This Friday, 25 October, sees the release of a new album by the College Choir, That Sweet City, which features two major works written for Queen’s in the 1950s.
First, Kenneth Leighton composed his cantata Veris gratia during the final year of his undergraduate studies at Queen’s, and it was first performed in Hall by the Eglesfield Musical Society in its Trinity Term concert in 1951. This is the first recording of the piece. A year later saw the première at Queen’s of one of the last major works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, An Oxford Elegy, for choir, orchestra, and narrator, setting poetry by Matthew Arnold which paints an idyllic picture of the Oxfordshire countryside and includes the famous description of Oxford as ‘that sweet city with her dreaming spires’.
The Choir was delighted to have been joined by Queen’s Old Member and Honorary Fellow Rowan Atkinson (Engineering, 1975) as the narrator for An Oxford Elegy. He said:
When I was as a postgraduate student at Queen’s, I wanted to join the College choir very much, but I always failed to meet the required standard. I can’t tell you how pleasing it is, 50 years later, for my voice to feature on a recording by The Queen’s College Choir…albeit having sneaked in there, if you will, via the back door.
The orchestra for the recording is the Britten Sinfonia, renowned for their interpretations of 20th-century British repertoire.
Waverley Fellow in Music and College Organist Professor Owen Rees comments:
The Choir was in wonderful voice for this exciting project to highlight two masterworks composed for Queen’s some 70 years ago – one of which, Leighton’s Veris gratia, has remained largely unknown – and it was extremely rewarding to work on the project with Rowan Atkinson and with such a world-class ensemble as the Britten Sinfonia.
Several of the choir’s previous albums have reached No. 1 in the Classical Chart. If you would like to purchase the CD or download it, please do so during the first week of release (from 25 October onwards), since this is the week when a new album stands the best chance of rising high in the charts.
The best way to purchase or download the album is on Presto: https://lnk.to/ThatSweetCity.
