Rubbra Missa Cantuariensis

Opus 59 for double choir. Edmund Rubbra (1901–1986) was a British composer who composed both instrumental and vocal works for soloists, chamber groups and full chorus and orchestra. Highly respected by fellow musicians, he was at the peak of his public popularity in the mid-20th century, his most well-known works being his eleven symphonies.

The Missa Cantuariensis written during the last years of the Second World War was the result of a conversation between the Reverend J .W. Poole, the then Precentor of Canterbury Cathedral, and the Cathedral Organist, Gerald Knight. The far-sighted Precentor wished to encourage musicians to write for the liturgy and realised (with great clarity) that it was essential for the Church itself to encourage new music. The Mass was first performed on 20th June 1946 in St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield in London with the Sadler's Wells Chorus conducted by Alan Melville: it was first sung in Canterbury Cathedral on 20th July 1946 conducted by Gerald Knight and has remained a regular part of the repertoire.

Although he was composing at a time when many people wrote twelve-tone music, he decided not to compose in this style, instead devising his own distinctive method of composition. It is a measure of the high esteem in which Rubbra was held in the 1940s, that his Sinfonia Concertante and his song Morning Watch were played alongside such works as Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, Kodaly’s Missa Brevis and Vaughan Williams’s Job, at the 1948 Three Choirs Festival.

Blatchly Motets

Mark Blatchly is presently director of choral music at Charterhouse Independent School in Surrey, following spells as organ scholar at St Paul’s Cathedral and Christ Church, Oxford, assistant organist at Gloucester Cathedral, and organist at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. As an eminent organist, Mark has made a number of recordings and given recitals in almost every cathedral in England.