The Temple Choir, The Temple Players, James VivianThe Temple Church, situated between Fleet Street and the Thames Embankment, is one of the most historic and beautiful churches in London. Its recorded musical history extends back to its restoration in 1841, although a church has stood on the site for over 800 years.
The modern choir comprises eighteen boy choristers and twelve professional choir-men – an excellent opportunity for the choristers who receive singing and theory tuition as well as generous scholarships towards their education.
This programme explores three fascinating and contrasting settings of the Te Deum, a stalwart of the church liturgy (first conceived as far back as AD 387). These settings, composed respectively in 1694 (Purcell), 1897 (Elgar), and 1944 (Howells), span over 300 years of English music history.
"...The solo voices are all of pleasingly high quality and show individual personalities without overtly drawing attention to themselves - a fine piece of choral direction in balancing the two. This is the first recording of the choir for Signum and promises a close and productive relationship."
Brian Hick - The Organ magazine - 8 November 2011
"Enterprising performances of English music from the 17th and 20th centuries." "Such enterprising and polished music-making derves widespread currency. The engineering and editing are faultless, the booklet comprehensive and informative. Many choirs (and organists) could learn much from this juilant release, which proves that the Temple Church Choir is smong the very best. Strongly recommended."
Malcolm Riley
