Psalms and Motets for Reflection
Choir of St. John’s Elora; Michael Bloss; Noel Edison
Naxos 8.572540
Canadian church choirs usually consist of amateur singers. If a church can afford it, it will try to get four professional section leaders. The Choir of St John’s, Elora, however, is a fully professional 22-voice choir. The disc under review is its fifth CD.
This new CD contains eight settings of psalms and ten items that are described, somewhat loosely, as motets. Some of the psalms I would describe as serviceable but a few are rather more than that and I was especially taken with Thomas Handforth’s setting of Psalm 145 (I will magnify thee, O God my King). Only one of the motets is something of a chestnut: God so loved the World by John Stainer. I have sung that a number of times and I would be content to live without it.
The oldest work on the disc is a fine Renaissance motet in the Lutheran tradition (When to the Temple Mary went), sung here to a 19th-century English text. Otherwise the most interesting motets are the modern and contemporary works: those by Poulenc, Tavener, Paulus, MacMillan, Harvey and Halley. The last-named is of special interest as it was commissioned by the Choir of St John’s. Its melodic source is a 16th-century Lutheran hymn by Johann Walter.
This is clearly a very fine choir. I have not yet heard it live, but the choir performs every week as part of the 11am Sunday service. Elora is easy to get to from Toronto and I hope to make the trip soon.
