As John Rutter (Owain Park's erstwhile teacher) shrewdly notes in the booklet, Park is one of a new generation of composers whose voice has been informed by music of many styles, traditions and periods. This is indeed music `for us all to enjoy as listeners'.

The music of Owain Park defies neat classification. He belongs to a generation of young British-born composers who are no longer shackled by the `-isms' that loomed so large in the years after World War II when there was declared to be a `crisis' of modern music, to be resolved only by rigid adherence to a set of compositional rules. Rather, he has allowed his imagination to be nourished by music of many styles, traditions and periods. As we listen to this survey of his choral music, written over a period of just five years, we can detect elements deriving from, for example, Gregorian chant, Tudor polyphony, Greek Orthodox liturgy, folk song, and the English choral tradition-but these are absorbed into an individual and personal style which could perhaps be called neo-tonal: that is to say, simple chord structures and melodic shapes are not excluded, but they are manipulated and played with like clay in a sculptor's hands. Tunes, rhythms, and harmonies are there, but used in fresh ways which often go beyond what is predictable at first hearing.

Perhaps all composers of real stature are successfully eclectic, not limited by the here or the now. Ralph Vaughan Williams-another Trinity-educated composer-is sometimes thought of as quintessentially English and of his time, but he studied composition with Bruch in Germany, perfected his orchestration with Ravel in Paris, was inspired by (and made use of) music of the Elizabethan period, and was notable in reviving interest in the largely forgotten folk songs of the past, absorbing them into his own style.

If Park, like Vaughan Williams, is eclectic in his styles and sympathies, two distinctively English qualities nevertheless stand out: the care and sensitivity with which he chooses and sets words, and his innate feeling for choral writing (nurtured by his background as a boy chorister). His fast-growing work list includes a wide variety of choral music, which he would probably agree lies, for now at least, at the heart of his creative world.

Choral music poses its own challenges for the composer. Whereas most orchestras and instrumental ensembles are professional, able to play music of the most formidable complexity, most choirs the world over (if we exclude radio choirs and cathedral or collegiate choirs) are made up of amateurs or schoolchildren, more limited in what they can accomplish. In writing for them, a composer has to work within those limits, which can be a constraint to the imagination. Owain has been fortunate in having a world-class virtuoso choir at his disposal at Trinity College Cambridge, enabling him to write more freely and challengingly than would generally be practical, drawing on a rich and varied palette of choral textures: the music is rarely just in the normal four parts, often being split into many voices to create impressive kaleidoscopes and towers of sound, or left-right antiphonal effects, with semi-chorus or solo contributions at moments where these illuminate the text.

A captivating sound-world awaits you as you listen to the music-and the words-of this album, but don't expect to hear much of it replicated by your local parish church choir. This is music unashamedly written for choirs at the high end of the spectrum, but for us all to enjoy as listeners.

The wings of the wind

This bright, extrovert piece was written for Trinity College Choir's 2015 USA tour. A choir on tour, by tradition, is allowed to show off a little, and The wings of the wind has an engagingly ice-breaking, here-we-are-folks character that would have worked well as a recital opener. The text is a collage of individual Psalm verses compiled to invite vivid word painting and an arch-like musical structure with the opening and closing sections fast and rhythmic, and a more reflective central section containing an expressive soprano solo (starting with the words `For I will consider thy heavens') which, perhaps in homage to the choir's American hosts, seems distantly inspired by Gershwin's Summertime.

Upheld by stillness

Park was one of five composers commissioned in 2014 by Suzi Digby, conductor of the London-based professional chamber choir ORA, to write `reflections' on a movement of Byrd's Mass for five voices-a genre currently being quite widely cultivated in choral composition, whereby an old piece is made the basis of a new one. He chose the Sanctus and Benedictus (which count as a single movement), and it was first performed, along with the other four `reflections' and Byrd's Mass, at a concert given by ORA in 2016. The music of Upheld by stillness seems to inhabit a floating dream world where fragments of the `old' music drift in and out of the texture. The `it' in the first line of Kathleen Raine's poem refers to the world. Park writes:

I was instantly drawn to Kathleen Raine's The World when looking for a text for this reflection. Its themes perfectly corresponded with my idea of Byrd's Sanctus being an expansive, continually evolving work. It is a fascinating poem, manipulating only six ideas but creating an effortless circle of themes, interweaving and inextricably linked. Elements of the poem are reflected in this piece as well as melodic lines from Byrd's original composition, which are often set against a backdrop of shimmering chords. While composing this piece, I kept the partbooks of the Mass in my sightline as a constant influence on the shapes and contours of the music. There is a sense of travel in the continuous humming, often linking sections as themes are passed around the voices. The `Osanna' section borrows just the open vowels of the original text to create a warm, engulfing sound. This idea is heard twice in the piece, the second time returning elongated and more joyous.

Trinity Fauxbourdons

A fauxbourdon is a single melody line, often a Gregorian chant, thickened out by other vocal lines added above and/or below it: a technique as old as choral writing itself but still usable today. The single line which forms the basis of Park's setting of the pair of canticles sung at Anglican Evensong is the ancient chant known as the tonus peregrinus (`wandering tune'), so called because it strays beyond the normal boundaries of a Psalm chant. Park follows the traditional alternatim practice of presenting successive pairs of verses with the first of the pair left plain (with just the chant) followed by a verse elaborated with fauxbourdons, though he plays with this convention by allowing sustained wordless chords to support the chant in the plain verses. The fauxbourdon verses are treated more freely, with the chant itself sometimes elaborated, and the added voices forming chords which belong more to the world of, say, Herbert Howells than to Machaut or Dufay.

Above the stars my Saviour dwells

The text of this piece-in rhymed verse recalling the style of George Herbert or John Donne-is known only from Thomas Tomkins' setting dating from the early or mid-seventeenth century. An ascription to Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, is not verifiable, and it is possible the text (originally titled `An hymne') was written by Tomkins himself. Its style is madrigalian, with an almost erotic quality that has been likened to the Song of Solomon, and Park's setting is essentially a chaste yet voluptuous soprano solo underpinned by floating wordless choral textures in the opening and closing sections; the choir sings the text only for a few bars in the central section. Above the stars was composed in 2017 for Trinity College Choir as a commissioned gift for Wendy Russell.

Phos hilaron

Written in 2017 for Trinity College Choir, this spacious and e

Tracklist:

The Wings of the Wind He Came Flying Upon the Wings of the Wind[5:12] - Anita Monserrat (Soprano)
Upheld By Stillness It Burns in the Void[6:20] - Imogen Russell (Soprano), Helena Moore (Soprano), Edward Cunningham (Tenor)
Trinity Fauxbourdons[7:47]
Magnificat My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord[4:28] - Annabel Green (Soprano), Imogen Russell (Soprano), Helena Moore (Soprano)
Nunc Dimittis Lord, Now Lettest Thou Thy Servant Depart in Peace[3:19] - Owain Park (Bass), Annabel Green (Soprano)
Above the Stars My Saviour Dwells[3:48] - Imogen Russell (Soprano)
Phos Hilaron the Lord Is My Light and My Salvation[9:01] - Karolina CsÃ¡thy (Alto)
Ave Maris Stella[4:30] - Susannah Hill (Soprano)
Judas Mercator Pessimus[7:36] 1
Justorum Animae[4:23] 1
Beati Quorum Via[4:28] - Imogen Russell (Soprano) 1
Caelos Ascendit Hodie[3:20] 1
For the Fallen They Shall Grow Not Old, As We That Are Left Grow Old[4:11] 1
The Lord:S Prayer Our Father, Which Art in Heaven[6:20] 1
I Wonder As I Wander[2:28] - Susannah Hill (Soprano) 1
The Spirit Breathes Even These Shining Veins[6:28] - Alexander Hamilton (Organ)

UPC: 034571281919
Label: Hyperion
Release Date: 8.31.18
Format: CD

Choir Of Trinity College Cambridge - Park: Choral Works (CD)