Muhly: With Eys Lift Up The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford & Mark Williams

• Thomas Traherne (1637 - 1674), Nico Muhly (b. 1981): With Eys Lift Up:
• 1 Traherne, Muhly: With Eys Lift Up 04:58
• Nico Muhly: Alma Redemptoris Mater:
• 2 Muhly: Alma Redemptoris Mater 04:20
• Thomas Traherne, Nico Muhly: This Other Spring:
• 3 Traherne, Muhly: This Other Spring 04:53
• One Star:
• 4 Traherne, Muhly: One Star 03:08
• Evelyn Underhill (1875 - 1941), Nico Muhly: The Quiet Stars:
• 5 Underhill, Muhly: The Quiet Stars 04:49
• Thomas Traherne, Nico Muhly: An Habitation of Thy Love:
• 6 Traherne, Muhly: An Habitation of Thy Love 03:01
• Nico Muhly: Oculi omnium:
• 7 Muhly: Oculi omnium 01:17
• Magdalen Service:
• 8 Muhly: Magdalen Service: Magnificat 04:38
• 9 Muhly: Magdalen Service: Nunc dimittis 02:51
• A Great Stone:
• 10 Muhly: A Great Stone 02:13
• When all is Endid Fully:
• 11 Muhly: When all is Endid Fully 05:30
• Thi Goyng Out:
• 12 Muhly: Thi Goyng Out 01:47
• Thomas Traherne, Nico Muhly: On All Things:
• 13 Traherne, Muhly: On All Things 04:37
• Nico Muhly: What Shall be After Him:
• 14 Muhly: What Shall be After Him 03:04
• Missa Brevis:
• 15 Muhly: Missa Brevis: I. Kyrie 01:28
• 16 Muhly: Missa Brevis: II. Gloria 02:47
• 17 Muhly: Missa Brevis: III. Sanctus & Benedictus 01:52
• 18 Muhly: Missa Brevis: IV. Agnus Dei 03:11
• Total Runtime 01:00:24

Info zu Muhly: With Eys Lift Up

Featuring 13 premiere recordings, With Eys Lift Up is a new collection of works written by American composer Nico Muhly for - and the majority commissioned by - the Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford. Comprising settings of the mass and canticles alongside anthems for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascensiontide, Trinity Sunday and Remembrance, the collection sets a number of little-known texts, casting new light on familiar seasons of the church year.

Writing music for younger voices (the top line is boy trebles, and then there are mezzo-sopranos, altos, tenors and basses drawn primarily from the student body) in a sacred context is something deeply important to me. My four+ years with those voices and that chapel allowed me the strange opportunity to write music in dialogue with a younger version of myself as a chorister. Many of the musical obsessions are unchanged, and some have been tempered by age, amplified by study, and chastened by tragedy; this album contains two “memory” pieces written for two friends who died before their time, but also contains music specifically designed to give younger musicians a taste of the joy I found in discovering contemporary music at the same time as music from the Renaissance.

For my friends less familiar with this universe, not a note of the music for Magdalen is concert music, so the word “première” is a stand-in for what actually happens. Over the course of a service — in general, Evensong, a 48-minute (ideally) service with a few pieces of music which relate directly to the liturgy — a new piece occupies one of these slots. It can be a psalm-setting (see the one I made for Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge here) or a setting of the Magnificat or Nunc Dimittis, or an anthem, or responses. It’s music for use: site- and date-specific, down to the time of day at which it is sung. All of this happens without fanfare; because it’s The Lord’s House, no ticket money is changing hands, nobody’s clapping, and ideally the composer vanishes into a larger architecture of ritual.

"I am grateful to Mark Williams, the Informator Choristarum (the college’s fabulous vestigial term for the director of music), and all the members of the choir both on the recording and those long since graduated or who matured out of their treble voices." (Nico Muhly)

Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford
Mark Williams, conductor

The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford
was founded in 1480 with provision made in the statutes for 16 singing boys, eight Academical Clerks and four chaplains. Magdalen College was then one of the oldest and largest choral foundations in late-medieval England, and this historic legacy has been preserved and maintained over five centuries. The Choir, which now enjoys an international reputation as one of the finest ensembles in the UK, exists primarily to sing the daily church services in Magdalen College Chapel. The Academical Clerks now number 12 and the Consort of Voices was founded in 2010, offering opportunities to women students to sing in the Chapel on a weekly basis. In addition to the regular round of services, the College Choir sing at a number of special occasions throughout the year, including the famous May Day celebrations, an ancient tradition dating back to the 16th century. Famous directors of the Choir who have held the ancient title, Informator Choristarum still in use today, include John Sheppard, Daniel Purcell, Sir John Stainer and Dr Bernard Rose. The current Informator is Mark Williams.

The Choristers are part of the College Foundation, receiving their academic education at Magdalen College School. The Academical Clerks and Organ Scholars are undergraduates at the College, reading for degrees in a variety of subjects. In University Term, the Choir sings Evensong every day except Monday at 6pm. Services on Tuesdays are normally sung by the Choristers alone, on Fridays by the Academical Clerks alone, and on Saturdays by the Consort of Voices. The College Choir also sings the Eucharist (Mass) on Sunday mornings at 11am.

Magdalen College Choir has toured Japan, USA, Hungary, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Germany, France and Poland in recent years; concert appearances have included the BBC Proms and Cadogan Hall. The Choir has worked with a number of leading orchestras including Britten Sinfonia, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. In Oxford, they have collaborated with both composers and musicians in concert and on disc: recordings have included the music of John Ward and Thomas Tomkins with the celebrated viol group, Phantasm, and the work of the renowned composer of sacred music, Matthew Martin. They won a Gramophone award under former director Grayston Ives, and have collaborated with the film composer George Fenton, most notably in Richard Attenborough’s movie, Shadowlands, with the Beatles member Sir Paul McCartney, and on the award-winning soundtrack for the BBC TV series, Blue Planet.

Mark Williams
is Director of Music, Fellow and College Lecturer in Music at Jesus College Cambridge. He studied at Trinity College Cambridge where he held both the organ scholarship and an academic scholarship. In 2000, at the age of 21, he was appointed Assistant Organist of St Paul’s Cathedral in London and Director of Music at St Paul’s Cathedral School. He relinquished both posts in April of 2006 in order to pursue his growing freelance career. In September 2009 he took up the post of Director of Music at Jesus College Cambridge.

Mark Williams has appeared as organist and harpsichordist nationally and internationally with many of the UK’s leading ensembles, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia and the Gabrieli Consort and Players. As a conductor he has worked with the Britten Sinfonia, London Mozart Players, Saraband Consort and City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the Principal Conductor of the International William Byrd Festival in Portland Oregon and the Chief Guest Conductor of the City of London Choir, and has given solo recitals and led masterclasses in choral training, singing and organ performance in the UK, the USA, Asia and Africa. A Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, he is a Freeman of the City of London, and a trustee of the the Oundle Music Trust, Cambridge Early Music, the Harlton Organ Trust, the Muze Music Trust in Zambia and Songbound which aims to change the lives of underprivileged children in India through music. He is the Honorary President of the Chamber Choir of Erne Integrated College in Enniskillen.

In addition to writing and arranging music for the popular classical-crossover groups Blake and All Angels, Mark Williams has performed on a number of film soundtracks, and appears on CD with the Choir of Jesus College Cambridge, the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Cambridge Singers, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, The King’s Consort, The Sixteen, Arcangelo and Retrospect Ensemble. He is the Musical Consultant for the television crime drama, Endeavour.

Booklet für Muhly: With Eys Lift Up