Masses for Double Choir (2019)
In the 1920s Frank Martin, a Swiss Calvinist by upbringing, created a radiant Latin setting of the Mass for double choir, only to return it to the bottom drawer, considering it to be ‘a matter between God and myself’. It was finally released for performance forty years later, around the same time that the Edinburgh-based composer Kenneth Leighton made his own double-choir setting – a work with moments of striking stillness, delightful to choral singers and yet rarely recorded.
Contrasts and comparisons abound at every point in this fascinating pairing of Masses from the supposedly godless twentieth century, and are bought out to the full by The Choir of King’s College London’s impassioned performances. A short organ postlude by the teenage Jehan Alain, written on retreat in a monastery in 1930, follows like a voluntary concluding the liturgy.
This recording from the Choir of King’s College London (Joseph Fort, Director), titled ‘Masses for Double Choir’, also features James Orford (Organ), Mimi Doulton (Soprano), Caitlin Goreing (Alto), William Hester (Tenor) and Joseph Edwards (Bass).
Track listing
- 1-6 Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988) - Mass, Op. 44
- 7-11 Frank Martin (1890-1974) - Mass for double choir
- 12 Jehan Alain (1911-1940) - Poslude pour l'office de Complies