Adrian Batten
Adrian Batten wrote Anglican church music in the early seventeenth century, including verse anthems that alternate full choir and soloists over an independent organ part. His sacred writing is serious and devotional, with skilful counterpoint shaped for liturgy rather than display.
Working in the decades between the Reformation and the Civil War, he helped form a distinctly English liturgical style. Much of his own music survives only in manuscript, while the large organ book he copied remains a principal source for contemporaries such as Weelkes, Tallis and Tomkins. The atmosphere is pure and restrained, with occasional brighter touches, always treating the music as servant of the service.
Compositions by Adrian Batten appear on
When David heard that Absalom was slain
The Choir of Ormond College specialised in liturgical music of the 16th and 20th centuries. This recording also includes psalm settings, among them Allegri’s Miserere, a setting of the penitential Psalm 51 once reserved for the Sistine Chapel in Holy Week.
The Choir of Ormond College Melbourne
Directed by Douglas Lawrence, who led chapel music at Ormond College, Melbourne, for more than twenty years, this recording presents the college choir in English church music of the sixteenth and twentieth centuries.
Sing to the Lord, ye Heavenly Hosts
The Choir of The Scots' Church offers sacred music from sixteenth-century Palestrina to twenty-first-century Australian composer Andrew Batterham, crowned by a rare performance of Widor's Mass for choir, baritone choir and two organs.