Recordings of Lennox Berkeley's music

For the Wings of a Dove: Music for Supplication and Hope

For the Wings of a Dove: Music for Supplication and Hope album cover Format: CD & Digital download
Label: Orchard Classics
Release date: April 2015
Catalogue no: ORC100046

This recording concludes with a setting of one of the best-known psalm texts, 'The Lord is my Shepherd'. Composed in 1975 to celebrate the 900th anniversary of Chichester Cathedral, the music by Lennox Berkeley has a directness and simplicity that belies its harmonic subtlety. A sense of confidence and security is created by the strong tonal centre (on G major) which casts into greater relief the dissonances that Berkeley uses to depict ‘the valley of the shadow of death’. As in Mendelssohn’s ‘Hear my prayer’, the division of text between soloist and chorus captures both the personal and the universal nature of the psalmist’s text. (Synopsis (c) Silas Wollston, 2014)

Performed by the Choir of Queen's College Cambridge & Silas Wollston (conductor)