The Choir of New College Oxford, composed of adult singers and boy trebles, is one of the leading choral ensembles in the world, celebrated for its distinctive and stylish performance of music from five centuries. You can hear the choir in choral services live in New College Chapel, Oxford, and via webcasts, on concert tours and on its 100+ recordings. The choir is directed by Robert Quinney.
More About UsThe Choir of New College Oxford, composed of adult singers and boy trebles, is one of the leading choral ensembles in the world, celebrated for its distinctive and stylish performance of music from five centuries. You can hear the choir in choral services live in New College Chapel, Oxford, and via webcasts, on concert tours and on its 100+ recordings. The choir is directed by Robert Quinney.
More About UsOn Saturday 4 May Sir David Lumsden, former Organist of New College, will be celebrated at Evensong at 5.45pm. Music: Leighton, Drop, drop, slow tears; Byrd, Great Service; Harris, Faire is the heaven.
Find out moreChoral services for Trinity Term begin on Friday 19 April at 6.15pm. Full details of the music list will be posted tomorrow.
Find out moreSaturday 8June at 4.00pm in New College Chapel. The chorister experience unpacked, with singing, games and tea.
Find out moreThursdays at 1.15pm: live or live-streamed. The series starts on 25 April with a recital by Robert Quinney.
Find out moreJ. S. Bach's Cantata 39, written for the First Sunday after Trinity, is the focus for Cantata Vespers on Sunday 2 June at 5.45pm.
Find out moreVisiting student singers inspired by the University of Oxford's recent Choral & Organ Award open day can now plan choral applications: watch the links on the University of Oxford website.
Find out moreIf you have enjoyed our live-streamed services, concerts and recordings, and would like to support the work of the choir, we would be most grateful.
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This disc situates Parry’s music in its European context. Parry was a social and political liberal, and crucially—like all the leading British musicians of his time—his horizons extended beyond the island of his birth. His late set of six motets, Songs of Farewell, are among his greatest achievements in any musical genre, demonstrating his capacity for deeply affecting introspection. In this recording, they are prefaced by another sextet: the pithy Sechs Sprüche by Mendelssohn, which make clear the debt Parry owed to his continental forebears and contemporaries.
Moreover, this recording presents, for the first time, an early version of ‘There is an old belief’, edited by Robert Quinney from the autograph manuscripts in Oxford’s Bodleian Library and a printed proof copy. The compositional history of the motet is unclear, but the evidence suggests Parry vacillated between two strikingly different versions of the section ‘serene in changeless prime’ until shortly before publication.