A Pageant of Human Life

Granville Bantock

Perhaps reflecting our English connections–our founder and now our fourth conductor are Britons–a significant part of the Chamber Chorus’s repertoire has been written by composers working in the British tradition. A prime example of this is Sir Granville Bantock, friend and colleague of Elgar, who dominated the music of the British Isles in the early years of the 20th century. This recording presents a comprehensive survey of his work for unaccompanied voices, mixed, male and female. Though Bantock died in 1946, many of his choral pieces receive their world premiere recording here, and thus maintain the Chamber Chorus’s reputation for championing both neglected and brand new music. Evidence of this advocacy may be found on the disc St. Louis Commissions, which, like this CD, was released by Regent Records of England.
Once again, Regent’s chief producer Gary Cole flew to St. Louis to supervise the recording sessions, which were engineered by Barry Hufker, one of St. Louis’ preeminent sound engineers. The spacious and clean acoustic of Our Lady of Sorrows Church was the setting for the recording, made over four nights in November 2008. For the title work of the disc, A Pageant of Human Life, the Chorus were joined by choristers from Parkway North High School, as well as members of the Washington University Concert Choir. The latter also joined the Chorus in the premiere recording of Darest Thou Now, O Soul.

The musical language of Bantock is immediately approachable, and yet not simplistic. His broad literary tastes are clear from the range of poets he chose to set, from Sophocles to Walt Whitman, and there can few composers more sensitive to the natural rhythms and inflection of the text. Selections on the disc include intimate four part settings, like The Isles of Greece, richly layered writing in eight parts, as in The Silent West, and a Whitman ‘choral symphony’ fragment for sixteen voices. Bantock’s aptitude for different vocal combinations is explored, from women’s voice alone (The Happy Isle), to men’s (Three Browning Songs), and children’s and adults’ mixed voices.

Bantock’s penchant for all things Hebridaean and Celtic is represented by the poignant Mermaid’s Croon, and The Lake-Isle of Innisfree; and for the purely exotic, by The Golden Journey to Samarkand. His rich harmonic palette and gift for melody are heard to particularly good effect in Requiem, a setting by Robert Louis Stevenson, while They That Go Down To The Sea In Ships, his testimony to the victims of the S.S. Titanic disaster, is remarkable for its restraint and solemnity.

This disc is accompanied by a booklet containing both texts and translations, together with an historical essay on Bantock and his music by the Chorus’ conductor Philip Barnes. The cover art is taken from a contemporary cigarette card issued by Wills Tobacco of great figures in English music, and additional photographs inside the booklet accompany descriptions of the individual tracks and the performers.

For sound samples of selected tracks, click on the title to hear the first 45 seconds of the piece (MP3 files, about 700 KB each, created at around FM broadcast quality to keep file sizes down — the CD will be of higher quality).

1. The Golden Journey to Samarkand *
2. They that go down to the sea in ships (A Threnody for S.S. Titanic) *
3. In the silent west
4. Coronach *
5. One with eyes the fairest *
6. The Lake Isle of Innisfree
7. The Mermaid's Croon (Crònan na Maighdinn-Mhara)
8. The Happy Isle (Chorus for female voices) *
9. Requiem *
10. The Isles of Greece *
Three Choruses for Male Voices *
   11. O Zeus the King
   12. A Grammarian's Funeral
   13.  Paracelsus
A Pageant of Human Life *
   14. Childhood +
   15. Manhood
   16. Cupid +
   17. Age
   18. Death
   19. Lady Fame
   20. Time
   21. Lady Eternity
22. Darest thou now, O soul * ~

* World première recording on CD
+ with Parkway North High School Choir (Brian Reeves, Director)
~ with Washington University Concert Choir (John Stewart, Director)

For information on purchasing this CD, please see our CDs page.

CD Reviews
The St. Louis Chamber Chorus and its artistic director, Philip Barnes, have won a reputation as the region's finest choral ensemble and as one of the country's best a cappella choirs. In their two most recent compact discs, released by England's Regent Records, they're establishing their name internationally. The first of those, the prosaically titled Saint Louis Commissions, got the choir some notably positive reviews both in the United States and in Britain. The CD fills some holes in the recorded choral repertoire: Only one track out of 22 has ever been released on a recording. Bantock (1868-1948) was a great and much-performed name in Edwardian Britain, writing vast "choral symphonies" for huge forces and making arrangements of haunting Scottish folk songs that still hold the heart. His music fell out of fashion after World War I and is just now making a comeback. This disc, recorded at Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church in St. Louis, has a good range of Bantock's work, from They that go down to the sea in ships (A Threnody for S.S. Titanic) to the massive A Pageant of Human Life, with words by Sir Thomas More. The Scottish folk songs offer some of the loveliest moments on the disc, including two beautiful solos by soprano Emily Heslop. It's a well-sung, well-produced disc, and a worthy addition to the SLCC's growing shelf. [Sarah Bryan Miller, Post-Dispatch Classical Music Critic, St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

This is a musical and literary feast. 4/5 stars. [Choir & Organ (UK)]

It takes an American choir, admittedly with an English director, to champion Granville Bantock’s choral music. The prolific use of word painting and polyphony…may have been out of favour among Bantock’s contemporaries, but the choir’s crisply defined, well-coloured delivery makes its appeal very evident. 4/5 stars. [Classical Music (UK)]

It's ironic that these quintessentially English choral pieces should have to look across the Atlantic Ocean for the premiere recordings of several of them, especially as their composer, Granville Bantock, was such a major figure in English music.…Never mind. Let's be glad that at last they are here, and performed with much enthusiasm and commitment by Philip Barnes' Saint Louis Chamber Chorus…it is so good to have a permanent reminder of the music on this generous disc, replete with many other examples of Bantock's deft and rich choral writing. 4/5 stars. [Birmingham Post (UK)]

There are settings here of Shelley and Browning, Flecker, Whitman and Yeats, all of them couched in an unremarkable Edwardian style, but with just enough teasing chromaticisms to hint at horizons well beyond those of the conventional drawing room. 3/5 stars. [Guardian (UK)]