Royal Wedding, The Music

[BBMmk2]

I must say, that although, musically very good, I thought the choices were rather safe ones.

What do board members here think?

NB Title ofcourse should have read Royal Wedding, The Music

[doversoul1]

This thread has been going on for awhile on the The Choir board.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?1982-Wedding-music

If anybody is interested in music of Royal Weddings in a historical perspective (), this may be of interest.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010nqnn

Catherine Bott and James O'Donnell, Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey and someone who played a major part in the performance of the music at the ceremony, discuss the early music of previous royal weddings. They talk about the choice of venues and composers, and play music by, among others, Handel and Boyce, and also movements from a mass by Tomas Luis de Victoria

[Peter Katin]

I must say, that although, musically very good, I thought the choices were rather safe ones.

What do board members here think?

NB Title ofcourse should have read Royal Wedding, The Music

Surely there was enough anyway? It was a very long service and I felt that the music was right for this.

[Freddie Campbell]

...Safe certainly,BBM! However there was quite a lot to commend here,inc fine Choral Singing & one or two innovations(Ubi Caritas eg). Perhaps this reflects Will & Kate's wish to "get it right" after continual
Royal disaster in match-making?!

[Ventilhorn]

...Safe certainly,BBM! However there was quite a lot to commend here,inc fine Choral Singing & one or two innovations(Ubi Caritas eg). Perhaps this reflects Will & Kate's wish to "get it right" after continual Royal disaster in match-making?!

That strikes a familiar chord, Freddie!

[Freddie Campbell]

...I expect the Queen is hopeful with these two!

[BBMmk2]

...I expect the Queen is hopeful with these two!

HRH T Duchess of Cambridge is being looked after rather well. HM The Queen, doesn't want any mistakes made like last tiime!

[ahinton]

Surely there was enough anyway? It was a very long service and I felt that the music was right for this.

OK, but did the ceremony have to be a mainly Parry concert with the accompaniment of a royal wedding? The music (I mean the choices thereof rather than its performance) was an almost unmitigated disappointment (to me, at any rate), so I agree with BBM here. The Rutter was the only musical non-disappointment, but that was only because we all could tell in advance what it was going to be like, so there was nothing in it with which to disappoint. Perhaps the best musical moment was Walton's Crown Imperial, a piece so skilfully crafted that I never fail to crease up with laughter at the sheer expertise of the utterly delightful tongue-in-both-cheeks-at-once pomp-and-circumstantial send-up that it is; such a shame that the latter part of it was largely drowned out by the sounds of bells as the newlyweds emerged from the Abbey...

In all seriousness, I would have hoped for rather more imaginative choices, especially given Prince Charles' evident input and his known love of and interest in music. The fact that no one seems to have seen fit even to consider commissioning a work from the Master of the Queen's Musick, is all too conspicuous, although not quite as much so as the rumour (to whose veracity I am unable to testify) that his predecessor was actually asked NOT to compose anything for the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales (and just look what we got then instead - two pieces of musical recycling from those two distinguished Johns, Sir Elton Hercules and Sir Tavener)...

[mercia]

The Rutter was the only musical non-disappointment, but that was only because we all could tell in advance what it was going to be like

if I've understood that correctly (probably not), then the Parry works were a "non-disappointment" to me because I knew in advance what they were going to be like

[ahinton]

if I've understood that correctly (probably not), then the Parry works were a "non-disappointment" to me because I knew in advance what they were going to be like

So did I - so what I meant was that the choice of them was a disappointment (to me, anyway).

[Freddie Campbell]

...I guess this was all safe-choice Music because of world-wide appeal? After all,the event was due to be seen by the largest audience ever all over the globe...

[Nachtigall]

…
In all seriousness, I would have hoped for rather more imaginative choices, especially given Prince Charles' evident input and his known love of and interest in music.…

I see that the Times music critic Richard Morrison actually attributed the large helping of Victorian & Edwardian music to Prince Charles's "fogeyish tastes", an ungenerous remark but possibly true.

[Flosshilde]

HRH T Duchess of Cambridge is being looked after rather well. HM The Queen, doesn't want any mistakes made like last tiime!

I did think that it was a bit mean to give them the title at the last minute - presumably up to then KM had been looking forward to being a real-life Princess.

[ahinton]

I see that the Times music critic Richard Morrison actually attributed the large helping of Victorian & Edwardian music to Prince Charles's "fogeyish tastes", an ungenerous remark but possibly true.

Well, Mr Morrison might have done well to ascertain beyond reasonable doubt the actual extent of Prince Charles' input in to this choice before wading in with a comment like that in any case; it seems that, whilst he (Prince Charles, that is) did indeed have something to do with it, the choice was by no means his and his alone, as best I understand it.

As far as original choices go, I cannot help but suspect that Samantha Cameron's decision not to wear a hat to the occasion was a good deal more "original" than most of the choices of music involved therein...

I wonder what Sir PMD thinks about it all; perhaps he's just being quietly sanguine about not being asked to contribute to the proceedings just as Tony Blair seems (rather uncharacteristically) to be about not having been invited to them (Gordon Broon, on the other hand, appears so far to have resorted to playing the "unavailable for comment" card in response to the absence of invitation for him to attend)

[Nick Armstrong]

I did think that it was a bit mean to give them the title at the last minute - presumably up to then KM had been looking forward to being a real-life Princess.

I doubt it. It seems to be the way they do things.

Phil was made to wait ten years before being made Prince Phillip. When they married in November 1947, the King made him Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich, but he wasn't a Prince till 1957, 5 years after his wife acceded to the throne.