VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS

Description

John Lambert studied at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. From 1958 until 1962 he was Musical Director of the Old Vic theatre, a post he relinquished to take up the position of Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music, where he remained until his retirement in 1990.

For many years John Lambert was also Organist of St Vedast, Foster Lane, in the city of London, and this disc features all of Lambert’s solo organ music – with the exception of the monumental Organ Mass, previously recorded by Timothy Bond on Regent REGCD205 – together with organ works by his students, David Sutton Anderson, Avril Anderson and Gary Carpenter.

Also included are Lambert’s powerful setting of Veni creator spiritus, for soprano, mezzo-soprano and organ, and Timothy Bond’s arrangement for the same forces of the beautiful Canticle of the Birds, by another John Lambert pupil, Richard Blackford. These two works are sung on this disc by internationally-known artists: soprano Janice Watson, and mezzo-soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers.

The works show part of the vast range of diverse musical styles represented by John Lambert and his students.

Timothy Bond’s previous solo disc on Regent Twentieth Century Organ Music [REGCD205] released in 2004, featured John Lambert’s Organ Mass of 1964, together with works by Tippett, Howells, Vaughan Williams and Britten, including three previously unknown solo organ pieces by Britten receiving their first recording. These Britten pieces have been included in the Complete Britten Edition released by DECCA in 2013.