Sir William H Harris - or 'Doc-H' as he was known to generations of choristers! He's been in my thoughts this past fortnight. Aside from his devoted service to St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, he also played the organ for the anthem at the Abbey wedding service of our late Sovereign Lady in 1947 and then only six years later was a member of the Coronation Music Committee and a 'Sub-Conductor' during the Abbey service, relaying his very good friend Dr William McKie's main beat to those members of the Coronation Choir who couldn't see it!
Glad I found this. Superb job by SJC IMHO. We used to think this quite a tough one when I was a treble, and I don't think we ever got it perfect. Lovely to hear. Thank you.
I wish our choir was still this good that we could sing it again. Sadly, our choir is ageing and the days of being able to do this any form of justice have long gone. If anyone in the North West wants to join a choir, give me a shout!
I first heard this on John Rutter's recording with his Cambridge Singers. Simply stunning. I wish there was a recording of Harris' choral works done by a good British or even American chorus. It would have to be a chamber choir, not a large choir. Too large a chorus (60+ singers) would burden the delicate choral textures of Harris' work.
you may be interested to note that in the process of working on a video on another of Harris' choral works, I found this album by the Exon Singers (a UK based chamber choir) which has presumably most if not all of Harris' sacred choral output Spotify link: open.spotify.com/album/5PrB3KXHMjKSjzPxZxozYW Link to page on choir's website: exonsingers.org.uk/174/sir-william-h-harris-faire-is-the-heave/
