St Matthew's Church | |
---|---|
![]() St Matthew's Church, Northampton | |
![]() | |
Country | United Kingdom |
Denomination | Church of England |
Churchmanship | Anglo Catholic |
Website | www.stmatthews-northampton.org.uk |
History | |
Dedication | St Matthew |
Administration | |
Province | Canterbury |
Diocese | Peterborough |
Clergy | |
Vicar(s) | Fr Nicholas Setterfield |
Laity | |
Organist/Director of music | Tom Moore |
Organist(s) | Jonathan Starmer |
Churchwarden(s) | Vacant |
St Matthew's Church, Northampton is a Church of England parish church in Northampton, within the Diocese of Peterborough.
The church is a Grade II* listed building. [1] It was erected (1891–4) in memory of brewer and MP, Pickering Phipps, beside the Kettering Road. The architect was Matthew Holding.
Canon John Rowden Hussey was vicar from its consecration in 1893 to 1937. Walter Hussey, vicar from 1937 to 1955 succeeding his father, was a patron of the arts. He celebrated the church's 50th anniversary with a sequence of events and commissions: the commission of the anthem Rejoice in the Lamb from Benjamin Britten; a performance from the BBC Symphony Orchestra (2 October 1943); an organ recital by George Thalben-Ball, and the commission of Henry Moore's sculpture "Madonna and Child". [2]
Buoyed by the success of the 1943–44 commissions, Hussey continued to commission new works of art. Other musical commissions included The Revival by Edmund Rubbra (1944); Festival Anthem by Lennox Berkeley (1945), Lo, the full, final sacrifice from Gerald Finzi (1946), and works by Christopher Headington, Malcolm Arnold and others. [3] There were commissions of poetry: a Litany and Anthem for St Matthew's Day from W. H. Auden and The Outer Planet from Norman Nicholson. [4] [5] The recitals continued throughout this time, most notably with two concerts by the singer Kirsten Flagstad
In the north transept is Henry Moore's stone sculpture, "Madonna and Child" (1944) [6] and in the south transept a painting of the Crucifixion (1946) by Graham Sutherland. The triptych in the Lady Chapel is by C. E. Buckeridge. [7] A 2009 addition is a bronze statue of St Matthew by Ian Rank-Broadley. [8] [9]
A 1956 oil and watercolour painting of St Matthew's Church by John Piper is in the collection of the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery. [10]
St Matthew's follows an Anglican service with Catholic traits. The church celebrates two Eucharistic services on a Sunday including a Parish Mass at 10.15am which is Choral on Feast Days. The Parish Mass is pro populo on the nave altar and the lectern has recently been moved from the chancel step to the high altar to make way for a traditional statue of St Matthew. Choral Evensong is sung twice a month with Benediction following the service on the third Sunday of each. The church maintains a daily Eucharist service and has done since its founding in 1893. The Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer are also said publicly every day of the year.
For many years St Matthew's had an all-male choir which was disbanded in the early 2000s.[ citation needed ] The choir now consists of girl and boy choristers aged 8–18 and adult Altos, Tenors and Basses who sing two services each Sunday. The church choir is supported by The St Matthew's Singers, a choir of local amateur singers, who sing Choral Mass on mid-week Feast Days. The whole music department is overseen by a Director of Music, Parish Organist and Organ Scholar.
The choir has undertaken a tour each year since 2012. These have included week-long trips to sing at St Davids (2012), Portsmouth (2013), Carlisle (2014), Exeter (2015) and Chester (2016), Ely (2017) and Germany (2018). The choir has released two CDs in recent years; in 2013 a disc of music for Advent and Christmas, and in 2014 a recording including recent commissions from David Bednall, David Halls and Philip Stopford.[ citation needed ]
St Matthew's is also a concert venue for Northampton. The church is home to the Northampton Bach Choir, founded by Denys Pouncey in 1935, which for many years had St Matthew's director of music as its director. The church also has links with the Northampton Music and Performing Arts Trust, the Northampton Philharmonic Choir, the Northampton Chamber Choir and many other groups. St Matthew's also houses a four-manual and pedal organ built by J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd in 1895. [11] Regular organ recitals take place.
Many of the previous St Matthew's Directors of Music have gone on to hold important positions in Church Music. These have included King's College, Cambridge, Wells Cathedral, Norwich Cathedral, Blackburn Cathedral, Llandaff Cathedral, York Minster, and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City.
![]() |
A list of musical commissions of St Matthew's Church is here below:[ citation needed ]
St Dunstan's, Mayfield in Mayfield, East Sussex, was founded in 960 CE by St Dunstan, who was then Archbishop of Canterbury. The church is a listed building. As of 2023, the vicar was Fr Michael Asquith.
Edmund Rubbra was a British composer. He composed both instrumental and vocal works for soloists, chamber groups and full choruses and orchestras. He was greatly esteemed by fellow musicians and was at the peak of his fame in the mid-20th century. The best known of his pieces are his eleven symphonies. Although he was active at a time when many people wrote twelve-tone music, he decided not to write in this idiom; instead, he devised his own distinctive style. His later works were not as popular with the concert-going public as his previous ones had been, although he never lost the respect of his colleagues. Therefore, his output as a whole is less celebrated today than would have been expected from its early popularity. He was the brother of the engineer Arthur Rubbra.
Sir Stephen John Cleobury was an English organist and music director. He worked with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, where he served as music director from 1982 to 2019, and with the BBC Singers.
Chichester Psalms is an extended choral composition in three movements by Leonard Bernstein for boy treble or countertenor, choir and orchestra. The text was arranged by the composer from the Book of Psalms in the original Hebrew. Part 1 uses Psalms 100 and 108, Part 2 uses 2 and 23, and Part 3 uses 131 and 133. Bernstein scored the work for a reduced orchestra, but also made a version for an even smaller ensemble of organ, one harp, and percussion.
David John Briggs is an English organist and composer.
Rejoice in the Lamb is a cantata for four soloists, SATB choir and organ composed by Benjamin Britten in 1943 and uses text from the poem Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart (1722–1771). The poem, written while Smart was in an asylum, depicts idiosyncratic praise and worship of God by different things including animals, letters of the alphabet and musical instruments. Britten was introduced to the poem by W. H. Auden whilst visiting the United States, selecting 48 lines of the poem to set to music with the assistance of Edward Sackville-West. The cantata was commissioned by the Reverend Walter Hussey for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the consecration of St Matthew's Church, Northampton. Critics praised the work for its uniqueness and creative handling of the text. Rejoice in the Lamb has been arranged for chorus, solos and orchestral accompaniment, and for SSAA choir and organ.
John Walter Atherton Hussey was an English priest of the Church of England who had a great fondness for the arts, commissioning a number of musical compositions and visual art for the church as well as amassing his own collection.
The Choir of St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle exists to sing services in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.
Timothy Byram-Wigfield, born 15 September 1963, is an English organist and conductor.
Lo, the full, final sacrifice is a festival anthem for SATB choir and organ, composed by Gerald Finzi in 1946. The work was commissioned by the Revd Walter Hussey for the 53rd anniversary of the consecration of St Matthew's Church, Northampton. Finzi orchestrated the piece for its performance at the Three Choirs Festival in 1947. Since then it has become a staple of the Anglican choral tradition. Performance time ranges between fourteen and eighteen minutes.
Philip John Moore is an English composer and organist.
Andrew Mark Nethsingha, FRCO, ARCM is an English choral conductor and organist, the son of the late Lucian Nethsingha, also a cathedral organist. He was appointed Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey in London in 2023, having previous held similar positions at St John's College, Cambridge, Gloucester Cathedral and Truro Cathedral.
Robert Powell is an American composer, organist, and choir director.
Saint Bartholomew's Church, Dublin, is a Church of Ireland (Anglican) parish church located on Clyde Road in Ballsbridge on the Southside of Dublin.
Marcus Wibberley is a British organist, conductor and choir trainer.
Jonathan Vaughn is a British-American organist and choir director who currently serves as the associate director of music at Christ Church, Greenwich, in Connecticut, USA. He was an assistant organist at Wells Cathedral for ten years and has held similar positions at other churches and cathedrals in England and the United States.
Robert Walker is an English composer, writer and broadcaster.
Luke Bond is a British organist and is currently Assistant Organist at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, where he played prominently for the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and the funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He has appeared internationally, and has made recordings of organ music and choral music.
St Giles' Church, Northampton is a Church of England parish church in Northampton, within the Diocese of Peterborough. The church is a Grade I listed building.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite web}}
: |author=
has generic name (help)