by Paul Matheson

Sanctuary by Christian Forshaw - with Aimée Green (soprano) and The Choir of King’s College, London: Integra Records ING1004 www.christianforshaw.com/sanctuary.html

Christian Forshaw is a world-class performer of soprano and alto saxophone. As a saxophone soloist Forshaw has performed with ensembles including the Tenebrae Choir, London Sinfonietta, English National Opera, and Scottish Ensemble. Forshaw’s formative experience as a church chorister informs his settings of Christian sacred text and his musical arrangements of hymns. He has described how ‘that aesthetic has always been central to the way I approach the saxophone, aiming to phrase and resonate like a singer. I enjoy the way there is so much common ground between the two, but that they are also able to depart from each other and explore their own uniqueness’.

In his arrangements of sacred choral music for saxophone, church organ and solo soprano vocal (or choir), the emotional impact of the saxophone is extraordinary. In serene passages the saxophone sounds like the descent of the Holy Spirit; in frenzied passages the saxophone sounds like the human heart yearning to be re-united with God. This album was highly successful on release and has since been remastered and reissued on Forshaw’s own label, Integra Records.

The opening track is an old English hymn with ancient provenance. ‘Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence’ has its roots in a fifth century Greek text from the Liturgy of St. James, believed to have been written by St. James the Less, first Bishop of Jerusalem. It is based on a Eucharistic prayer. We owe the English lyrics to the Church of England pastor Gerard Moultrie (1829-1885) who translated the text from the Greek and published his English version in Lyra Eucharistica (1864). The haunting melody is called ‘Picardy’ and derives from a 17th century French carol.

Forshaw’s arrangement of ‘Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence’ opens as an evocative call-and-response duet between Aimée Green’s pure, limpid soprano vocal and Forshaw’s resonant saxophone, both cradled by the gentle, numinous presence of church organ in the background. The three elements of voice, saxophone and organ gradually intertwine as the hymn progresses, building to the saxophone crescendo at the ‘epiphany’ moment where ‘the powers of hell vanish as the darkness clears away’. This sacred soundscape feels familiar to those who know the traditional music, culture and worship of Brittany: the sonic palette is strikingly similar to the traditional Breton church-worship combination of singer, church organ and ‘bombarde’ (the traditional Breton woodwind instrument that sounds like a plaintive oboe or medieval shawm).

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,

as the darkness clears away.

The mystical hymn ‘My Song is Love Unknown’ is associated with Good Friday. The lyrics were composed by the Church of England minister Samuel Crossman (1624-1684) who ended his clerical career as Dean of Bristol Cathedral, where he lies buried in the south aisle. The music to which his words are sung today was composed by John Ireland (1879-1962), a church organist, choirmaster and composer who taught at the Royal College of Music. In 1918 Ireland composed the music ‘Love Unknown’ for Crossman’s text; and it was published in ‘The Public School Hymn Book’ in 1919. Forshaw’s restrained and sensitive musical arrangement uses the saxophone and organ to frame the ethereal soprano vocal of Aimée Green, thus highlighting the profound mysticism of the words that she sings. The saxophone provides graceful counterpointing and musical ornamentation to particular words and phrases, rather like a medieval monk choosing to illuminate and embellish certain letters and words on a vellum manuscript of the gospels.

My song is love unknown–

my Lord should take frail flesh and die?

A hymn for the Feast of Pentecost, ‘Come Down, O Love Divine’ invokes the Holy Spirit to enter the soul of believers. The text of this hymn comes down to us from the medieval Italian poem ‘Discendi Amor Santo’ by the mystical poet Bianco da Siena (1350-1399) who was a prolific composer of religious poems that were widely popular in the Middle Ages, and preserved in many manuscripts. In 1861 ‘Discendi Amor Santo’ was translated into English by the Anglo-Irish author, scholar and Anglican minister Richard Frederick Littledale (1833-1890), who published his translation in The People’s Hymnal of 1867. The hymn’s huge popularity in the English-speaking world occurred after it was set to music by the famous English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). Vaughan Williams was editor of ‘The English Hymnal’ of 1906 when he decided to compose a new tune for this hymn. He named the tune ‘Down Ampney’ after the Gloucestershire village of his birth. When Vaughan Williams died, ‘Come Down, O Love Divine’ was sung at his funeral in Westminster Abbey (where his ashes are buried in the north choir aisle). On this recording, Forshaw gives us a beautiful, spare arrangement for soprano voice, saxophone and organ, drawing us gently into the transcendent quality of the melody and the heartfelt intensity of the words. There then follows a contemplative duet between saxophone and organ that paints a musical picture of Divine Mercy – the Light of the Holy Spirit that doth ‘clothe me round, the while my path illuming’.

Come down, O Love divine,

And clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

Forshaw uses the Choir of King’s College, London for his setting of the ‘Magnificat’. The epic, sweep of Forshaw’s composition uses crescendo to evoke the epiphany of the Virgin Mary’s encounter with God’s messenger, and uses hushed tones to convey Mary’s sense of revelation at being shown God’s plan.

In Forshaw’s setting of the Nunc Dimittis for choir, organ and saxophone, he creates wave upon rolling wave of sound to recreate in music the vision unfolding before Simeon (as told in Luke 2:25-32): For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

The hymns and liturgy selected for this album are well-chosen: their deeply meditative words and soaring melodies lend themselves naturally to arrangements for soprano voice, saxophone and organ. The recordings of these pieces took place in the Chapel of King’s College, London, where the magnificent, gothic acoustics conjure a numinous sense of holiness and infinity. The character and quality of this album is simultaneously solemn and uplifting; mysteriously mystical and yet comfortingly familiar: much like Christianity itself.

Paul Matheson is a diversity officer with the police.