BBC Radio 3 Carol Competition

[Nick Armstrong]

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.

[Rover_KE]

Christmas "Carol" Competition.

Next year, can we please have a competition for a CAROL easy enough to be performed by an average school or church choir and which the congregation could pick up and join in with after two or three hearings?

The present through-composed part songs are not carols, and suitable only for a professional choir, often requiring a virtuoso accompanist.

[CallMePaul]

I was very surprised at the result (Chris Black, the first setting to be performed). I found his setting very conservative and not appropriate for the text. Mayne the average R3 listener's tastes are not that different from what Classic FM says are its listeners' tastes?

[LMcD]

I was very surprised at the result (Chris Black, the first setting to be performed). I found his setting very conservative and not appropriate for the text. Mayne the average R3 listener's tastes are not that different from what Classic FM says are its listeners' tastes?

I suspect the PM instructed his admirers to vote for the 'right' entry in sufficient numbers to produce a winner from the North.

[antongould]

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.

Go for it alpers

[BBMmk2]

Go for it alpers

Agreed!

[underthecountertenor]

I was very surprised at the result (Chris Black, the first setting to be performed). I found his setting very conservative and not appropriate for the text. Mayne the average R3 listener's tastes are not that different from what Classic FM says are its listeners' tastes?

I don’t think one can draw too many inferences from this sort of exercise. It may be that all Dr Black’s patients voted for him, for example.

It is a bit of a reversion to bland after last year’s (IMO) more worthy winner though.

[DracoM]

Sorry, I wish I could be surprised. The predictable, anodyne tat, coupled with the BBC Singers 'execution' of the music, made this whole exercise a yawn.

AND that impoverishes the genre, demeans the BBCSs, and provides almost no way forward for choirs etc looking for new material. I simply cannot imagine any DoM with a half decent choir entertaining ANY of those carols, since heard in the context of other better known carols would pale into more or less instant amnesia. THat poem was too dull to set well. Shame - the poet is well-known, admired, so...........? [Shrug]

The last truly fine carol to have quite rightly gone into the repertory of many choirs is The Lamb.
And go back to Ceremony of Carols / Britten for a whole treasure trove of stuff.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As has been mentioned - the given text hardly leant itself to anything other than a rather dull setting - and, given it's a Breakfast initiative, there weren't going to be many amateur Bebop enthusiasts getting involved.

It doesn't matter - after this week, it'll never be heard again. Allow Dr Black his Dinner Party anecdote.

[Paulie55]

So true!

Next year, can we please have a competition for a CAROL easy enough to be performed by an average school or church choir and which the congregation could pick up and join in with after two or three hearings?

The present through-composed part songs are not carols, and suitable only for a professional choir, often requiring a virtuoso accompanist.

I totally concur........skilled though they are, the winning carols of the past few years sound rather "Un-Christmassy" and lack that memorable refrain and community spirit. There are so many amateur choirs looking for new music not just Christmas-themed works and a composer must learn to adapt his/her style to suit these requirements. I'm sure Holst and Vaughan Williams would agree!

[Paulie55]

Carol settings are not really carols

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.

I totally concur........skilled though they are, the winning carols of the past few years sound rather "Un-Christmassy" and lack that memorable refrain and community spirit. There are so many amateur choirs looking for new music not just Christmas-themed works and a composer must learn to adapt his/her style to suit these requirements. I'm sure Holst and Vaughan Williams would agree!

[ardcarp]

The last truly fine carol to have quite rightly gone into the repertory of many choirs is The Lamb.

Can I add Judith Weir's Illuminare to that? I'm sure there's a few others too, though dating from the pre-bland era.

I'm not sure when John Gardner's Tomorrow Shall be my Dancing Day was written, but that gets a few feet tapping

You can keep his Holy and the Ivy though.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Well, here we are again, but this time it's different, in that this year, it's to be a congregation hymn, so perhaps needs to be simpler in character.

Fair enough.

But we've also entered a whole new world of patronising dumbing down, because all they want from "us" is the melody line. The rest will be sorted out by one of the BBC's chums. The idea that composition is restricted to just the tune is such a mind-bogglingly naïve concept. Of course it doesn't surprise me in the least. I wouldn't expect Suzie and the rest to allow anything else. WIll any self-respecting composer, amateur or otherwise, want to be part of this?

[Vox Humana]

But we've also entered a whole new world of patronising dumbing down, because all they want from "us" is the melody line. The rest will be sorted out by one of the BBC's chums.

How depressing. It sounds very much like an admission that the sort of tune they are after is most likely to come from people who don't have any real compositional skill - in other words, the 'suck it and see' school. They are inviting submissions in any style, so maybe the BBC want to reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator so that skilled composers have no 'unfair' [<snort>] advantage.

Will any self-respecting composer, amateur or otherwise, want to be part of this?

Well, let's put it this way: when it comes to composition I'm not even self-respecting and I wouldn't go anywhere near this. I'm not having anyone else tell me how to arrange my rubbish.

[cloughie]

Well, here we are again, but this time it's different, in that this year, it's to be a congregation hymn, so perhaps needs to be simpler in character.

Fair enough.

But we've also entered a whole new world of patronising dumbing down, because all they want from "us" is the melody line. The rest will be sorted out by one of the BBC's chums. The idea that composition is restricted to just the tune is such a mind-bogglingly naïve concept. Of course it doesn't surprise me in the least. I wouldn't expect Suzie and the rest to allow anything else. WIll any self-respecting composer, amateur or otherwise, want to be part of this?

If it is to be a congregation hymn is this such a good idea as we have no clue at this stage whether we will be allowed congregations by Christmas?