Modernism met Hollywood met Evensong on September 21

Listen to the Webcast of Evensong on the Feast of Saint Matthew

William Walton (1902-1983) was an English-born composer from Oldham, Lancashire. He was born into a musical family and got his start in music as a choirboy not so different from our own choristers in the The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys. In his professional life he was and is still known primarily as a composer of film scores and operas, although Walton’s body of choral music is also quite substantive.

WH Auden (1907-1973) was a poet born in England and later became an American citizen. He was heavily influenced by modernists like TS Eliot and many consider Auden to be one of the finest writers of the twentieth century. His facility with style was unmatched and he could pen a dense modernist work as easily as he could a poem in a more traditional form, such as a ballad, or a less highly-regarded form like limericks.

It was these two unlikely collaborators that Dr Cuthbert Simpson, Dean of Christ Church Cathedral from 1959-1969, comissioned to compose The Twelve. Dr Simpson’s purpose was twofold:

  1. The Twelve would serve to bolster the musical repertoire for the Feast of the Apostle, which at the time was quite lacking.
  2. Both Walton and Auden were alumni of Oxford, where Christ Church Cathedral is located.

The Twelve is one of the most ambitious of Walton’s choral works. While it features many of the common musical elements of his output: jazz-influenced syncopations and chord structures based on extended-tertian armonies (stacked musical intervals of a third), there is more breadth and maturity in Walton’s writing which, despite initial difficulties with setting Auden’s text, gives The Twelve the feeling of an oratorio or cantata in miniature.

Please feel free to browse all of our worship events from the Feast of Saint Matthew, Sunday, September 21, and hear this astounding work in the context for which it was composed: Festal Evensong, which was celebrated at 4pm. On the music and webcast sections of our website you can also:

  • Download the complete repertoire of the Choir of Men and Boys from September-December of 2014
  • Listen to webcasts of worship services featuring the Choir
  • Get information about upcming organ recitals
  • Read about our upcoming Concert Series