Grace Davidson (soprano), Rupert Jeffcoat (organ); Choir of St Luke’s Chelsea; Chelsea Camerata/
Jeremy Summerly
Naxos 8.574548 70:23 mins
Listening to the music of Philip Stopford, it seems as if time has been frozen in 1950s middle England. The 46-year-old composer’s anthems and carols, mostly written over the past two decades, would make a fitting soundtrack to Downton Abbey: sentimental stuff, tinged with dewy-eyed nostalgia.
Stopford’s most substantial work to date, The Missa Deus Nobiscum for chorus and orchestra, was first performed in 2018 during his time as director of music at St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, and is the main event on this premiere recording from Naxos. In this half-hour long setting of the Mass, you’ll find all the hallmarks that have endeared Stopford to his thousands of fans in Britain and America: lush vocal harmonies, honeyed string textures, jaunty ceremonial brass and a cheesy sprinkling of stardust from riffs on the harp and cymbals.
Steeped in the Anglican tradition, the ghosts of Wesley, Stanford and Parry linger, and the legacy of John Rutter looms large. The Mass comes with a smattering of short anthems from Stopford’s recent oeuvre, all despatched with tenderness and care by choral supremo Jeremy Summerly and his well-drilled ensemble at St Luke’s Chelsea. Grace Davidson’s solo soprano in the Mass is a particular delight. Too much at once, and it all becomes bland and soporific. But it’s not easy to write choral music as sincerely meant as this: genuinely tuneful and popular, as well as being attractive and accessible to singers from across the amateur and professional spectrum.
