This performance comes from BBC radio broadcast from Hereford Cathedral on 15 June 1988, featuring the choir of Hereford Cathedral under the direction of Roy Massey, with organist David Briggs.
Herbert Sumsion, who died in 1996, was Organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1928 to 1967. He wrote “They that go down to the sea” in 1979. The text, which is often associated with St Andrew (a fisherman), is taken from Psalm 107:
They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters; these men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For at his word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They are carried up to the heaven, and down again to the deep; their soul melteth away because of the trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end.
So when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, he delivereth them out of their distress; for he maketh the storm to cease, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad, because they are at rest; and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.
5 сен 2024