BBC Radio 3 Carol Competition

[ardcarp]

I start this thread some trepidation. I'm sure we all have views about it. Whatever our views, it's probable that many R3 listeners are getting pleasure both from the offerings and from the 'competition' aspect. As the competitors are all (technically at least) amateur composers maybe we should go easy on individuals!

Trying not to break the above ground-rules, I would say that the harmonic language and rhythmic interest of the short-listed ones are a bit anodyne.
I suspect a certain amount of 'calculated simplicity' has been exercised by the creators to aim at a presumed desire for 'accessibility' by the judges.
I was quite amused when one contestant, interviewed, said he was studying composition at Trinity-Laban and specialised in the avant garde. QED?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I’ve been quite impressed by this year’s offerings. The incessant repetition by presenters can be as tiresome as the BBCS wobbly soprano line, but I suppose this is inevitable.

Perhaps the “prize” could be a performance of the winning carol on Christmas Day, by Voces8, The Sixteen or the Monteverdi Choir?

[Master Jacques]

I’ve been quite impressed by this year’s offerings. The incessant repetition by presenters can be as tiresome as the BBCS wobbly soprano line, but I suppose this is inevitable.

Perhaps the “prize” could be a performance of the winning carol on Christmas Day, by Voces8, The Sixteen or the Monteverdi Choir?

I agree that the carol finallists I've run across (three of them only) have been fine: but the "wobbly soprano line" is the least of the BBC Singers' troubles. They can sound cool, but I've rarely heard them sound so soullessly disengaged as in these performances. "Doing a job" is not doing the job, and somebody ought to put a rocket under the Singers to let them know that what they're doing at the moment is not quite good enough.

[oddoneout]

I agree that the carol finallists I've run across (three of them only) have been fine: but the "wobbly soprano line" is the least of the BBC Singers' troubles. They can sound cool, but I've rarely heard them sound so soullessly disengaged as in these performances. "Doing a job" is not doing the job, and somebody ought to put a rocket under the Singers to let them know that what they're doing at the moment is not quite good enough.

It's not as if they are incapable of doing better, as recently demonstrated in their concert of music for Advent, about which I made favourable comment elsewhere. I heard a snippet of one of those rather painful telephone exchanges between the competitors and Petroc a couple of days and was amused at the considerable pause between being asked the generic 'how does it feel having your carol performed by the BBCS' and the reply, which was somewhat muted. I don't know if it was a true reflection but it did sound as if the competitor was a tad less than enthusiastic.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Doing a job" is not doing the job

- I have not heard the Carols, so cannot comment on the BBCS performances, but this neat little phrase communicates very neatly the nature of your criticism of the performances.

[cat]

I hold the apparently unpopular opinion that a carol should be something one could envisage being sung on a doorstep or in a pub, whilst also being amenable to being arranged for a choir. This is why most of the traditional carols have ended up becoming traditional (with the exception of O Holy Night, which I'd rather was never sung congregationally ). Quite often new carols seems to follow the direction "compose anything at all which is SATB and where the text makes some mention of something Christmassy". The most recent exception to this I can think of is Berkeley's This Endernight which was the 2016 commission for King's.

Of the six entries here I note three of them exceed the maximum required length in the completion rules, which is 4:30 for the seven verses of text. It's no surprise then that most seem to concentrate on getting through all words, and is probably why they seem rather anodyne.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... is the least of the BBC Singers' troubles. They can sound cool, but I've rarely heard them sound so soullessly disengaged as in these performances.

They are ruthlessly efficient, and can sight sing just about anything with staggering accuracy. But most bog-standard choral societies generally sound more involved with the music itself, wrong notes and all.

[Nevilevelis]

Something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OshoKwE8B1E The next generation (in theory, at least) of The Sixteen. NB the vibrato, which is similar to that in the present BBCS line-up. Let's make a distinction between natural and healthy vibration in ALL (not just sopranos) voices as opposed to wobble; an unhealthy beat - completely different.

Voces8 ? - pure Brand Bland with a sickening dollop of fake sentiment-driven facial expressions. No thanks!

The Monteverdi Choir ? - Probably deemed beneath 'his' asirations for the group. A relief, given his tenedency to drive the sound to hardness with agressive accents, overworked dynamic schemes and bizarre tempi.

No, I think the BBCS did just fine with the latest crop of anodyne settings, notable only for their general poverty of ideas. The solo in Chris Black's Go to the Child was a model of restraint. Did anyone listen, or were the old gripes being trotted out again? *yawn*

NVV

[ardcarp]

I agree, cat, that there is something special about 'folk' carols that are simple and verse-repeating. Many of these are to be found in the Oxford Book of Carols along with notes about where the tunes+words were collected and by whom. But there is also room for more knowingly composed settings...often using 'carol' words. I wouldn't want to be without Leighton's Lully Lulla, for instance. I often think Poston's Jesus Christ the Apple Tree is a fine attempt at simlicity. There is a difference between a jolly bunch of friends or family swaddled up against the weather singing verse-repeating carols outside and a decent choir in a concert or service setting. Too many unrelieved verses in the latter can pall.

[Master Jacques]

I hold the apparently unpopular opinion that a carol should be something one could envisage being sung on a doorstep or in a pub, whilst also being amenable to being arranged for a choir. This is why most of the traditional carols have ended up becoming traditional (with the exception of O Holy Night, which I'd rather was never sung congregationally ). ...

There was an amusing illustration of your point on Sunday, during the EBU concert series. A Danish choir sang 'In the Bleak Midwinter' (excellently), after which the British presenter - no names, no pack drill - told us "that was Harold Darke's arrangement of the carol 'In the Bleak Midwinter'."

Err... no, it was Harold Darke's setting of Christina Rosetti's 'In the Bleak Midwinter', and a completely original composition. But her mistake was pardonable: the tune sounds so inevitable, that we'd be mistaken for thinking it was by that most prolific of carol composers, 'Trad.'

[Nick Armstrong]

I wouldn't want to be without Leighton's Lully Lulla, for instance.

You’ll be happy when you listen to King’s on Christmas Eve then (and indeed, watch them in the subsequent television programme on BBC2 )

[CallMePaul]

Returning to topic, my main problem is that the text appears to me to be the poet's reaction to her own birth experiences, not a text relevant to Christmas, so to my mind the settings should not be described as carols. I want something more explicitly Christian in a carol, but the choice of poet (a fine poet I am sure, although not one with whose work I am familiar), who is, I believe, a Scot of Pakistani Muslim heritage, may have precluded anything explicitly Christian.

That having been said, i have just listened again to the short-listed settings and have reached the conclusion that my preferred setting is that by Tom Dobney, with Paul Lewis Edwards's setting a close runner-up.

Are the finalists' entries ever sung again? I don't think I have ever heard them on R3 except during the final stages of the competition.

[Vox Humana]

They can sound cool, but I've rarely heard them sound so soullessly disengaged as in these performances.

Perhaps they would have sounded more engaged had the material been more inspiring. I realise that they are paid to interpret, but they're only human.

But there is also room for more knowingly composed settings...often using 'carol' words. I wouldn't want to be without Leighton's Lully Lulla, for instance. I often think Poston's Jesus Christ the Apple Tree is a fine attempt at simplicity.

For me such pieces are the spices in the musical Christmas cake and I wouldn't be without them (apart from the Poston, which I thoroughly dislike). I can't really think of them as carols though. I rather like Howells's term, carol-anthems.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm tempted to enter next year's competition with no soprano notes long enough for the BBCS sops to wobble on. Of course, such a restriction would make it even more difficult to reach the last 6, but I'd like to to try.

[Beresford]

Future entries might be more interesting if the BBC commissioned a songwriter rather than a poet. A songwriter would use fewer words, and wouldn't end a line with the word "it", almost impossible to sing. The BBCS got round the problem, in most of the settings, by surpressing the "t".