Heady,
resounding,
euphoric.
George Frederic Handel
My Song Shall Be Alway
(Chandos Anthem No. 7), HWV 252
O Praise the Lord with One Consent
(Chandos Anthem No. 9), HWV 254
From 1717-1718, during a lull in the production of Italian operas in London, Handel entered the employ of James Brydges, the 1st Earl of Carnarvon (raised to the 1st Duke of Chandos in 1719). That earldom is now familiar to Americans, since the 5th Earl was the main financial backer of the excavation of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt, and the country seat of the (current) 8th Earl of Carnarvon is Highclere Castle, the filming location for Downton Abbey and Jeeves and Wooster.
James Brydges (1673-1744) was a member of the minor gentry who briefly became one of England’s most enthusiastic patrons of the arts. The Princely Chandos (1893) by John Robert Robinson is a historical memoir describing his regal style of living. Through the lucrative post of Paymaster-general for Queen Anne’s army during the War of Spanish Succession (1705-13), he accumulated a fortune of £600,000 (roughly $95 million today). While remodeling his estate at Cannons (completed 1724, then liquidated, dispersed, and demolished 1747), Brydges rebuilt the local medieval parish church adjoining his estate (the extravagant St. Lawrence Whitchurch in Little Stanmore).
For two years, Handel worked alongside music director Johann Pepusch as composer-in-residence at Cannons, Brydges’ Xanadu-like estate ten miles northwest of Regent’s Park in London. He would have continued to live there and to compose for that outstanding group of musicians if the Duke had not lost his whole fortune in the South Sea “Bubble” (stock collapse) in 1720. Brydges sometimes enhanced his small choir with famous instrumentalists (including one of Bach’s sons) and singers from the Chapel Royal: Handel was careful to indicate soloists’ names on his original manuscripts.
The anthem was a specifically English musical form, and it gave a larger role to the church choir in the latter half of certain services. Handel’s eleven “Chandos” anthems were all premiered at St. Lawrence with a choir of 1-2 men per part (including male altos and countertenors), a few boy trebles (their names are lost), a small orchestra without violas, and a Baroque organ that was restored in the 1990s to its original condition. The earlier six anthems call for three-part chorus (treble, tenor, and bass), and the later five anthems (including the two heard today) add an additional fourth harmony part for male alto. By 1900, no one in Britain or Germany believed the wholesale revival of historical instruments was either possible or even desirable, and it was thought that the art of basso continuo accompaniment was lost and could not be revived. The mid-twentieth-century revival of “early/original instruments” recreated the delicate balance between the much smaller choral ensembles of Handel’s time and his most frequently employed continuo instruments, the harpsichord and chapel organ.
My Song Shall Be Alway (1717) sets texts from Psalm 89. This anthem is one of the best examples of Handel repurposing his earlier favorites: we hear the opening of his Concerto grosso, op. 3, no. 3, part of his Birthday Ode to Queen Anne, and quotations from sacred hits such as his 1707 Dixit Dominus and 1714 ‘Caroline’ Te Deum. The anthem is distinguished by its lovely soprano solos, two vigorous choruses, and an extended tenor solo (accompanied recitative is rare in English anthem style).
O Praise the Lord with One Consent (1718) has no opening sonata, but it is the longest of Handel’s four-part Chandos anthems, weaving together texts from Psalms 135, 117, and 148. It frames virtuosic solos for each member of the vocal quartet (often in dramatic minor keys) with four fantastic choruses and requires oboe and bassoon. This music appeared in print twice before 1900 (Otto Erich Schaum’s four volumes of anthems with German text in the 1820s, and a practical edition by Friedrich Chrysander based on performing scores, rather than Handel’s autographs in the 1880s). The best modern scores of Handel’s music are based on the Halle Handel critical edition, begun after the collapse of the Third Reich, and scheduled to be completed in 2023.
Contributors: Laura Stanfield Prichard and Kevin Leong
With a voice of “extraordinary suppleness and beauty” (The New York Times), Grammy-nominated soprano Teresa Wakim is perhaps known best for her “perfect early music voice” (Cleveland Classical). First Place Winner of the International Competition for Early Music in Brunnenthal, Austria, she played the role of La Musique in Charpentier’s Les Plaisirs de Versailles with the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF), nominated for a Grammy in the 2020 awards. Also with BEMF, she sang the role of Flore in their 2015 Grammy-winning album of Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphee aux Enfers. Other solo recordings include Handel’s Acis and Galatea (in the title role), Handel’s Almira, and Charpentier’s Acteon with BEMF; Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and Coronation Mass with the Handel and Haydn Society; and the Grammy-nominated recording of Brahms’s A German Requiem with Seraphic Fire. She has performed concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra, the San Francisco Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, BEMF, Wiener Akademie, Apollo’s Fire, the Handel and Haydn Society, Musica Angelica, Boston Baroque, and Mercury Baroque. When not performing, Tess can be found caring for her young daughter and discussing all things blue whales, gene therapy, and space exploration with her scientist husband in Boston, Massachusetts.
Hailed for his “voice of seductive beauty” (Miami Herald), baritone David McFerrin has won critical acclaim in a variety of genres. His opera credits include Santa Fe Opera, Seattle Opera, Florida Grand Opera, the Rossini Festival in Germany, and numerous roles with Boston Lyric Opera and other local companies. As concert soloist he has sung with the Cleveland Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Handel and Haydn Society, and in recital at the Caramoor, Ravinia, and Marlboro Festivals. He was runner-up in the Oratorio Society of New York’s 2016 Lyndon Woodside Solo Competition, the premier US contest for this repertoire. David is also a member of the renaissance vocal ensemble Blue Heron, winners of the 2018 Gramophone award for Best Early Music Album. Recent performance highlights have included two turns as Lucifer/the Devil––one in a filmed production of Handel’s La Resurrezione with Emmanuel Music and the other in Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale with Aston Magna Music Festival; the Cimarosa monodrama Il Maestro di Capella with Boston Baroque; and Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda with American Bach Soloists in the Bay Area. David lives in Natick, Massachusetts, with his wife Erin, an architectural historian and preservation planner; their daughter Fiona; and black lab Holly.
Praised by The New York Times as “an impressive tenor,” Lawrence Jones has established an active presence on the concert and operatic stages. He has sung as a soloist with New York City Opera, Utah Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, Musica Sacra, Boston Baroque, Glimmerglass Opera, Opera Saratoga, Charlotte Symphony, and Boston Modern Orchestra Project. He has received recognition for his portrayals of Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the Princeton and Aldeburgh Festivals, for which Opera News praised him for his “clean, ringing tenor.”
A frequent performer of the cantatas and vocal works of J.S. Bach, Lawrence’s credits include performances of the St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, Christmas Oratorio, Easter Oratorio, and B Minor Mass with the New Mexico Philharmonic, Saint Thomas Choir, Voices of Ascension, Oratorio Society of New York, Bach Society of St. Louis, and the Choir of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.
This season, Lawrence appears as a soloist at Carnegie Hall in Handel’s Messiah with the Oratorio Society of New York and in Beethoven’s Mass in C Major with Riverside Choral Society. Featured performances this year include Franz Liszt’s piano transcription of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, with pianist Christopher Taylor; Christmas Oratorio with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem; and Mozart’s Requiem with American Classical Orchestra at Lincoln Center.
