A Year At Portsmouth

A Year At Portsmouth

Philip Moore All wisdom cometh from the Lord; Fanfare de Maris; Edvard Grieg Hail, Star of the Sea; Traditional arr. Richard Lloyd I Saw Three Ships; Richard Lloyd Behold Me, Lord; Brian Moles (The Fourth Service); Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Our Father (The Lord's Prayer); Undine Smith Moore We Shall Walk Through the Valley; Howard Goodall Love Divine; C V Standford Coelos ascendit hodie; Mozart Laudate Dominum, K. 339; George Arthur Richford Chanson de Normandie; Handel How Beautiful Are the Feet (Messiah); Paul Trepte The gateway of heaven; Gustav Holst Turn Back, O Man; Grayston Ives They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships; John Rutter The Lord is my light and my salvation*; Philip Stopford In my Father's house Mark Blatchly For the Fallen**; Matthew Coleridge A Song for St Cecilia.

Portsmouth Cathedral Choir Directed by David Price
Sachin Gunga organ

Alex Wallace baritone and clarinet*, Evelyn Cowhig soprano, Daniel Sands treble, Adrian Green tenor, Ben Robinson trumpet**

Regent Records REGCD592
https://www.regent-records.co.uk/

Thirty years is no small tenure, and Regent Records' latest instalment in its cathedral series chooses to mark David Price's three decades at the helm of music at Portsmouth Cathedral with a disc that feels less like a retrospective and more like a tide turning full circle. As is the way with this series, the selection draws from the choir's repertoire across the liturgical year, and the result is a recording of genuine freshness — one that rewards repeated listening rather than exhausting itself on a single pass.

The disc opens with Philip Moore's All Wisdom Cometh from the Lord, and immediately the organ accompaniment announces itself as something rather special. Sachin Gunga's registrations have a meaty, confident heft when reeds and pedals combine, yet he is equally at home in the more intimate solo writing – his colouring in Mozart's Laudate Dominum is deftly and thoughtfully achieved; it is never overstated. Gunga is given his moment in the sun with Moore's Fanfare de Maris, a stunning showcase for the cathedral's Trompette de Maris, added to the organ in 2017 and here deployed with real virtuosity – a stop that seems to carry salt spray in its very tone.

Throughout, the choir itself is superbly balanced, whether unaccompanied or supported, with phrasing of real sophistication and diction crisp enough that not a consonant is lost to the building's generous acoustic. The programming shows a curator's eye: Brian Moles's plainsong Magnificat (Fourth Service) flows beautifully into Rimsky-Korsakov's The Lord's Prayer, and the pairing that follows — Undine Smith Moore's We Shall Walk Through the Valley — extends that same hushed, processional quality. George Richford's Chanson de Normandie is another highlight, its harmonies delivered with real warmth; written for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, it sets words from Verlaine's poem, once broadcast by the BBC as a coded warning to the French Resistance ahead of the invasion – history folded quietly into music.

Among the more familiar repertoire, Stanford's Coelos ascendit hodie stands out for its sheer vitality, while the soloists confirm the depth of strength Price has enjoyed throughout his tenure. Evelyn Cowhig is superb in the Mozart, and Daniel Sands is equally impressive in Handel's How Beautiful Are the Feet, both marked by that same clarity that runs through the whole disc. Paul Trepte's The Gateway of Heaven — a nod to Price's earlier years at Ely, where Trepte was organist — is a short but affecting piece, with baritone Alex Wallace bringing real presence to it. Wallace reappears, clarinet in hand this time, weaving through Rutter's The Lord Is My Light and My Salvation alongside tenor Adrian Green in a performance of real charm and lovely, unhurried vocal lines.

What elevates this recital beyond mere accomplishment is its strong sense of place. This performance is unmistakably a portrait of Portsmouth as much as of its cathedral choir: the annual Seafarers' Service, the Royal Marines Band memorial, and the D-Day commemorations all leave their mark on the programme, alongside the great festivals of the church's year, running from Advent through to St Cecilia's Day on 22 November. Grayston Ives's setting of They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships, commissioned by the cathedral itself, earns its place here as much through local resonance as musical merit, and Richard Lloyd's arrangement of I Saw Three Ships offers a lighter, festive counterpoint. As befits a building so often described as the Cathedral of the Sea, the recording never strains after its maritime theme — it simply lets it rise, unforced, wherever the water meets the stone.

This disc captures the experience of sitting in Portsmouth Cathedral: the choir's intimacy, the space for the music to breathe, and a vibrancy that carries through from the first track to the last. A fitting tribute to thirty years' work and a thoroughly recommendable addition to the Regent catalogue.