Concert in memory of

Sir David Willcocks CBE MC1919-2015

22 November 2015 KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL

King’s College, Cambridge

Concertin memory of

Sir David Willcocks1919-2015

Blest pair of Sirens Hubert ParrySing joyfully William Byrd

Jehova, quam multi sunt Henry PurcellFugue in E flat (St Anne) J.S. Bach

A Hymn to the Virgin Benjamin BrittenValiant-for-Truth Ralph Vaughan Williams

Requiem Gabriel Fauré

King’s College ChoirTom Etheridge & Richard Gowers organ scholars

Gerald Finley baritoneStephen Cleobury conductor

Orchestra including former members of King’s College and the Choir,and colleagues of Sir David Willcocks

Please reserve any applause until the end of the concert

Sunday 22 November 2015 at 3pm

This concert is being recorded by BBC Radio 3 for transmission on 1 December at 7.30pm.

You rarely saw him in repose. Conducting concerts, or taking rehearsals – an art form he delighted in – he seemed to vibrate with energy. He never strolled: walking alongside him you would struggle to keep up as he sped from one appointment to the next in an often impossibly crowded day. In committee meetings he was constantly alert, ready to pounce courteously but ruthlessly on a weak argument or unwise course of action. He ran his bustling offices at King’s and later at the RCM like military nerve centres where there were always campaigns to plan, people to deal with, problems to foresee, and crises to avert. At social gatherings his high spirits and charm drew people to him, and he entertained at many a party with his favourite trick of playing the piano facing backwards with his hands crossed behind him, a skill doubtless acquired from performing at NAAFI shows in his army days. Mental relaxation took the form of word-games, puzzles and beating his own time-record solving The Listener ‘Mephisto’ crossword; he burned off surplus physical energy with surfing, squash and golf.

He was never seen downcast. Occasionally an act of stupidity or malice on the part of others led to a volcanic eruption of righteous anger, but in general he viewed the world with a twinkling, quizzical eye and an inherent kindness backed up by lifelong loyalty to those who he felt had earned it. He was a born leader with a love of life, and this was surely the thread running through his long and illustrious career as organ scholar, army officer, cathedral organist, Director of Music at King’s, Director of the Royal College of Music, and finally freelance choral conductor and senior head of the choral community.

There are many who could chronicle his later

Sir David Willcocks: An appreciation by John Rutter

career from personal knowledge, but none still alive to write at first hand of young Master Willcocks, the Cornish boy plucked out of a not specially musical background to become a Westminster Abbey chorister and music scholar at Clifton College; fortunately his own recollections, recorded in 2004, remained pin-sharp. There was the story of the piano tuner, who spotted that the six-year-old had perfect pitch; there was his mother, who took him to London to seek advice from the Master of the King’s Music, Sir Henry Walford Davies – an act of maternal determination similar to that of William Walton’s mother who took her young son to Oxford in pursuit of a choristership – then there was the audition with Sir Ernest Bullock at Westminster Abbey where the eight-year-old insisted on accompanying his own vocal solo, saying ‘do you mind if I play for myself, sir, because the accompaniment is a bit tricky’. It would be fascinating to have Bullock’s side of the story; what can he have made of this super-confident child? The audition was successful, at least, and from 1929 five happy years as an Abbey chorister followed, with their share of royal and ceremonial occasions (for which David retained a lifelong taste) and a daily routine of Anglican choral worship enlivened by boyish pranks. He took to the organ with natural aptitude, and in 1934 won a music scholarship to Clifton College, a boys boarding school with a strong musical reputation.

At Clifton his mentor was the redoubtable Douglas Fox, who had continued to play the organ undaunted by the loss of an arm in World War I, which must have given his pupil an early lesson in the value of persistence in adversity. Fox evidently thought highly of him, preparing him for the same goal as an earlier Clifton boy, Boris Ord: an organ scholarship at King’s

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College, the highest honour a young organist could aspire to. After a gap year spent at the fledgling Royal School of Church Music, Willcocks sailed through the King’s audition, astonishing the examiners by offering to play any of a list of twelve Bach preludes and fugues by heart. He then had to rehearse the choir in Tallis’s If ye love me, which he instantly improved, first by soliciting suggestions from the choir members themselves – an exercise in democracy he later would sometimes make use of under carefully controlled conditions – and second, by pulling out the useful trick of raising the pitch a semitone, which remained a favourite Willcocks device.

The year was 1939. His duties, not unlike those of a King’s organ scholar today, must have been quite a front-line experience for a nineteen-year-old, but he soon found himself on a very different front line when, after only a year, his time at Cambridge was interrupted by army service. Commissioned into the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in 1940, he served as an intelligence officer in the 1944 Normandy landings. His daily work of spying behind enemy lines on a bicycle, a target for snipers, was hazardous enough, but his part in the capture of Hill 112 was heroic, rallying his depleted battalion when their commanding officer had been killed by enemy fire along with over three hundred other officers and

men. He was promoted to Captain and awarded the Military Cross, pinned on him personally by Field Marshal Montgomery. For decades he showed the photograph of this ceremony to no one; in fact he never spoke of his part in the war at all until the D-day anniversary in 2004 released a flood of memories he finally felt able to share.

Recognising his exceptional courage and leadership qualities, the army invited him to stay on after the war, but he chose to return to Cambridge to complete his degree and his tenure as King’s organ scholar. From the moment of his return, it seemed as if one golden apple after another fell into his lap: a first in history and economics (before military service he had already gained a first in the MusB); a four-year Fellowship at King’s; conductorship of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society; marriage to Rachel Blyth, daughter of the Senior Tutor of Selwyn College and a soprano in the Philharmonic chorus who had been impressed by his conducting of the Bach St Matthew Passion from memory; then an out-of-the-blue offer in 1947 to become organist of Salisbury Cathedral.

He accepted the Salisbury post, which was both an accolade and an opportunity to rebuild a choir depleted by the war and none too strong under the leadership of the revered but 85-year-old organist Sir Walter Alcock. He held the post only till 1950, when he was invited to become organist of Worcester Cathedral (auditions and interviews did not become customary in the cathedral world until later); on the advice of Adrian Boult who saw the greater opportunities for orchestral conducting offered by a Three Choirs Festival cathedral, he accepted.

From here on the Willcocks story becomes more familiar. In his first Three Choirs Festival in 1950, David assisted in preparing the première of a work he was to conduct in the 1951 festival and record with the Bach Choir in 1970, Herbert Howells’s Hymnus Paradisi. The deep impression this work made on him led to a Festival commission in 1954 for Howells’s Missa Sabrinensis. In the 1954 festival he also brought Vaughan Williams to Worcester to conduct the première of another commissioned work, Hodie. To add to the roster of premières, in 1952 he directed the CBSO chorus and orchestra in the first UK performance of the Duruflé Requiem, with the composer at the organ.

In 1957 he was unexpectedly called back to King’s to assist Boris Ord who was in the advancing stages of a degenerative illness. He became the de facto organist and choir director, being confirmed in the post early in 1958, and thus began an extraordinary seventeen-year reign which was recognised as a golden age, not least for Cambridge music-lovers who had a choice of two world-beating choirs at opposite ends of Trinity Street – and does not the golden age continue in this city even today, but with many more choirs now involved? George Guest’s

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style and influence at St John’s would need a lengthy appreciation of its own, but DVW’s ideal at King’s was, simply, flawless choral perfection and beauty, not excluding drama and pathos, but expressed through a controlled and idealised choral sound matched to the acoustic of the chapel, where no individual voice stood out, every phrase was elegantly shaped, every word (with its delicious Noel Coward diction) crystal clear, and every note exactly in tune – albeit with those characteristically sharp King’s thirds, an obsession born of David’s horror of the flat singing common among choirs in his earlier years.

His training methods were inspired by the example of Field Marshal Montgomery, who understood as no commander had before that the best way to get your troops to carry out an order was to make them want to do it. You led from the front, you made your men feel that they were the A-team, you gave them the confidence and pride to be winners. Former King’s choristers speak of DVW as kind, firm, demanding but fair, with a boyish sense of humour which led him on one occasion to dive into the school swimming pool dressed as Superman – former choral scholars tend to recall a sometimes intimidating but always inspiring insistence on ‘getting it right’. You had to put your hand up in rehearsal if you made a mistake, and one former King’s alto claims to have spent three

years with his hand permanently in the air.Under Boris Ord the choir was already nationally

recognised as excellent, but DVW raised it to international fame through radio and TV broadcasts together with an influential series of just over fifty recordings, plus occasional concerts and overseas tours. The daily choral worship was always at the heart of his work – he expected the same excellence and commitment whether it was a quiet weekday evensong or a flagship broadcast or recording to be heard by millions – but he realised the importance of King’s College Choir as a model which other choirs were following around the world, and he made his choir aware that they were always on show and must never fall below their best.

The music recorded by the choir ranged widely: Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Blow, Bach, Handel, an iconic Howells disc, a first recording of the Allegri Miserere which elevated Master Roy Goodman to rock star status, Anglican psalms (the album was mischievously given the title The Psalms of David), the Fauré Requiem and much else – but the most widely popular recordings were of Christmas music and carols. Soon after his return to King’s, David began to transform the Christmas Eve Festival by writing what became classic descants to the great Christmas hymns, plus many refreshing, exquisitely voiced arrangements of traditional carols. These were gathered together in the renowned Carols for Choirs books, Vol. 1 in 1961, Vol. 2 with the present writer as co-editor in 1970, and they quickly became fixtures in the repertoire of choirs everywhere. David Willcocks became the name who transformed our musical celebration of Christmas.

During the hectic King’s years he dealt graciously and patiently with sackloads of fan mail and a steady procession of pilgrims from all over the world who wanted to hear King’s College Choir and meet its director. Only one frequent request was always politely refused: observers were not permitted at the choir’s rehearsals, which he felt should never become public performances; one also suspects he was shrewdly aware that their very inaccessibility added to the mystique. He found time to conduct the Bach Choir in London, a cherished post he held for thirty-eight years, and to guest-conduct other choirs in the UK and abroad. He fostered a fruitful association with Benjamin Britten, whom he brought to Cambridge several times to conduct. He encouraged young composers and performers, giving astute guidance to many – though he wryly admitted that at the start of the King’s Singers’ career he predicted ‘I’d give them a year at the most’.

His leadership qualities, coupled with his administrative, personal and pastoral skills were sought by the Royal College of Music who tempted him away from Cambridge to be their Director in 1974. During his ten years in that role he did much

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to modernise the RCM’s internal organisation and consolidate its reputation and finances, successfully raising the money to build the Britten Opera Theatre. Retirement in 1984 with a well-deserved knighthood liberated him to take up more invitations to guest-conduct internationally and lead choral festivals, workshops and cruises, a happy final chapter in a career which came to an end only after his 90th year.His achievement and importance had several aspects. First, he was one of a select few choral conductors who, in the post-war years, raised the standard and status of choral music around the world, not only by example with his own conducting but equally by inspiring others to match it. Second, he was a tireless choral ambassador who sought to spread the love of choral singing as widely as possible, always happy to work with singers of whatever standard to raise them to a higher level. Finally, he was an exceptional teacher and mentor, who took a genuine and lifelong interest in his singers, organ scholars, and indeed anyone who sought or needed his guidance. This last quality sprang from a profound humanity and kindness which radiated outwards from his own much-loved family to the wider family of everyone he met. He held a passionate belief in the value of life itself, perhaps because he had witnessed so much tragic loss of it in the war and in the untimely death of his son James from cancer at the age of 33.

Many of us have our own special memories of Sir David, whether it be a favourite recording, a

traditional carol made new in a sparkling Willcocks arrangement, an uplifting concert under his baton, an act of individual kindness or encouragement (they were innumerable), a witty after-dinner speech, or simply the inspiration to pursue ever-higher goals in choral music. My last fond memory of him is of the occasion about a year before his death when we walked arm in arm round the garden of my new family home. Every so often he would spot a fallen leaf or a stray seed packet lying by a path, point to it and say ‘do pick that up’ followed by an impish smile and ‘sorry – it’s my army training’. We shall all miss him.

JOHN RUTTER

David on John Rutter

“I’ve always been a fan of John Rutter’s....In 1970 OUP asked me for a second Carols for Choirs with another 50 carols. I didn’t know 50, I might have known 5, but I’d really spent my bolt on the first volume. They asked whether I would consider being a joint editor. I think OUP thought I’d ask Britten or Walton or Tippett. But I told them about a very nice, quiet boy called John Rutter, who was about 22, saying I was sure he’d do great things if they let me employ him. And John did this marvellous work. He enlarged the book enormously and his orchestrations were excellent. And he was able to write for choirs of every sort, from cathedral choirs right down to village choirs. They loved his music because it was tuneful and it had rhythmic interest. And it particularly appealed to young people.”

Interview with Emma Cleobury 2004.

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DVW with John Rutter in David’s office at King’s.

Blest pair of Sirens (1887) Hubert Parry(1848-1919)

David loved Parry’s music throughout his life. The composer died in the year that David was born, having contributed hugely to the renaissance of English music after a century dominated by composers from the continent. As a young child in Cornwall, David would play the piano for his father, who liked to sing songs set by Parry as party pieces. When David was a chorister at Westminster Abbey, Parry featured strongly in the repertoire.

Throughout his career, David championed the works of composers from the British Isles such as Parry, Stanford, Elgar, Howells, Vaughan Williams and Britten, and he excelled at conducting their music. In his musical appointments, David followed in the steps of these great men, and their lives were closely linked, in particular through Cambridge University, the Royal College of Music, the Three Choirs Festival and the Bach Choir. Like Parry, David became the Director of the RCM, where Stanford had taught composition until his death in 1924. When David became Director in 1974, Howells was still a Professor at the College. In 1985, David conducted the Bach Choir in the first performance in living memory of Parry’s long-neglected choral setting of Tennyson’s poem, The Lotus Eaters.

Parry’s Blest pair of Sirens is dedicated to Charles Villiers Stanford, who commissioned it for the Bach Choir – in which Parry sang. David conducted this

Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven’s joy, Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse, Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce, And to our high-raised fantasy present, That undisturbèd song of pure consent, Ay sung before the sapphire-coloured throne To him that sits thereon, With saintly shout and solemn jubilee; Where the bright Seraphim, in burning row, Their loud, uplifted angel-trumpets blow, And the Cherubic host in thousand choirs Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, With those just spirits, that wear victorious palms, Hymns devout and holy psalms Singing everlastingly; That we on Earth with undiscording voice, May rightly answer that melodious noise; As once we did, till disproportioned sin Jarr’d against Nature’s chime, and with harsh din Broke the fair music that all creatures made To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed In perfect diapason, whilst they stood In first obedience, and their state of good. O may we soon again renew that song, And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long To his celestial consort us unite, To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light.

Words, JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

work at King’s in December 2009, when members of the Bach Choir joined King’s Choir and the CUMS Chorus to sing Evensong in celebration of David’s 90th birthday. This service was broadcast by BBC Radio 3, and the programme was repeated by the BBC on the Sunday following David’s death.

Blest pair of Sirens was the last work that David conducted in King’s College Chapel.

DVW with Herbert Howells, who shared his links with the RCM and the Three Choirs Festival.

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Sing joyfully (c.1590) William Byrd(c.1543-1623)

In the 1950s and 1960s, David was ahead of many of his colleagues in giving prominence to Tudor and Elizabethan music which had long been neglected in the world of cathedral music. His recordings of this repertoire were among the earliest and best produced.

Byrd’s Sing joyfully is a piece that David performed many times at evensong in Salisbury and Worcester cathedrals, and in King’s College Chapel. It is a setting of verses from Psalm 81, and reflects David’s love for the Coverdale psalter. His own Book of Common Prayer is heavily annotated in his own hand.

Sing joyfully unto God our strength; sing loud unto the God of Jacob. Take the song and bring forth the timbrel, the pleasant harp and the viol. Blow the trumpet in the new moon, even in the time appointed, and at our feast day. For this is a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob.

Words, PSALM 81: 1-4

DVW on the Psalms

“Ever since I was a small boy, I’ve always loved the words of the psalms. Of course, we sang them every day in Westminster Abbey, either the morning or the evening ones. I think I can still recite many of the psalms to this day, because when you learn something at the age of eight, nine, or ten you remember it for the rest of your life. I felt that if a choir could sing psalms well, it could sing anything well, because it’s like chamber music – you must work together as a small team. I used to tinker with the pointing of the psalms and try to make the rhythm as near as possible to good speech. I also studied the structure of the psalms. In some, the sense goes right through the whole verse; in others the sense changes at the colon in the middle, and you get what is called the ‘answering’ effect. A good example is the opening of Psalm 114: ‘When Israel came out of Egypt: and the house of Jacob from among the strange people, Judah was his sanctuary: and Israel his dominion.’ In these cases it is nonsense for one side of the choir to sing the whole verse; the two sides of the choir should answer each other. But where the sense goes right through it is bad to divide the choir. Therefore, I think it is right to vary the way in which each psalm is approached. You also have to consider, ‘Where does the main stress come?’ In a verse like ‘God is our hope and strength: a very present help in trouble’, is the stress on ‘very’, ‘present’, ‘help’, or ‘in trouble’? You have to work in rehearsal to make sure that the entire choir feels the words in the same way, at the same speed, and with the same emphasis, in order to make the psalms vital to the listener. You also have to plan your dynamics very carefully, and sometimes the organ can be a good adjunct. I like some psalms sung a cappella, others using the organ. When you have got a verse like ‘Tremble thou earth’, it is very exciting to hear the organ in the background, reinforcing the meaning of the words. There are some verses in which it is extremely difficult to know what stops to use. There’s one verse that says, ‘Like as it were a moth fretting a garment’ – I don’t know which stops you use for that! Another example is ‘For I am become like a bottle in the smoke’. I was always conscious of the need to prepare the psalms as much as possible. If there was only one hour’s rehearsal, I would often spend as much as forty minutes on the psalms and perhaps ten minutes on the anthem and ten minutes on the canticles. We were constantly changing our minds concerning the pointing, and I’d make everybody bring pencils so that they were prepared to make the necessary alterations. I very often used to take a vote.”

A Life in Music

DVW at Salisbury.

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Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei Z.135(c.1680) Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

David never felt bound by the restrictions of authenticity. Although Purcell wrote his Jehova, quam multi sunt for a small choir, David believed that this piece, and indeed Bach’s great Passions and many other works, could quite validly be performed by symphony orchestras and large choruses. In the late 19th century, Otto Goldschmidt, founder and first conductor of the Bach Choir, arranged Purcell’s Jehova, quam multi sunt for the Bach Choir to sing, with an organ part by W.H.Cumming. This was published by Novello in 1930.

Throughout his long life, David often told colleagues that the piece of music they had just performed was one that he would like played at his memorial. Ian Hare, organ scholar at King’s under David from 1968-72, remembers David saying that he would particularly like the beautiful passage ‘ego cubui et dormivi’ – I laid me down and slept.

Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei,Quam multi insurgunt contra me.Quam multi dicunt de anima mea; Non est ulla salus isti in Deo plane.At tu, Jehova, clypeus es circa me;Gloria mea, et extollens caput meum.Voce mea ad Jehovam clamanti; respondit mihi e monte sanctitatis suae maxime.Ego cubui et dormivi; ego expergefeci me; quia Jehova sustentat me.Non timebo a myriadibus populi, quas circumdisposuerint metatores contra me.Surge, surge Jehova, fac salvum me, Deus mi;Qui percussisti omnes inimicos meos maxilliam, dentes improborum confregisti.Jehova est salus: super populum tuum;sit benedictio tua maxime.

Lord, how are they increased that trouble me: many are they that rise against me.Many one there be that say of my soul: There is no help for him in his God.But thou, O Lord, art my defender: thou art my worship, and the lifter up of my head.I did call upon the Lord with my voice: and he heard me out of his holy hill.I laid me down and slept, and rose up again: for the Lord sustained me.I will not be afraid for ten thousands of the people: that have set themselves against me round about.Up, Lord, and help me, O my God: for thou smitest all mine enemies upon the cheek-bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.Salvation belongeth unto the Lord: and thy blessing is upon thy people.

Words, PSALM 3

Fugue in E flat (St Anne) BWV 552 (1739) J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

The inclusion in this concert of the St Anne Fugue reminds us that David was an exceptionally fine organist. David first learnt to play the organ at Westminster Abbey after his voice broke at the age of 12 and he could no longer sing as a treble. Ernest Bullock offered him free organ lessons, and soon David was turning pages for him during services, then pulling out stops, then playing some chords, then accompanying hymns, and finally playing Bach voluntaries. (David himself taught pupils for free throughout his life.) At Clifton he was taught by Douglas Fox, a talented organist who had lost his right hand in the First World War. David later invited Douglas Fox to play Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand at the Three Choirs Festival.

As he told William Owen (A Life in Music), ‘Bach has always been a great favourite of mine’ and as a university lecturer, David specialised in Bach. David shared Vaughan Williams’ views on ‘authentic’ Bach performances, and during his career made many recordings of Bach with choirs large and small, including the St Matthew Passion with the Bach Choir.

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DVW in the organ loft at Worcester Cathedral.

DVW’s return from the war

”The most dramatic return from the army I witnessed was one evening in November 1945 in King’s College Chapel. By then I had met Harold Darke, the Acting Organist of King’s during the war, a fine organist and composer amongst other things of the carol ‘In the bleak mid-winter’. Together with one or two other keen organists, I was in the organ loft waiting for evensong to begin. Normally Harold Darke would play before the Choir processed into the Chapel. On this occasion an undergraduate totally unknown to any of us walked quietly into the organ loft. To our amazement, and quite contrary to normal practice, Harold Darke asked him to play. We were puzzled. The undergraduate looked for a minute at the music of the introit, which lay open on the organ, and then started to improvise on it. It was amazing, sheer delight. He knew his way around the famous organ and seemed completely at home on it. Who could he be? He was, of course, David Willcocks returning from five years’ service in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in which he had won the Military Cross. During those five years he had only played an organ once, when he had been asked to play at a VE service in Germany, and had done so in his army boots! Within a few weeks of returning to King’s, he played the Advent Carol Service, the hardest of all services for an organist. On that occasion he introduced the harmonies and descant for ‘O come, all ye faithful’, which have since become famous, and he finished the service with a superb performance of the Bach G major Prelude and Fugue, one of the most difficult of all Bach’s organ works.’

From the memoirs of Sir John Margetson, formerly former British Ambassador to Vietnam,

the United Nations, and the Netherlands, former Chairman of the Royal School of Church Music, the Yehudi Menuhin School, and of the joint committee

of the Royal College of Music and Royal Academy of Music.

“DVW on taking over from Boris Ord

”You know as well as I do how difficult a man Boris is to succeed, but all the Choral Scholars (thanks largely to the influence of the more senior ones) have done their utmost to make things easy for me.”

From a letter dated 14 August 1958 to a senior member of the Choir

who had recently gone down.

”Vaughan Williams was one of those who wasagainst attempting to recreate original performanceconditions. The question that he would ask whenperforming Bach’s music was not ‘What did Bachdo?’ but ‘What would Bach do if he were alive andwith us today? Would he use modern instruments?Would he sometimes perform in a concert hallinstead of a church? Would he use women andgirls instead of boys?’ He would always pose thosequestions. He would rarely give his own answers;but you knew perfectly well what he thought.”

A Life in Music

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David met Benjamin Britten through the Three Choirs Festival, when he was at Worcester. In 1957, when David returned to King’s, he was ‘just down the road’ from Ben in Aldeburgh, and the two often worked together. During David’s time in Cambridge, Britten became attached to the CUMS Chorus, and performed several of his works with this choir. Britten regularly invited David to bring CUMS to sing at the Aldeburgh Festival, and indeed CUMS was due to sing there on the day the Maltings burned down. Britten chose David to conduct many of the early performances of his War Requiem, and together they conducted the Bach Choir and King’s Choir in the celebrated recording of this work.

A Hymn to the Virgin reflects the Marian dedication of this Chapel, a building which David loved, and which he requested as his ‘one luxury’ on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.

A Hymn to the Virgin Benjamin Britten(1930) (1913-1976)

DVW on Britten

‘...he was quite attached to the King’s College Choir. He wrote for boys’ voices in a number of works, including the War Requiem and the Spring Symphony. He came to Cambridge from Aldeburgh to rehearse with them himself. He used to come to breakfast and he would chat about the boys. He didn’t waste time in rehearsals – he just got down to working straightaway and was always encouraging. We recorded his Ceremony of Carols and Voices for Today and he was quite pleased. Britten invited the King’s College Choir to provide the semi-chorus in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius in the recording which he made with Peter Pears and the London Symphony Orchestra Chorus. ... and the King’s College Choir provided the sort of ethereal background that Britten wanted. In that recording, if you listen carefully, you will hear the organ part which I played on the King’s College organ.

A Life in Music

DVW on the War Requiem

“Ben said he’d like me to do some of the War Requiem performances that were coming up .... And it was due to the performances that I did on his behalf in Italy and Japan that the Bach Choir got to do the recording with Ben conducting and me as chorus master. And that is the one which will last for ever.”

Interview with Emma Cleobury 2006.

Of one that is so fair and bright Velut maris stella, Brighter than the day is light, Parens et puella:I cry to thee, thou see to me, Lady pray thy Son for me, Tam pia, That I may come to thee. Maria!

All this world was forlorn Eva peccatrice, Till our Lord was yborn De te genetrice. With ave it went away Darkest night, and comes the day Salutis; The well springeth out of thee. Virtutis.

Lady, flower of everything, Rosa sine spina, Thou bear Jesu, Heaven’s King, Gratia divina: Of all thou bear’st the prize, Lady, queen of paradise Electa: Maid mild, mother es Effecta.

Words: ANON, c. 1300

DVW and Benjamin Britten at King’s.

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A fanfare for brass, percussion and organ, written as an introduction to the hymn ‘Come Holy Ghost’. DVW’s meticulous hand-writing and the many performance details included belie the speed at which many of his arrangements were written. 13

Valiant-for-Truth Ralph Vaughan Williams(1942) (1872-1958)

Valiant-for-Truth was first performed in 1942 and the work had great resonances for all living through the dark days of the Second World War, especially the concluding trumpet effects that accompany the welcome into the court of heaven. David was, at that time, away from King’s, serving with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, with whom he fought in Normandy – where he received his Military Cross – and in Holland and Germany.

Left to right: Herbert Howells, Ralph Vaughan Williams and DVW at Worcester.

After this it was noised abroad that Mister Valiant-for-Truth was taken with a summons and had this for a token that the summons was true, ‘That his pitcher was broken at the fountain’. When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it.

Then said he, I am going to my Father’s, and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill, to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, a witness for me, that I have fought his battles, who now will be my rewarder.

When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the riverside, into which, as he went, he said, ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ And as he went down deeper, he said, ‘Grave, where is thy victory?’

So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.

Words, JOHN BUNYAN (1628-88)

DVW receiving his MC from Field Marshal Montgomery.

DVW on Army life

“It was such a different life. I didn’t miss Cambridge; I didn’t think about it because we were absorbed in battle. I never thought of music at all, except when we captured a village and there was a church there. Someone might say, ‘Say, Willcocks, does that thing there work?’ I would go and see if the organ was playable or not. If there was a piano in a pub or private house, I might play it. I could play all the dance tunes of the day.” A Life in Music

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“Vaughan Williams by then [1954] was getting very deaf, his eyesight was poor, and he was conducting [a rehearsal] from his own illegible handwritten full score [of Hodie, which David had commissioned]. ...In the first movement Vaughan Williams either lost his place or failed to cope with awkward changing rhythmic patterns. Everything came apart. Everybody wondered what Ralph Vaughan Williams would say – would he blame the chorus or the orchestra? Not a bit of it! He banged the conducting desk and in feigned anger said ‘I have told you all a hundred times, don’t watch me… then things will go right!’ We all followed his advice! And the performance in the evening was very successful. Vaughan Williams, as usual, had won our respect and affection by his candour and modesty.”

A Life in Music

DVW on Vaughan Williams

“I’d met him at the Festivals of 1936 and 1937. He had succeeded Elgar as being the ‘master’ of the Three Choirs Festival. He was the senior person – very much loved by everybody because of his modesty and great ability. He attended all the concerts and would listen with his earphone because he was beginning to get deaf. He became a great friend, despite being forty-seven years older than I was. I regarded him with affection rather than awe; he made me feel that I was a colleague rather than a pupil. Vaughan Williams was to become quite an influence in my life because I was privileged later to record almost all of his large choral works with professional orchestra. He was very encouraging to me on all those occasions... He was so kind and he always treated one as an equal.”

A Life in Music

“Vaughan Williams would say, ‘I want people to feel my music living within them’. Well, during the ... seven years [in Worcester] I conducted most of his big works in front of him: Hodie, Job, and Sancta Civitas, and A Sea Symphony in Birmingham. He was always very kind, and said they were fine. He said ‘Do what you think is right because the chances are that you know just as much as the composer does about the performance of his own works’.”

A Life in Music

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Requiem in D minor Op.48 Gabriel Fauré(1887-90) ed. John Rutter (1845-1924)

David’s iconic recording of the Fauré Requiem, with King’s College Choir, was released in 1968. The soloists were chorister Bob Chilcott (now a distinguished composer), and John Carol Case, a former King’s choral scholar who sang the part of Christus for many years in the annual Bach Choir St Matthew Passion. David performed this work many times, with many different choirs and in many different venues, ranging from the intimacy of the King’s Choir with just organ accompaniment, to the grandeur of thousands of singers and full orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall. In a concert in King’s Chapel to mark his 85th birthday, David conducted the Fauré Requiem and Haydn Nelson Mass, with the King’s Choir and the chorus and orchestra of the Royal College of Music.

Fauré himself won a decoration for his service in the Franco-Prussian war, and his experiences in that war (where machine guns were used for perhaps the first time) had a great influence on his music.

The edition being performed today is by John Rutter, and an orchestra has been gathered which includes close friends and colleagues of David’s, musicians with whom he worked over many years.

Bob Chilcott on being prepared to sing the treble solo in the Fauré Requiem

“David prepared me. I can remember standing with him in the antechapel of King’s in front of the organ screen, and he said, ‘Imagine there are hundreds of people sitting there, and they are all cabbages’. He was marvellous, and it did prepare me. The ultimate for me was to sing the ‘Pie Jesu’ on the Fauré Requiem recording in 1967 and that was a marvellous thrill. My voice was nearing its end then, and I remember struggling a bit with the solo and struggling with nerves.., but it worked out quite well. David was very encouraging. The release of that record in 1968 coincided with the death of my father, which was quite a dramatic time in my life. I was only twelve years old, and I’d been away from home for four of those years. David was incredibly sympathetic. He said, ‘Chilcott’ – because they always called you by your surname – ‘I’m very, very sorry to hear about your father’. He said it a few times and graciously, and it was very beautifully expressed. He said no more than he had to, and then he said, ‘Now run along’. That was a fine, kind of ‘Now get on with the job’ comment.”

A Life in Music

DVW as a Westminster Abbey chorister.

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DVW rehearsing choristers at Salisbury.

“When I stop to think about death, I think of the Fauré Requiem….Fauré did not want the day of judgement. He didn’t want, like Verdi, to have guns popping everywhere, people getting frightened by the thought of death. He wanted it to be something that was consoling and helpful. The last part you’ll hear is choirs of angels singing you to your rest. May saints in their glory receive you at your journey’s end, guiding your footsteps into the holy city of Jerusalem... Rest in peace.”

BBC Radio 4 ‘Soul Music’ 2010

Stephen Cleobury and DVW after the 85th birthday concert, at which David had conducted the Fauré Requiem.

“At the end there were many curtain calls, and on the last one he ran up the aisle as if to say ‘I may be eighty-five but I can still run’. The thing that inspires those of us who love him is his irrepressible energy and enthusiasm for everything he does.”

Stephen Cleobury on the 85th birthday concert,the last occasion on which David conducted the Fauré Requiem in King’s Chapel, interviewed for A Life in Music.

I. Introït et Kyrie Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,et lux perpetua luceat eis.Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion: et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.Exaudi orationem meam. Ad te omnis caro veniet. Kyrie eleison;Christe eleison.

II. Offertoire O Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae,libera animas defunctorum depoenis inferni et de profundo lacu,de ore leonis,ne absorbeat Tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum. Hostias et preces tibi, Domine, laudis offerimus; tu suscipe pro animabus illisquarum hodie memoriam facimus;fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam,quam olim Abrahae promisisti et semini ejus.O Domine etc. Amen.

Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord,and let light perpetual shine upon them.Thou, O Lord, art praised in Sion:and unto thee shall the vow be performed in Jerusalem.Thou that hearest the prayer:unto thee shall all flesh come.

Lord, have mercy upon us;Christ, have mercy upon us.

II.

O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory,deliver the souls of the departed from thepunishments of hell and from the bottomless pitDeliver them from the mouth of the lion,and let not Tartarus swallow [them].nor let them fall into darkness.We offer unto Thee praise with sacrifices and prayers.Do thou accept them for those soulswhose memory we keep today.Grant them, O Lord, to pass from death to the lifethat Thou hast promised once to Abraham and his seed.O Lord etc. Amen.

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III. Sanctus Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.Hosanna in excelsis. IV. Pie Jesu Pie Jesu, Domine,dona eis requiem.Pie Jesu, Domine,dona eis requiem sempiternam.

V. Agnus Dei Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem.Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,dona eis requiem sempiternam. Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine,cum sanctis tuis in aeternum,quia pius es. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,et lux perpetua luceat eis.

VI. Libera me

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna in die illatremenda; quando coeli movendi sunt et terra;dum veneris judicaresaeculum per ignem.Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo,dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira. Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae,dies magna et amara valde. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Libera me, Domine, etc.

VII. In Paradisum

In paradisum deducant angeli, in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducantte in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem.Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cumLazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeasrequiem.

III.

Holy, holy, holy,Lord God of hosts.Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.Hosanna in the highest.

IV.

Blessed Jesus, Lord,grant them rest.Blessed Jesus, Lord,grant them eternal rest.

V.

O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world,grant them rest.O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world,grant them everlasting rest.

Let eternal light shine upon them, O Lord,with thy saints for ever,for thou are good.Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,and let perpetual light shine upon them.

VI.

Deliver me, O Lord, from everlasting death onthat dread day; when the heavens and earthshall quake; when thou shalt cometo judge the world by fire.I am seized with trembling, and am afraid, until the day of reckoning shall arrive and thewrath shall come.That day, a day of wrath, calamity and misery,a great and exceedingly bitter day.Eternal rest grant them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.Deliver me, etc

VII.

May angels lead thee to paradise, at thycoming may the martyrs receive thee, andbring thee into the holy city of Jerusalem.May the choir of angels receive thee, and withLazarus, once a beggar, mayst thou haveeternal rest.

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King’s College Choir

ChoristersThomas AlbanJack BowleyHenry ButlinSam CatesWilliam DewhurstSamuel EllisAlexander Findlayson-BrownLev GodarJoseph HallGeorge HillAlfred HopkinsThomas HopkinsAbrial JerramTheo KennedyMarcus McDevittSung-Joon Park

Callum ReidOliver ThomasSam TruemanLucas Williams

AltosOliver FinnRupert ScarrattIsaac Jarratt-BarnhamJohn Ash

TenorsToby WardDaniel LewisJulius HaswellSebastian JohnsHarry Bradford

BassesWilliam GeesonHugo Herman-WilsonBenedict KearnsRobin Mackworth-YoungStewart BatesJames JenkinsStephen Whitford

ViolinJames Clark (King’s chorister 1968-72; RCM 1976-80)

Viola 1Judith BusbridgeLouise WilliamsJenny LewisohnStefan Bown (King’s chorister 1961-65)

Viola 2Kathryn ParryKrysia Osostowicz (King’s College 1977-80)Alinka RoweOscar Perks

Cello 1Guy Johnston (King’s chorister 1990-94)Pedro SilvaJoy Lisney

Cello 2Jane Salmon (RCM 1980-81)Sophie GledhillBen Michaels

Double bassAlastair Hume (King’s choral scholar 1962-65)Joe Cowie

BassoonRachel Gough (King’s College 1984-87)Shelly Organ

TrumpetJohn Wallace (King’s College 1967-70)John Miller (King’s College 1970-73)

HornHugh SisleyFrancisco GomezKeith Maries (King’s College 1963-66)Jacob Rowe

HarpSioned Williams

TimpaniAndrew Powell (King’s College 1967-70)

The David Willcocks Music Trust (registered charity number 802631)provides singing and organ-playing opportunities for young people,

and supports music-making in churches and in the wider community.You can donate online through the following link:

www.justgiving.com/David-Willcocks-Music-Trustor send a cheque to the David Willcocks Music Trust, c/o 3, The Square, Compton, West Sussex, PO18 9HA

Programme compiled by Emma Cleobury (King’s College 1996-2001 & Bach Choir 1988-94)

‘A Life in Music: Conversations with Sir David Willcocks and Friends’ ed. WilliamOwen © William Owen and Sir David Willcocks 2008. Extracts reproduced by

permission of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

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