(Formerly) CE from York

[terratogen]

...if you do not in foundations nurture boys, as well as girls, and if you do not make them feel special as outlined and separately showcased, you are eventually going to cut down the number so boys interested in and prepared to chance their arm...

Maybe those of you deeply taken up with the high level professional singing world need to step back a bit and have a look at the real world and what is happening in education to realise that the numbers of boys engaged in classical SINGING is dropping like a stone...

Easy to scoff, but a little more careful thought about the underlying issues might help. Terms like 'misogynistic accident of history' do not help. Concentrate on what is at stake NOW and over the next 20-30 odd years if the stream of professionally trained boy choristers dries up. .

Let us hope, then, and make it our goal to assure that the stark, unnecessary and deeply-engrained binarisms broadcast in the nurture and education of young children will fall by the wayside in our lifetimes. There's the underlying issue, and it goes deep enough, I think, that it will make segregating boys and girls into separate choirs (schools; play groups; clubs; what have yous) seem like a palliative even in the not-so-very-long run.

[Magnificat]

Those of us who today are actively involved in producing music for you to enjoy, or not, care not one hoot about your gender-related tastes. We are those keeping alive the traditions of cathedral music. You are not.

Contre Bombarde.

I have said many times on this board that I have never had any objection to girls singing in our cathedrals and I enjoy hearing a good choir of girls and men as much as I do one of boys and men but I enjoy both better if I know whom I am listening to because it is then possible to appreciate the particular talents on show which will be entirely different for each gender as you should know.

Frankly,your reply is disgraceful whoever you are - presumably a cathedral DoM.

You obviously care not one hoot about keeping alive the traditional and precious heritage of cathedral choirs of boys and men at all costs.

Your post convinces me that many cathedral DoMs could not give a damn as to whether girls replace boys in cathedrals as they have in parish church choirs. Whatever makes life easier for you is all that matters. How many of you are going the extra mile to ensure recruitment of boys remains healthy? You are put to shame by some parish church DoMs who go out and visit countless schools and audition hundreds of boys to try to find enough to replenish the ranks of their choirs whilst you sit on your backsides and hope enough kids turn up to your increasingly irrelevant voice trials and want to go to your buttoned up choir schools.

If you really cared you would insist your Deans and Chapters open up the choir to any boys interested in singing in it and go out and find them and if necessary teach them to sing. - Oh No, this would be too much like hard work.

In my opinion any cathedral DoM who is not successful in recruiting enough boys to maintain the boys' choir in a cathedral at an acceptable level of numbers should be fired and the job given to someone who has the drive and determination to do so. Will this happen? - not in a million years. Don't worry you'll keep your job for life if you want it.

You also seem to forget that many of us who enjoy cathedral music help to provide considerable financial support in many ways to keep it going and to keep many of you in a job. To say that our views don't matter is a bloody cheek. Cathedral music is too important to be left to the likes of you.

VCC.

[ardcarp]

Before the thread goes into total melt-down, may I just make a very general comment about the nature and purpose of The Choir....and if I may be so bold, The Forum? It is a place where anyone's views should be welcome and treated with equal respect (provided of course they are not libellous). It is wonderful, IMO, that The Choir has contributions from lovers (amateurs in the French sense) of choral music, as well as from practitioners whether as performers, directors or composers. And, I might add, from a number of ex- (what detractors might call armchair-) practitioners. If one looks, for instance, at Performance, or BAL, the discussion is often enriched by past and present orchestral players. There is just a slight tendency on The Choir (a) for some to think their opinions carry more weight than others, and (b) for things to get nasty rather quickly. I hope it will not be embarrassing for me to say how much Roger Judd's recent appearance on The Choir is appreciated. It is great to hear from someone with a wealth of experience in the field of church music. But Roger's contributions (so far!) are always measured and never holier-than-thou....in other words he doesn't assume any sort of proprietorial rights over the subject.

Peace and love, brothers and sisters, peace and love.

[Steinberg2012]

Contre Bombarde.

I have said many times on this board that I have never had any objection to girls singing in our cathedrals and I enjoy hearing a good choir of girls and men as much as I do one of boys and men but I enjoy both better if I know whom I am listening to because it is then possible to appreciate the particular talents on show which will be entirely different for each gender as you should know.

Frankly,your reply is disgraceful whoever you are - presumably a cathedral DoM.

You obviously care not one hoot about keeping alive the traditional and precious heritage of cathedral choirs of boys and men at all costs.

Your post convinces me that many cathedral DoMs could not give a damn as to whether girls replace boys in cathedrals as they have in parish church choirs. Whatever makes life easier for you is all that matters. How many of you are going the extra mile to ensure recruitment of boys remains healthy? You are put to shame by some parish church DoMs who go out and visit countless schools and audition hundreds of boys to try to find enough to replenish the ranks of their choirs whilst you sit on your backsides and hope enough kids turn up to your increasingly irrelevant voice trials and want to go to your buttoned up choir schools.

If you really cared you would insist your Deans and Chapters open up the choir to any boys interested in singing in it and go out and find them and if necessary teach them to sing. - Oh No, this would be too much like hard work.

In my opinion any cathedral DoM who is not successful in recruiting enough boys to maintain the boys' choir in a cathedral at an acceptable level of numbers should be fired and the job given to someone who has the drive and determination to do so. Will this happen? - not in a million years. Don't worry you'll keep your job for life if you want it.

You also seem to forget that many of us who enjoy cathedral music help to provide considerable financial support in many ways to keep it going and to keep many of you in a job. To say that our views don't matter is a bloody cheek. Cathedral music is too important to be left to the likes of you.

VCC.

Actually the point that Contre-Bombarde is trying to make is that you should be able to judge the music-making on its own terms; whether the choristers are girls are boys, without having to be told.

Cathedral choirs have (it is generally reckoned) never performed at higher standard than they do at the moment - you say that he doesn't care one hoot about keeping alive the 'traditional and precious heritage'. What exactly does that mean to you - a system of institutionalized bullying? (notoriously prevalent in many cathedral choirs earlier in this century). Or one of servitude? (The Quiristers of Winchester College were originally intended to wait on table, singing was a secondary function for them). Keeping alive 'tradition' would reduce them to unpaid child waiters... While we should be grateful for the continued presence of cathedral choirs over the last few centuries it is also worth remembering that they were by and large pretty terrible in the main.

It's all very well calling for the sacking of DoMs who don't recruit enough boy choristers, but that's hardly the issue here. York has two full sized front rows. Both staffed at an acceptable level. Not to mention who would you replace the DoM with? Better to have fifteen good trebles trained by someone who knows what they're doing, than a parish-church hack fielding twenty appalling singers they've found from wherever.

Finally he's not saying that your views don't matter, he's asserting an equality of gender and an opening of opportunities for both sexes. There's nothing criminal about offering girls the opportunities that they have been denied for centuries. To say that CB doesn't give a hoot about traditional choirs is misguided.

~S

I might add that I welcome the balanced views of Gabriel Jackson (who I had the pleasure of meeting when a choir I work with performed one of his compositions last year) and Roger Judd who both have given up the veil of anonymity to give veracity, weight and substance to their comments. As someone who is starting a career as a professional cathedral organist next year I find some of the views expressed here rather shocking and unpleasant.

[Y Mab Afradlon]

As someone who is starting a career as a professional cathedral organist next year I find some of the views expressed here rather shocking and unpleasant.[/QUOTE]

Bravo

[Y Mab Afradlon]

P.S. The BBC Singers are performing a motet by Scheidt (in an edition I've prepared) next month and I, for one, am looking forward to hearing the interpretation ... wobble and all.

[ardcarp]

Nothing like a piece of Scheidt. Sorry, the old ones are best. Congrats on your edition. Is it a previously unpublished or obscure motet?

[Gabriel Jackson]

It's hard to see how not informing the listening public this week that the trebles at York Minster were girls threatens the whole existence of choral singing in this country, but what do I know?

It might be worth noting that in many countries in Northern and Eastern Europe who have outstanding choral cultures, there is no tradition of boys singing of the kind we have in the UK. Yet they manage to find plenty of tenors and basses (and sopranos and altos) to sing in their very fine choirs, both amateur and professional.

Thanks Steinberg2012 for your kind comments. I'm trying to work out which choir that might have been...

[Steinberg2012]

Have PM'd you...

~S

[Magnificat]

Actually the point that Contre-Bombarde is trying to make is that you should be able to judge the music-making on its own terms; whether the choristers are girls are boys, without having to be told.

Cathedral choirs have (it is generally reckoned) never performed at higher standard than they do at the moment - you say that he doesn't care one hoot about keeping alive the 'traditional and precious heritage'. What exactly does that mean to you - a system of institutionalized bullying? (notoriously prevalent in many cathedral choirs earlier in this century). Or one of servitude? (The Quiristers of Winchester College were originally intended to wait on table, singing was a secondary function for them). Keeping alive 'tradition' would reduce them to unpaid child waiters... While we should be grateful for the continued presence of cathedral choirs over the last few centuries it is also worth remembering that they were by and large pretty terrible in the main.

It's all very well calling for the sacking of DoMs who don't recruit enough boy choristers, but that's hardly the issue here. York has two full sized front rows. Both staffed at an acceptable level. Not to mention who would you replace the DoM with? Better to have fifteen good trebles trained by someone who knows what they're doing, than a parish-church hack fielding twenty appalling singers they've found from wherever.

Finally he's not saying that your views don't matter, he's asserting an equality of gender and an opening of opportunities for both sexes. There's nothing criminal about offering girls the opportunities that they have been denied for centuries. To say that CB doesn't give a hoot about traditional choirs is misguided.

~S

Steinberg

It does matter who is singing. Boys and Girls are not the same. They can sound the same and they can be equally as good but they are not equally as easy to train. A really good boys top line is rare indeed whereas a really good girls' top line is much more common. If you know that you are listening to some excellent boy trebles, in my opinion, the appreciation factor is greater. But my real point is why this secrecy about who is singing in some places? It's barmy.

As regards boys singing generally my concern and that of many other people is that everything possible must be done to keep them singing and their special sound alive. All you seem to get from choirmasters these days is moaning that recruitment is difficult. What are they doing about it? It's no use just plodding on with voice trials that don't attract enough applicants and relying on associated choir schools. New and innovative ideas and much more effort is required. Where are they and where is it? You do see it in some parish churches that have been struggling with this problem for much longer than cathedrals, in some cathedrals without choir schools eg Coventry ( see the recent edition of cathedral Music Magazine ) and in parish church cathedrals.

It's no use having a very talented choirmaster if he hasn't eventually got a choir to train. It's no use taking a short term outlook on this. You have to recruit all the time and I don't see this being done frankly. It is the first rule of marketing - if the customers are not coming to you you have to go to them.

'Parish - church hack' - some snobbery there I think.

All this aside, what really annoyed me about Contre Bombarde's post was his/her view that only the professional musicians are keeping the tradition going.

At the beginning of last month I was involved with some 270 other people in wonderful fund raising gala dinner organised by a cathedral music trust to raise funds to help to secure the cathedral tradition of boys and men and girls and men and older choristers who want to keep singing when they leave the choirs. We were entertained by children from the local area who were all accomplished musicians and who won a competition along with some of the cathedral choristers showing off their skills other than singing. It raised some £54,000 on the night and was damned hard work for the organisers. We were all simply lovers of the cathedral music tradition

I know also of many individual donors who have provided tens of thousands of pounds to endow choristerships for both boys and girls because they believe deeply that it is simply worthwhile to encourage chilldren and perhaps especially boys to sing in the cathedral's choirs. At least at this cathedral they can see when the child they endowed is likely to be singing and can go along to give him/her their support which many do. The very least they hope for is that the cathedral music department is as energetic and enthusiatic about keeping the tradition alive and dynamic.

VCC

[MrGongGong]

How encouraging it is to see folk so passionate about music , nothing like a good argument

if only the same was true of the wider discussion about music education for the rest of society

[french frank]

Boys and Girls are not the same. [Girls] can sound the same ...

[...]everything possible must be done to keep [boys] singing and their special sound alive.

I understand all the reasons why boys should be encouraged to sing to very high standards, but not at the expense of girls, surely?

Decantor said: "Has nobody told [the girls] that they are singing, not to an audience, but for God...".

Has nobody told the congregation/listeners that?

[Sorry, wrong quote attribution!]

[ardcarp]

It might be worth noting that in many countries in Northern and Eastern Europe who have outstanding choral cultures, there is no tradition of boys singing of the kind we have in the UK. Yet they manage to find plenty of tenors and basses

I can only speak for Norway with which I have first-hand experience. There is not the same choir-school culture, I grant, but there is a lot of singing for boys. The Silver Boys' Choir in Oslo is world famous. And the Jentekor at Tronheim Cathedral has separate girls' and boys' choirs of note.

I would add that in the UK we have a lot more very capable singing men swilling about whom one can sweep up, shove a copy in front of, and get a very passable result. Try doing that in France.....

[ardcarp]

The Silver Boys' Choir

Correction...Silver Ring Choir

[Finzi4ever]

The Hymn "Take up the song, and sing the praise of God" is 253 in Sing Praise (published by Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd and the Royal School of Church Music in September 2010), the tune Radcliffe Square, and the descant, are by Geoffrey Webber who is Precentor of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, but previously studied and lectured in Oxford.

I've found hymns from this book have been sung in several Choral Evensongs.

RAC

Thanks for your informative answer and for, if even momentarily, returning a degree of sanity back to this thread!