Trinity Church Issues Two Records
Diocesan Press Service. May 12, 1975 [75179]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The choir of Trinity Church in New York City, under the direction of Larry King, has just completed two records, A Recital of Renaissance Motets and American Anthems, and With Angels and Archangels.
The Archangels album consists of music to be sung by congregations, with accompaniment by choir and instruments, with one side devoted to new music developed at Trinity Church.
The renaissance album offers seven motets by Palestrina, Victoria, DeLassus, Dering and Philips, along with four anthems written since 1950 by Leslie Bassett, Richard Felciano, George Rochberg, and Lukas Foss.
Trinity's choir is a small "chamber choir" fully equipped tonally and musically to present the bulk of the great repertoire of church music.
Mr. King, who has been organist and choirmaster since 1968, changed the choir from men and boys by adding women's voices. "To preserve the aura historically associated with the world's greatest sounds in liturgical music," Mr. King said, "we carefully chose sopranos with natural clear voices, or those, who because of excellent training, could blend with this sound. The mixture of a male alto with female altos made further contribution to a pure, liturgical sound. "
In 1973, Mr. King began an experimental music project with a performing-composing trio called the Archangel. Besides Mr. King, the others were Dr. Dora Schively (an MD in Neurology with a music degree from Julliard School of Music) and Glenn Billingsley, a graduate student in sacred music at Union Theological Seminary.
After Mr. Billingsley's graduation and subsequent move from New York, Archangel added guitarist Louis Gimenez, drummer Zachery Margaritis, and bassist John Rotondi.
All of the music on the Archangel album can be performed with or without the choral parts and instruments. The recording gives some variations.
The People's Music on side two is recorded only with the organ, whereas The Missia Archangelus uses the full symphonic rock band. The album also contains a concert version of a simple humntune called Creation using a text by Isaac Watts depicting the creation of the world with an interlude of sounds of nature including waves, rain and other.
Mr. King said of the recordings: "Trinity's cathedral-like proportions and acoustics are best suited for early, unaccompanied music, and hence renaissance music has become the choir's specialty.
" Trinity's commitment to things contemporary have made important new music a secondary specialty, and quite unique in a society in which the church generally insists on being bathed in the comfortable sounds of the 19th century. "
Both recordings were made on the Columbus Day weekend in 1974 in hopes that the holiday subway schedule would provide for a cleaner tape. "In spite of our hopes," Mr. King said, "the sessions were plagued with disruptions from the eight subway routes behind and in front of the church.
"Several trains defied splicing and filtering, and will pass through the listener's living room if he or she has better than average playback equipment. "
The records are available for $6 each from Trinity's Music Office (74 Trinity Place, New York, N.Y. 10006). An additional dollar for each is needed for postage and handling.