From the Sleevenotes: A St Luke Passion

Sleevenotes from PFCD 281, A ST LUKE PASSION AND SACRED CHORAL WORKS – compositions by Andrew Downes.

1-2 A St Luke Passion, Op. 50 (1992)
1. Part 1 [18:41]
2. Part 2 [15:35]

3 The Lord is my Shepherd, Op. 65 (1997) [02:53]
4 The Souls of the Righteous, Op. 31 No. 2 (1984) [02:19]
5 In Peace I Will Lie Down and Sleep, Op. 31 No. 3 (1984) [01:55] Soloist: Paula Downes
6 O Love The Lord, All Ye His Saints, Op. 31 No. 1 (1984) [02:19]

7-12 Motet and Mass: O Magnum Mysterium, Op. 2 (1973)
7 Motet [02:01]
8 Kyrie [01:30]
9 Gloria [03:37]
10 Sanctus [00:50]
11 Benedictus [02:01]
12 Agnus Dei [02:13]

13 What Shall I Do to Show How Much I Love Her? Op. 5 (1973) [03:14] Soloist: Hannah Cooke
14 Ave Maris Stella, Op. 4 (1974) [01:17]
15 O Vos Omnes, Op. 23 (1981) [02:55]
16 Te Deum, Op. 110 (2017) [05:09]
17 Ave Maria, Op. 6 (1974) [01:571]

Total Time [70:26]

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A voice ecclesiastical and eclectic

Andrew Downes was a talented boy treble, and later countertenor. One of his teachers at Aldridge Grammar School, Alvena Grant, recognized the potential of his voice and encouraged him to join the Midland Boy Singers, a local choir that she developed into an ambitious, touring ensemble. Once he completed secondary school, he went to St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he won a choral scholarship. After, he studied composition with Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music in London, who was very encouraging and described Downes as “one of the most effective composers coming to me these days.”

His harmonic language and general approach to choral writing fit well with the post- Romantic style of Howells and of many other English composers of his generation, but Downes also drew on a unique set of other influences. He was the Head of Composition and Creative Studies at the Birmingham School of Music (now the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) for three decades, and in that capacity he helped to shape the programs there for popular and non-Western music. In his own works, he often used beat patterns inspired by African drumming, Rock harmonies, and modal scales similar to those found in North Indian Classical Music. He loved the “smooth, timeless quality” of plainsong and the choral works by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, which he felt combined perfectly formed lines into grand, flowing musical structures. He also expressed great admiration for Claudio Monteverdi, who wrote works like Orfeo (1607) well before the forces of the symphony orchestra were formalized and the different instrument families became stuck in ossified roles. Downes’s desire to emulate Monteverdi’s freer approach to orchestration comes across quite clearly in his A St. Luke Passion, which he wrote in 1992.

The piece is a setting of select passages from the Gospel according to Luke, chosen by the composer together with Cynthia Downes, his wife. It was commissioned by the Civic Choir of Wolverhampton to be performed on a program together with Benjamin Britten’s 1948 cantata St. Nicolas. Britten’s piece is scored for choir, tenor soloist, keyboard, percussion, and strings, and the commissioning ensemble asked Downes to stick with these forces for his work so they wouldn’t need to find any extra musicians. In the Passion, Downes is sparing and deliberate about when he uses the full group, preferring to toggle among a multitude of different textures. The combination of keyboard, strings, and voices at the very opening recalls late-Romantic songs for voice and chamber ensemble like Ernest Chausson’s devastating Chanson perpétuelle. When the crowd arrests and drags Jesus away, we hear a bursting cello line and menacing snare drum hits. The drama, the harmonies, and the rising and falling arpeggios that outline a minor seventh chord all allude to the sound world of Britten’s Peter Grimes, that seminal British work depicting an abused pariah. In frequent, a cappella choral interludes, generally sung in Latin, Downes juxtaposes wistful four-part harmony and passages of strict, monophonic chant.

The discourse between the crowd and Pilate that leads to Jesus’s crucifixion has a raucous, rhythmic pull that Downes achieves by asking the chorus and parts of the orchestra to play in different time signatures simultaneously. In a lecture he gave on the piece, Downes explained how “This multi-dimensional effect is in fact straight out of African tribal music, where each player has a regular pattern, but in a different time from everyone else.” The ecstatic quality of the music here also recalls the frantic, spiritual frenzy of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. Toward the end of Part I, Jesus, played by the Baritone soloist, has a plaintive aria, which grows into a duet with solo violin. Then he is nailed to the cross to the clang of an anvil, a theatrical touch that Downes hoped would bring to life the “most psychologically disturbing parts of the text.”

The second half of the passion begins with the day of resurrection, a bright Sunday morning ushered in by the most hopeful of ascending string arpeggios. There are brief, bombastic reminders of the first part, but much of the music in Part II is calm, tightly structured chamber music between strings, keyboard, soloist, and singers. The orchestra achieves a joyous climax, but then cuts out, passing the energy of the whole ensemble to the choir, who sing a beaming, closing a cappella Credo. The mixed, asymmetrical meters at the start of this Credo, interspersed with more Plainsong-like moments, serve as a thrilling reminder of the idiosyncratic groove that can be generated by the metrical freedom of chant. Through his artfully blocked orchestration, Downes shows how the Bernstein-like, African-inspired rhythmic passages of the piece can form an unexpected unity with music of an antique, ecclesiastical orientation. It’s a message of communion across musical styles, times, and places—one that chimes well with Downes’s view of the subject of the Passion: “I have no specific religious beliefs as such, but I do think that Jesus was a wonderful man with a uniquely warm and caring attitude towards humanity, and I hope that this warmth and daringness, and a sense of great hope for the world comes through in the music.”

Downes’s a cappella vocal compositions spanned his career, from before his time in Cambridge to the last years of his life. The works included here are for a diversity of voice combinations and demonstrate a range of approaches to choral harmony and counterpoint. He wrote his setting of Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” in 2000 for the Runnymede Church Choirs Association. Monophonic chanting alternates with four-part harmony and also passages of organum, in which a line is doubled in parallel fourths, a strategy that helps form smooth connections between a single voice texture and true polyphony. Three anthems that Downes wrote in 1984 for performances on BBC Radio demonstrate his distinctive choral style. The touching “In Peace I Will Lie Down and Sleep” is full of brightly shining ninth chords, which the singers linger on as if they are soothing consonances. In “O Love the Lord All Ye His Saints,” he voices the same chords very closely, putting the first, second, and third degrees of the scale next to one another. This creates a sense of compact, expressive tension that is released when wide-open perfect fourths are re-introduced at the end. Downes’s setting of “The Souls of the Righteous” reduces to a solemn, unison texture on the verse “They seemed to die.” Then, when the text clarifies that the souls of the righteous live on in peace in heaven, Downes opens the counterpoint back up into spacious sequences of parallel chords.

Downes’s setting of the nativity chant O Magnum Mysterium, which he composed in 1969 before he started at Cambridge, was one of his first hits. After he performed it together with the Midland Boy Singers at a concert in Wigmore Hall that year, the composition and his singing as a countertenor got a call out in a review in The Times. In 1973, while he was studying with Howells, he returned to the piece and wrote a mass to follow the opening motet. In the Kyrie, the chromatics in the “Christe eleison” section, and the fabulous combination of modal melodic motifs preceding the final cadence, certainly bear the mark of Howells’s teaching. In the Benedictus, Downes re-deploys the counterpoint of the opening motet in a new key and takes it in fresh, dense directions, putting his stylistic developments into stunning relief.

“What shall I do to show how much I love her?” offers a secular contrast to the other works found on this album, and indeed to most of Downes’s choral output. He composed this haunting setting of this seventeenth-century text by Thomas Betterton in 1973 for Counterpoint, a group he founded with fellow choral scholars following his time in Cambridge. He included an instrumental version of this eerie, lullaby-like number in his Christmas Cantata, which he wrote the following year for the students at Thames Valley College, Twickenham. In the cantata, the arrangement of “What shall I do” was followed by “Ave, Maris Stella,” set in tight counterpoint between three high voices, which serves as a bright antidote to the mournful mode mixing of the preceding song.

“O Vos Omnes,” written by Downes in 1981 for Cantamus Girl’s Choir, is in the same style as the anthems written for the BBC a few years later. A linear descent of a minor second has been a musical indication of lamentation for hundreds of years, and in this sombre setting, Downes periodically stacks this pair of notes together into a pained vertical interval. Te Deum, from 2017, sees Downes back in Cambridge for a commission from the Cantabrigians for music to perform at Evensong. The ensemble of eight high voices divides into separate antiphonal choirs for much of the motet; they only truly unite in the middle of the piece for a dramatic sequence of phrases that lead to a triumphant, fortissimo proclamation of “in glory everlasting.” They also come together at the very end, when Downes finds his way to a C major triad—a surprising, sudden resolution on the closing line “let me never be confounded.”
Notes by Nicky Swett

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A SAINT LUKE PASSION

PART ONE

CHORUS: When the time came he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him, and he said to them:

JESUS: “How I have longed to eat this Passover with you before my death! For I tell you, never again
shall I eat it until the time when it finds its fulfilment in the kingdom of God.”

CHORUS: Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said:

JESUS: “Take and share this among you; for I tell you, from this moment I shall drink no more from
the fruit of the vine until the time when the kingdom of God comes.”

CHORUS: And he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it; and he gave it to them with the words:

JESUS: “This is my body. Scripture says: He was counted among outlaws. These words must find fulfilment in me; indeed all that is written of me is being fulfilled.”

CHORUS: He went out and made his way to the Mount of Olives. He knelt down and began to pray.
When he rose from prayer and came to the disciples, he found them asleep, worn out by grief.

A crowd appeared with Judas at their head. They arrested him and led him away.
IUDAS MERCATOR PESSIMUS
Iudas mercator pessimus osculo petiit Dominum:
ille ut agnus innocens non negavit Iudae osculum:
Denariorum numero Christum Iudaeis tradidit.
Melius illi erat, si natus non fuisset.
Denariorum numero Christum Iudaeis tradidit.
(The wicked merchant Judas sought out the Lord with a kiss.
He, like an innocent lamb, refused not the kiss of Judas.
For a few coins he delivered Christ to the Jews)
He was brought before the council. “Tell us,” they said, “Are you the Messiah?”

JESUS: “If I tell you, you will not believe me; and if I ask questions you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of Almighty God.”

CHORUS: “You are the Son of God then?”

JESUS: “It is you who say I am.”

CHORUS: “We have heard it ourselves from his own lips.”
They brought him before Pilate. Pilate remitted the case to Herod. Herod treated him with contempt and ridicule and sent him back to Pilate dressed in a gorgeous robe. Pilate called the people together and said: “I have examined him and I find he has done nothing to deserve death.”
But there was a general outcry: “Away with him! Give us Barabbas, Crucify Jesus!” Their shouts persisted and Pilate gave Jesus up to their will.
They led him away to execution. Great numbers of people followed, many women among them,
who mourned and lamented over him. Jesus turned to them and said:

JESUS: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; no, weep for yourselves and your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, ‘Happy are the barren, the wombs that never bore a child, the breasts that never fed one.’ Then they will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us’. For if these things are done when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

CHORUS: When they reached the place called The Skull they crucified him and criminals with him.

Jesus said:

JESUS: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

CHORUS: One of the criminals said, ”Jesus remember me when you come to your throne”. He answered,

JESUS: “I tell you this day you shall be with me in Paradise”.

CHORUS: A darkness fell over the whole land. Jesus cried:

JESUS: “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

CHORUS TENEBRAE FACTAE SUNT

Tenebrae factae sunt, dum crucifixissent Iesum
Iudaei: et circa horam nonam exclamavit Iesus
Voce magna: Deus meus,
Ut quid me dereliquisti?
Et inclinato capite, emisit spiritum.
Exclamans Iesus voce magna, ait:
Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum.
Et inclinato capite, emisit spiritum.

(There was darkness when the Jews crucified Jesus;
and about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice:
My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?
And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost.
Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said: Father,
into thy hands I commend my spirit.
And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost.)

PART TWO

CHORUS: On Sunday morning Mary Magdelene and Mary the mother of James came to the tomb bringing spices. The stone had been rolled away from the tomb. The body was not to be found. All of a sudden two men in dazzling garments were at their side. “Remember what he told you. The Son of Man must rise on the third day.” That same day two of them were on their way to Emmaus. Jesus himself came up, but something kept them from seeing who it was. They said to him: “Our chief priests and rulers crucified Jesus. On the third day since it happened, some women of our company went early to the tomb and failed to find his body.”

JESUS: “How dull you are! How slow to believe all that the prophets said! Was the Messiah not bound to suffer thus before entering upon his glory?”

CHORUS: They reached the village. He made to continue his journey but they pressed him: “Stay with us, for the evening draws on.” When he sat at table he took bread and said the blessing. He broke the bread and offered it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him and he vanished from their sight. “Did we not feel our hearts on fire as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?” Without a moment’s delay they returned to Jerusalem and found the apostles saying: “The Lord is risen. He has appeared to Simon.” As they were talking, there he was standing among them.

JESUS: “Why are you so perturbed? Look at my hands and feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see. Everything written about me was bound to be fulfilled. That the Messiah is to suffer death, and rise from the dead on the third day, and that in his name repentance bringing the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations. Begin from Jerusalem. It is you who are witnesses. I am sending upon you my father’s promised gift. Stay in this city until you are armed with the power from above.”

CHORUS: Then he led them as far as Bethany and he blessed them and he parted from them. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy and spent their time in the temple praising God.

CREDO

Credo in unum Deum,
Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae,
Visibilium omnium, et invisibilium.
Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum,
Filium Dei unigenitum.
Et ex Patre natum
Ante omnia saecula.
Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine,
De Deo vero.
Genitum, non factum, consubstantialem Patri:
Per quem omnia facta sunt.
Qui propter nos homines,
Et propter nostram salutem
Descendit de caelis.
Et incarnatus est
De Spiritu Sancto
Ex Maria Virgine:
Et homo factus est.
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis:
Sub Pontio Pilato
Passus, et sepultus est.
Et resurrexit tertia die,
Secundum Scripturas.
Et ascendit in caelum:
Sedet ad dexteram Patris.
Et iterum venturus est
Cum gloria, judicare vivas et mortuos:
Cujus regni non erit finis.
Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum, et vivificantem,
Qui ex Patre Filioque procedit,
Qui cum Patre et Filia
Simul adoratur, et conglorificatur.
Qui locutus est,
Per Prophetas.
Et unam sanctam catholicam
Et apostolicam Ecclesiam,
Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum,
Et exspecto resurrectionem,
Mortuorum.
Et vitam venturi saeculi
Amen.

(I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth,
and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten
of the Father before all worlds. God of God, light of light, true God
of true God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the
Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our
salvation, came down from Heaven. And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost
of the Virgin Mary and was made man.
He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was
buried. On the third day he rose again from the dead according to the
Scriptures. He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of
God the Father Almighty. And he will come again with glory to judge
both the living and the dead. His Kingdom shall have no end.
I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds
from the Father and the Son, who, with the Father and the Son
together, is worshipped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.
And in one holy, catholic and apostolic church.
I believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look for the
resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.)

Texts selected by Cynthia and Andrew Downes from the Gospel according to St Luke, and from the Tenebrae Responsories, together with the Apostles’ Creed.

The Lord is my Shepherd – Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

The Souls of the Righteous – The Wisdom of Solomon Ch.3, vv.1-3

The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God. And there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die; but they are in peace.

In Peace I will lie down – Psalm 4, v.8

In peace I will lie down and sleep, for thou alone, O Lord, makest me dwell in safety.

O Love the Lord all ye His Saints – text from the English Psalter: Ps.32, v.26; Ps.16, v.3

O love the Lord, all ye his saints; for the Lord preserveth them that are faithful. All His delight is upon the saints that are in the earth; and upon such as excel in virtue.

Motet and Mass: O Magnum Mysterium

Motet
O Magnum Mysterium et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio. O beata virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Jesum Christum. Alleluia.
(O great mystery and awe-inspiring sacrament, that animals would see the new-born Jesus sleeping in their manger. Blessed be the Virgin Mary, whose loins were worthy to bear Christ the Lord. Alleluia.)

Kyrie
Kyrie eleison.
Christe eleison.
Kyrie eleison.
(Lord have mercy upon us.
Christ have mercy upon us.
Lord have mercy upon us.)

Gloria
Gloria in excelsis Deo
et in terra pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis.
Laudamus te,
benedicimus te,
adoramus te,
glorificamus te,
gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam,
Domine Deus, Rex cælestis,
Deus Pater omnipotens.

Domine Fili Unigenite, Iesu Christe,
Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris,
qui tollis peccata mundi,
miserere nobis;
qui tollis peccata mundi,
suscipe deprecationem nostram.
Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris,
miserere nobis.

Quoniam tu solus Sanctus,
tu solus Dominus,
tu solus Altissimus,
Iesu Christe,
cum Sancto Spiritu:
in gloria Dei Patris.
Amen.

(Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to people of good will.
We praise you,
we bless you,
we adore you,
we glorify you,
we give you thanks for your great glory,
Lord God, heavenly King,
O God almighty Father.
Lord Jesus Christ, only Begotten Son,
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of The Father,
you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us;
you take away the sins of the world,
receive our prayer;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father
have mercy on us.
For you alone are the Holy One,
you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High,
Jesus Christ,
with the Holy Spirit,
in the glory of God the Father.
Amen.)

Sanctus
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth:
pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.
(Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts:
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.)

Benedictus
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Osanna in excelsis.
(Blessed is He who cometh in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.)

Agnus Dei
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
(Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.)

What shall I do to show how much I love her? – words by Thomas Betterton

What shall I do to show how much I love her?
How many millions of sighs can suffice?
That which wins others’ hearts, never can move her,
Those common methods of love she’ll despise.

I will love more than man ever lov’d before me;
Gaze on her all the day, and melt in the night;
‘Till for her own sake, at last she’ll implore me,
To love her less, to preserve our delight.

Since gods themselves could not ever be loving,
Men must have breathing recruits for new joys;
I wish my love would be always improving,
Though eager love more than sorrow destroys.

In fair Aurelia’s arms leave me expiring,
To be embalm’d by the sweets of her breath;
To the last moment I’ll still be desiring;
Never had hero so glorious a death.

Ave Maris Stella – words from the 9th Century Plainsong Hymn

Ave, maris stella,
Dei mater alma,
atque semper virgo,
Felix cæli porta.

(Hail, star of the sea,
Nurturing Mother of God,
And ever Virgin
Happy gate of Heaven.)

Solve vincla reis,
profer lumen cæcis,
mala nostra pelle,
bona cuncta posce.

(Loosen the chains of the guilty,
Send forth light to the blind,
Our evil do thou dispel,
Entreat (for us) all good things.)

O Vos Omnes – Lamentations of Jeremiah I:12

O vos omnes qui transitis per viam,
attendite et videte:
Si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus.
Attendite, universi populi,
et videte dolorem meum.
Si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus.

(O all you who walk by on the road,
attend and see:
If there be any sorrow like my sorrow.
Attend, all people of the world,
and see my sorrow:
If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.)

Te Deum – Fourth Century text

We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting.
To thee all angels cry aloud, the heavens and all the powers therein.
To thee cherubin and Seraphin continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth;
Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory.
The glorious company of the apostles praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise thee.
The noble army of martyrs praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee:
the Father of an infinite majesty;
thine honourable, true and only Son;
also the Holy Ghost the Comforter.
Thou art the King of glory, O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man,
thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.
We believe that thou shalt come to be our judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants,
whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting.
O Lord, save thy people and bless thine heritage.
Govern them and lift them up for ever.
Day by day we magnify thee;
and we worship thy name, ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in thee.
O Lord, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.

Ave Maria

Ave Maria, gratia plena
Dominus tecum;
Benedicta tu in mulieribus,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.
Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace,
The Lord is with thee;
Blessed art thou amongst women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.)

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Andrew Downes

Composer Andrew Downes was born in Handsworth, Birmingham, in 1950, into a well-known Midlands family of musicians. He won a choral scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge, where he specialised in composition, and in 1974 went on to study at the Royal College of Music with Herbert Howells, who wrote of him as ‘one of the most effective composers coming to me these days’. His emergence as a leading international composer was combined with a strong academic profile as an innovative and inspired educator: he created and was Head of the School of Composition and Creative Studies at the Birmingham School of Music (now Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) for 30 years, and following his retirement, devoted himself solely to composition. His output includes an opera, six symphonies, numerous concertos and chamber works, song cycles, piano music and a large body of choral and sacred music.

Over 30 CDs of his music have been issued on a range of labels. His numerous commissions included The Marshes of Glynn, for the Royal Opening of Birmingham’s Adrian Boult Hall in 1986; the overture In the Cotswolds for the opening concert of the Three Choirs Festival; song cycles for Sarah Walker and John Mitchinson, both premièred on BBC Radio 3; anthems (Opus 31, Nos 1, 2 and 3) for the BBC Radio 4 Daily Service; and the overture Towards a New Age, premièred by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. Downes’s Concerto for Four Horns and Orchestra was commissioned for and premièred by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in the Dvorak Hall, Prague, in 2002, and recorded by Czech Radio the following year. His Sonata for Violin, Horn and Piano was premièred by the Brahms Trio Prague at the Suk Hall of the Rudolfinum, Prague, in 2008, and subsequently released on the Czech Philharmonic’s Artesmon label. Downes’s Piano and Horn Concertos were premiered at Birmingham Town Hall in 2009 and 2012 respectively. In 2016, the Artesmon label released a disk of Downes’ Symphonies and Overtures, recorded by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in the Rudolfinum, Prague under Ondřej Vrabec.

He died on January 2nd 2023, leaving a legacy of over 120 works. A prolific composer, he wrote every day until the last week of his life.

David Trippett

Conductor David Trippett is Chair of the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Christ’s College. As a pianist and conductor, he has performed within Europe, the UK, in China, and on both coasts of America in venues from the Liszt Academy in Budapest and the Britten-Pears Festival, Aldeburgh to the Shanghai Conservatory and the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

As a scholar, his research focuses on nineteenth-century music and intellectual history, Richard Wagner, and the history of science. He is author of Wagner’s Melodies (2013), editor and translator of Carl Stumpf, The Origins of Music (2012), and more recently he co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Music in Digital Culture (2019), Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination (2019), and Wagner in Context (2024). Awards for research include the Alfred Einstein and Lewis Lockwood Prizes of the American Musicological Society, the Bruno Nettl Prize of Society for Ethnomusicology, and a Philip Leverhulme Prize. Between 2015-2020, he directed a project on ‘Sound and Materialism in the Nineteenth Century’, funded by the European Research Council, and is publishing a book arising from this, Sound in Mind and Body.

In more hands-on work, his realisation of Liszt’s Italian opera Sardanapalo between 2017-19 resulted in the work’s first critical and performing editions. Its premiere recording with Kirill Karabits and the Staatskapelle Weimar was among the Guardian’s Top 10 Discs of 2019, receiving Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice and Diapason’s découverte. It became the best-selling classical CD in the UK, and has now been performed in seven countries.

Morgan Pearse, Baritone soloist

Already established as one of the most exciting baritones of his generation, Morgan Pearse has appeared on global opera and concert stages in many exciting debuts including title roles in The Barber of Seville at English National Opera, Don Giovanni at the Verbier Festival and recently a critically acclaimed new production of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Zurich Opera. Previously, Morgan has enjoyed success with performances of Valens in Theodora in the Karlsruhe Händelfestpiele, the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte for the Badisches Staatstheater, Belcore in L’Elisir d’Amore and Escamillo in Carmen, both with the State Opera of South Australia, Masetto in Don Giovanni and Belcore in L’Elisir d’Amore for NZ Opera, covering the title role in Billy Budd for the Bolshoi Theatre, Sid in Albert Herring for the Buxton Festival as well as Nero in Kaiser’s Octavia and Almiro in Pasquini’s Idalma, both for the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music. Recent and future engagements include Scarpia / Tosca for Opera Holland Park, Enrico / Lucia di Lammermoor for the State Opera of South Australia and Opera Holland Park and Achilla / Giulio Cesare with the English Concert.

Equally at home in concert repertoire, Morgan has had engagements with diverse ensembles including the Academy of Ancient Music, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Gabrieli Consort, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra and Zurich’s La Scintilla. He has appeared at venues including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Barcelona’s Palau de la Música, Copenhagen’s Koncerthuset, Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal Festival Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Sydney Opera House, and Wigmore Hall, as well as the Buxton International and Verbier Festivals.

Philharmonia Voices

#tracks 1-2 only
*tracks 3-17 only

Chorus Directors Aidan Oliver, Ben Parry

Philharmonia Orchestra

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Credits

Sponsored by Lynwood Music.
A Saint Luke Passion was recorded in Alexandra Palace, London, in August 2024
The unaccompanied sacred choral works were recorded in St Augustine’s Kilburn, London, in April 2025.
Producer (all tracks), Engineer (Tracks 3-17): Myles Eastwood
Engineer (Tracks 1-2): Deborah Spanton
Assistant Engineer (Tracks 1-2): Tim Burton
Assistant Engineer (Tracks 3-17): Martin Wiggins
Cover Image: http://unsplash.com
Photo of Andrew Downes: Paul Cartwright
Interior Photo: Matthew Johnson
Booklet Photo: Christopher Jonas