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 UsChoral services for Trinity Term begin on Friday 19 April at 6.15pm. Full details of the music list will be posted tomorrow.
Find out moreThursdays at 1.15pm: live or live-streamed. The series starts on 25 April with a recital by Robert Quinney.
Find out moreRobert Quinney discusses Frescobaldi on Radio 3's This Week's Composer with presenter Donald McLeod.
Find out moreTwo virtuoso performers, Robert Quinney & Donal McCann, play Byrd's dazzling keyboard music on all four instruments in chapel
Find out moreJoin the choir at the Christmas Festival at St John's Smith Square on 15 December
Find out moreSunday 17 March at 5.00pm. New College Choir with Instruments of Time & Truth, directed by Robert Quinney. Waiting list for tickets.
Find out moreNew College: Commissions & Premieres is out now from Linn Records. The new disc celebrates the choir's commitment to new music over the last century.
Find out moreRelease Date:
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.