Review of "Bread of the World", RSCM Magazine 2019 - "a useful and original communion motet"

BREAD OF THE WORLD IN MERCY BROKEN [E/M]*

Peter Tranchell arr. Geoffrey Webber

Unison or SATB and organ

Church Music Society CMS 047

Peter Tranchell (1922-93) was a prolific composer throughout his life, but after the early 1950s offered almost nothing for publication, so his music is now little known. Geoffrey Webber, his successor as Precentor at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, has taken Tranchell's unison voice setting (written in 1970 for performance in college chapel) and arranged it for SATB - both versions are given in this publication. The striking chromaticism of the organ part in the unison version (especially on 'our sins are dead') is skillfully incorporated in the SATB in a way that makes vocal sense. The choir is supported throughout by the original organ part so that it is nothing like as tricky as it would be otherwise. It is a useful and original communion motet.

James L. Montgomery, Reviews of Printed Music, in Sunday by Sunday, Issue 89, RSCM Church Music Quarterly Magazine, June 2019, p.57.

* indicates that the organ music is Easy to Medium.

Find out more about this work: Bread of the world in mercy broken