Choir Highlights 2019

The Wedding Ring - Russell-Smith

Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down - arranged Paul Caldwell and Sean Ivory

Hindemith - Sonata for Horn and Piano (Extract)

Standchen - Richard Strauss
Helen Groves - Soprano
Alex Aitken - Piano

Translation: 

Open up, open up, but softly my child,
So as not to wake anyone from their sleep,
The stream is barely murmuring, the wind hardly causes quivers
In a leaf on bush or hedge.
So, softly, my young girl, so that nothing stirs,
Just lay your hand softly on the door-latch.

With steps as soft as the footsteps of elves,
that hop over the flowers,
Fly lightly out into the moonlit night,
Sneak to me in the garden.
Around us sleeps the blossoms along the trickling stream,
Fragrant in sleep, only love is awake.

Sit down, here it darkens mysteriously
Beneath the linden trees,
The nightingale over our heads
Shall dream of our kisses,
And the rose, when it wakes in the morning,
Shall glow from the joyous showers of the night.

Strauss: Ständchen (with Helen Groves - Soprano)

J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue No.2 in C Minor
Well-Tempered Clavier Book I
Alex Aitken - Piano

Bach: Prelude And Fugue No.2 In C Minor

First movement of Mendelssohn's Organ Sonata No.3 in A major
Recorded December 2014 on the organ of St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

Mendelssohn: Sonata No.3 In A (i)

Toccata from Widor's Organ Symphony No.V
Recorded December 2014 on the organ of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. 

Widor: Toccata from Symphony No.V

J.S. Bach's Fantasia Super 'Valet Will Ich dir Geben' BWV735
Recorded December 2014 on the organ of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. 
Alex Aitken - Organ

Bach: Fantastia Super 'Valet Will Ich dir Geben' BWV735

Berg's Seven Early Songs
Soprano - Helen Groves
Piano - Alex Aitken
Recorded at Stowe Auditorium August 2015

Translations:

01. Nacht (Night)
Carl Hauptann

Clouds gather overnight and valley mists hover; waters ripple softly.
Now all at once the veil is lifted -
O look! Look!
A broad wonderland is opened up:
silver mountains look fancifully large
with, between them, silent paths
shining silver from the earth’s secret womb,
and the noble world, so pure in dream.
By the path a beach-tree stands mute
- a black shadow - as a single breath
drifts gently from a distant grove.
And from the gloom of the low ground
twinkle lights in the silent night.

02. Schilflied (Song Amid the Reeds)
Nikolaus Lenau

By secret forest paths,
I like to steal in the evening light
to the deserted reedy bank,
dear girl, and think of you.

When the thicket grows dark,
the reeds rustle secretly
and there is whispered lament; 
and I have to weep and weep.
And I seem to hear sound 
of your sweet song
sinking into the pond.
 
O drink up solitude, my soul! O look! O Look!

03. Die Nachtigall (The Nightingale)
Theodor Storm

It happens because the nightingale
has sung the whole night through:
from its sweet notes
echoing and re-echoing
the roses have burgeoned.

She was once a madcap;
now she walks deep in thought,
holding her sunhat in her hand,
quietly endures the sun’s glow
and knows not what to begin.

It happens because the nightingale
has sung the whole night through:
from its sweet notes
echoing and re-echoing
the roses have burgeoned.

04. Traumgekrönt (Crown of Dreams)
Rainer Maria Rilke

That was the day of the white chrysanthemums;
I was almost alarmed by their splendour,
and then, then in the depths of night you came
to take my soul.
I was so anxious, but you came sweetly and gently,
just as I thought of you in dreams;
you came and softly, as in a fairy tale,
the night resounded.

05. Im Zimmer (Indoors)
Johannes Schlaf

Autumn sunshine;
the pleasant evening looks in quietly.
A small red fire crackles and blazes in the stove.
So! My head on your knee,
I am happy when my eyes dwell on yours;
how gently the minutes pass.
 
06. Liebesode (Ode to Love)
Otto Erich Hartleben

In the arms of love we blissfully fell asleep;
the summer breeze listened at the open window
and carried our peaceful breathing out into the bright moonlit night.
And, from the garden, a scent of roses timidly felt its way to our bed of love,
and brought us wondrous dreams;
dreams of ecstasy, rich in longing.

07. Sommertage (Summer Days)
Paul Hohenberg

Now days sent from blue eternity stretch over the world;
time drifts by on the summer wind.
Now at night the Lord weaves wreaths of stars 
with His blessed hand; over the magic land we travel.
O heart, what in these days can your lovliest wandering song express of your deep, deep delight?
Before the meadows’ song the heart falls silent; words fail, where image upon image greets you and inspires you.


Berg: Die Nachtigall (with Helen Groves - Soprano)

Berg: Schilflied (with Helen Groves - Soprano)

Berg: Nacht (with Helen Groves - Soprano)

Berg: Im Zimmer (with Helen Groves - Soprano)

Berg: Sommertage (with Helen Groves - Soprano)

Berg: Liebersode (with Helen Groves - Soprano)

Berg: Traumgekrönt (with Helen Groves - Soprano)

Alex Aitken is a West End Musical Director, with a national reputation as an outstanding conductor, pianist, organist, writer and educationalist. Having most recently spent three years as Children’s Musical Director and Cover Conductor on Cameron Mackintosh’s London production of Mary Poppins, he continues to maintain an extensive, busy and hugely varied schedule working with a number of the UK’s most eminent musicians, ensembles and organisations, as well as with choral groups and schools around the UK, and as a pianist for auditions and masterclasses in the West End. He also frequently deputises as an organist, having accompanied at cathedrals throughout the UK, and toured throughout Europe and America.

In addition to his freelance work, he is also a Musical Director with the National Youth Music Theatre, the Assistant Musical Director at MK Chorale, a coach with the The Oxford and Cambridge Singing School, and accompanist to the The National Children’s Choir of Great Britain, Oxford Pro Musica, CBSO Chorus and Youth Chorus, Sing for Pleasure, and The Military Wives Choirs. In 2019 Alex was invited to become a trustee of The Stables, where he works closely with the education department and, in May 2023, he launched Mastering A-level Music; a new subscription website for teachers and students on all aspects of Edexcel’s A-level Music course, now used in schools worldwide.

As a pianist Alex has played on some of the biggest West End shows, including most recently Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Sunset Boulevard at The Savoy Theatre and Cameron Mackintosh’s production of Mary Poppins at The Prince Edward Theatre, and continues to be in demand as a rehearsal and audition pianist. He has also répétiteured for a significant number of large choral works around the UK, including Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, the Duruflé, Mozart, Brahms and Fauré requiems, Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, Britten’s War Requiem, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Bach’s St John Passion, and Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine.

Alex has performed with or accompanied for the BBC Proms, The Lucerne Festival, The Military Wives Choirs, Chichester Festival Theatre, The Cambridge Music Festival, Eton Choral Courses, the National Brass Player’s Championships and Cambridge Chorale, and also composed the scores to numerous short films that have premièred at both BAFTA and the London Film Academy.

Formerly Head of Academic Music and Choirmaster at Stowe School and Director of Music at St Peter and St Paul’s Olney, as an undergraduate Alex was the Composer, Musical Director and Orchestrator for the Cambridge Footlights, and the Assistant Director of Music at Little St Mary’s, whilst reading Music and holding the organ scholarship at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.

He graduated from Cambridge with the Martin Steele Memorial Prize, a first in musical analysis, Licentiate Diplomas in piano performance from the Royal Schools of Music and Trinity College of Music (the latter with Distinction), and the Associateship diploma of the Royal College of Organists. He also helped to establish the The Oxford and Cambridge Singing School whilst completing his PGCE during a fourth year of study at Cambridge.

www.alexaitken.co.uk

Alex Aitken

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