John Rutter Explained

Honorific Prefix:Sir
John Rutter
Birth Name:John Milford Rutter
Birth Date:1945 9, df=y
Birth Place:London, England
Alma Mater:Clare College, Cambridge
Known For:Founding the Cambridge Singers

Sir John Milford Rutter (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.

Biography

Born on 24 September 1945[1] in London, the son of an industrial chemist and his wife, Rutter grew up living over the Globe pub on London's Marylebone Road.[2] He was educated at Highgate School, where fellow pupils included John Tavener, Howard Shelley, Brian Chapple and Nicholas Snowman.[3] As a chorister there, Rutter took part in the first (1963) recording of Britten's War Requiem under the composer's baton.[4] He thence read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the choir. Whilst an undergraduate, he had his first compositions published, including the "Shepherd's Pipe Carol".[4] He served as director of music at Clare College from 1975 to 1979, and led the choir to international prominence.

In 1981, Rutter founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts, and with which he has made many recordings of sacred choral repertoire (including his own works), particularly under his own label Collegium Records. He resides at Hemingford Abbots in Cambridgeshire, and frequently conducts many choirs and orchestras around the world.

From 1985 to 1992, Rutter suffered severely from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome), which restricted his output; after 1985, he stopped writing music on commission, as he was unable to guarantee meeting deadlines.[5]

Rutter also works as an arranger and editor. As a young man, he collaborated with Sir David Willcocks on five volumes of the extraordinarily successful Carols for Choirs anthology series.

He was inducted as a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity in 1985.[6] [7] Rutter is also a Vice-President of the Joyful Company of Singers, President of The Bach Choir, and President of the Association of British Choral Directors (ABCD).[8]

Compositions

Rutter's compositions are chiefly choral, and include Christmas carols, anthems and extended works such as the Gloria, the Requiem and the Magnificat.

The world premiere of Rutter's Requiem (1985), and of his authoritative edition of Fauré's Requiem, took place with the Fox Valley Festival Chorus, in Illinois. In 2002, his setting of Psalm 150, commissioned for the Queen's Golden Jubilee, was performed at the Jubilee thanksgiving service in St Paul's Cathedral, London. Similarly, he was commissioned to write a new anthem, "This is the day", for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011, performed at Westminster Abbey during the service.[9]

Rutter's work is published by Oxford University Press. It has been recorded by many choirs, but he conducts his own recordings principally on his label Collegium Records.

The first two choral items sung at the Platinum Jubilee National Service of Thanksgiving in June 2022 were arrangements by Rutter,[10] as were no fewer than six items performed at the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla.[11]

Influences

Rutter's music is eclectic, showing the influences of the French and English choral traditions of the early twentieth century as well as of light music and American classic songwriting. Almost every choral anthem and hymn that he writes has a subsequent orchestral accompaniment in addition to the standard piano/organ accompaniment, using various different instrumentations such as strings only, strings and woodwinds or full orchestra with brass and percussion.[12] Many of his works have also been arranged for concert band with optional chorus.[13]

Despite composing and conducting much religious music, Rutter told the US television programme 60 Minutes in 2003 that he was not a particularly religious man, yet still deeply spiritual and inspired by the spirituality of sacred verses and prayers.[14] [15] The main topics considered in the 60 Minutes programme, which was broadcast a week before Christmas 2003, were Rutter's popularity with choral groups in the United States, Britain, and other parts of the world, and his composition Mass of the Children (written after the sudden death of his son Christopher while a student at Clare College, Cambridge, where Rutter himself had studied).

In a 2009 interview, Rutter discussed his understanding of "genius" and its unique ability to transform lives—whether that genius is communicated in the form of music or other media. He likened the purity of music to that of mathematics and connected the two with a reference to the discovery made by the early Greeks that frequencies of harmonic pitches are related by whole-number ratios.

Reception

Rutter's music is very popular, particularly in the UK and US.[16] Many hold him in high regard in the UK, as illustrated by the following quotation from a review in the London Evening Standard (25 September 2005): "For the infectiousness of his melodic invention and consummate craftsmanship, Rutter has few peers." Sue Lawley referred to Rutter as "the most celebrated and successful composer of carols alive today"[17] and Sean Rafferty heralded Rutter as "a creator of not just carols, but wonderfully great things for the human voice."[18] One British composer, David Arditti, did not regard him as a sufficiently "serious" composer, saying that Rutter is "hard to take seriously, because of the way in which his sheer technical facility or versatility leads to a superficial, unstable crossover style which is neither quite classical nor pop, and which tends towards mawkish sentimentality in his sugarily-harmonised and orchestrated melodies."[19] The Guardian remarked that "it is as a writer of carols that he has really made his mark ... His larger-scale works – particularly the Gloria (1974), Requiem (1985) and Magnificat (1990) – are also well established in the choral repertoire."[20] David Willcocks considered Rutter "the most gifted composer of his generation."[21]

Recognition

In 1980 Rutter was made an honorary fellow of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, and in 1988 he became a fellow of the Guild of Church Musicians. In 1996 the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred a Lambeth Doctorate of Music upon him in recognition of his contribution to church music.

Rutter was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2007 New Year Honours[22] and knighted in the 2024 Birthday Honours, both for services to music.[23]

In 2008 he also became an honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple while playing a significant role in the 2008 Temple Festival.

In 2023 Rutter became a Fellow of The Ivors Academy. Signified by the presentation of an Ivor Novello Award, Fellowship is also a position within the Academy's members and is the highest honour bestowed by the association of music creators. [24]

List of compositions and arrangements

Extended compositions

Carols

Other anthems

Choral works

Anthems and other compositions

Most of these works are original compositions, including new musical settings of standard texts, whilst others are arrangements of traditional hymns.

Music with narration

Piano music

References

Sources

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Schwarm . Betsy . John Rutter . Encyclopedia Britannica. 20 September 2023 .
  2. Web site: Macfarlane. Alan. Interview with John Rutter. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304201132/http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/DO/filmshow/rutter1_fast.htm . 4 March 2016 . 18 December 2013.
  3. Book: Hughes. Patrick. Davies. Ian F.. Highgate School Register 1833–1988. 7th. Castle Cary Press.
  4. Web site: About this Recording. Rutter: Requiem/Anthems. Naxos. 2003. 1 November 2016. 31 March 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220331194931/https://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.557130&catNum=557130&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English. dead.
  5. Web site: Composer of the Week: John Rutter . https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/E7W4AhL_gzo . 21 December 2021 . live. BBC Radio 3. YouTube. 28 September 2014.
  6. Web site: Welcome To Delta Omicron International Music Fraternity . Delta Omicron . 22 July 2011 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100127130549/http://delta-omicron.org/index00.html . 27 January 2010 .
  7. Web site: News . Delta Omicron . 29 March 2008 . 22 July 2011 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110725225040/http://delta-omicron.org/news/2008Mar29_NAT_Patron.html . 25 July 2011 .
  8. Web site: About abcd . Association of British Choral Directors . 7 February 2019.
  9. News: Order of Service. https://web.archive.org/web/20110429040318/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/royal-wedding/8479433/Royal-wedding-the-Order-of-Service-in-full.html. dead. 29 April 2011. 28 April 2011. The Daily Telegraph. 7 February 2019.
  10. News: In full: The order of service for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee service of thanksgiving . . 3 June 2022 . 6 July 2022.
  11. Web site: Every piece of music at King Charles' coronation service at Westminster Abbey . Classic fm . 7 May 2023.
  12. Web site: Preserving tradition . 2024-06-13 . Classic FM . en.
  13. Web site: Music of John Rutter . Bandmusicpdf.net . 7 February 2019.
  14. Web site: Spreading Good Cheer . CBS News . 11 February 2009 . Rebecca . Leung . 7 February 2019.
  15. News: The carol singers' shining star. Michael . White. 14 December 2001. The Daily Telegraph.
  16. News: Meet John Rutter: Touching people's hearts . David . Blackwell . Rhinegold. 7 February 2019.
  17. Web site: John Rutter, Desert Island Discs . BBC Radio 4 . 7 February 2019.
  18. Web site: John Rutter, In Tune Highlights . 18 December 2014 . BBC Radio 3 . 25 March 2016.
  19. Web site: Expansive Poetry Online. Expansivepoetryonline.com. 28 September 2014.
  20. News: Sing a song of Christmas . The Guardian . 22 December 2000 . 7 February 2019.
  21. Web site: John Rutter: a Life. Classic FM. 28 September 2014.
  22. Web site: Music for special occasions.
  23. Web site: Awards for Birthday Honours List 2024 . gov.uk . 14 June 2024.
  24. Web site: Taylor . Mark . 2023-11-14 . Winners of The Ivors Classical Awards 2023 announced . 2023-11-15 . The Ivors Academy . en-GB.
  25. Web site: Christiana Canticles.
  26. Web site: A Flower Remembered . Hyperion Records . 10 June 2019.
  27. Book: Rutter . John . A Flower Remembered . 2014 . Oxford UP . 978-0-19-340482-3 . 10 June 2019.
  28. Web site: The Piano Collection.

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