soloist to open and close the work.
The opening solo viola prelude (representing the novice monk), played with great skill and passion by Rosalind Ventris, was beautiful. The words of St Benedict were given by the narrator, before the first chorus entry starting with plainsonginspired settings before opening out into the rich palette of Blake’s more usual orchestration, which is very much in the English tradition of Vaughn Williams, Howells and Walton.
A lush and beautiful sound washing around the cathedral, with the hallmark glockenspiel ringing out on the top of the orchestral textures.
There was fantastic singing from the Chamber Choir and jewel-like sparse moments of harp and winds gently accompanying.
William Kendall (tenor) seemed to be having some problems and could have done with more power in the richer orchestrated sections. The balance and feel was better in the section for tenor and chamber choir only.
The last tenor and chorus number had a dramatic ending before we were regaled with the last ‘sermon’ and the closing chorus.
Finally, Rosalind Ventris gave the postlude on viola – this time standing on the soloists’ podium, and, as in her previous sections, the playing was fabulous.
Howard Blake was in the audience and took a deserved bow, but somehow the work seemed too disparate overall.
Perhaps with a passionate actor speaking Benedict’s words and a bravura tenor, the whole thing could work and hang together more coherently. But a brave attempt at a modern oratorio from SMS.
Sarah Collins,
Salisbury Journal,
31/12/2012
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
The Benedictine Order has today spread far from its sixth-century origin on Monte Cassino; and among its present monasteries is that of Worth Abbey in Sussex. Living nearby in the 1970s Howard Blake wrote some music for the Abbey, and became fascinated by the contribution of the Abbey's acoustics to that music. Now comes further music of larger scope, using St Benedict, the Psalms, Francis Thompson and the composer's own words for collective text. And the resulting music turns out to be ideally suited to its purpose: those parents whose children's affection for The Snowman has persuaded them to swear that Blake's music must for sanity's sake never darken their doors again should consider recantation!
If they do they will find greatly different music; though equally skilled, equally suitable for its particular subject. That is, in the present case, moving, devotional, beautiful. The music is also expounded beautifully by the performers concerned: solo tenor, solo viola, chorus, and orchestra. Further, it is very well recorded.
Is the record in line, then, for the warmest possible of recommendations, for the final accolade? No, it is not, for one reason only: the type in the accompanying booklet is so absurdly small that it is well nigh impossible to read.'
Gramaphone,
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
Saturday 15th September 2012 Originally printed in the
20th March 1987
issue of the Catholic Herald Keywords: David Willcocks, The Bach Choir, Howard Blake, Worcester Cathedral, Three Choirs Festival, Willcocks, Entertainment / Culture Topics: Entertainment / Culture Organisations: People: Robert Tear, David Willcocks, Howard Blake, Encore Encore! more performances of Howard Blake's oratorio
FOLLOWING the successful performance of Howard Blake's dramatic oratorio "Benedictus" in St Albans Cathedral in January, five further major performances are now scheduled: Manchester Cathedral May 16 1987; Perth Festival May 24 1987 (First Broadcast Peformance, with Sir David Willcocks and Robert Tear); Llandaff Cathedral June 1987; Three Choirs Festival at Worcester Cathedral August 27 1987 and Westminster Cathedral July 11 1988 (First London Performance with Sir David Willcocks, when the Cathedral celebrates the Feast of St Benedict The Bach Choir and Maldwyn Davies).
The vocal score is available from Faber Music.
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Catholic Herald,
20/3/1987
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