Music for the Coronation

[edashtav]

Yes, magnificent. Loved the Walton Te Deum, which I didn't know. And the Fanfare trumpeters were superb, especially when integrated with the magnificent orchestra, plus organ! Parry & Handel moving as always, and the wonderful soprano. A feast for the ears, only spoilt by Huw Edwards. I still havn't forgiven him for talking over the music at Diana's funeral. I know, I know...! Of the new pieces I was impressed by the Tarik O’Regan.

I agree with your assessment of the Tarik O’Regan. Of the rest of the new pieces in the Coronation, I have nothing positive to record. I did listen more attentively to the Concert that preceded the Service:

Coronation Music in the Morning Concert
Three Bach pieces
Virtuosic and thrilling performances by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Baroque forces.
John and Co. were majestic in Bruckner’s vivid motet ‘Ecce Sacerdos Magnus’.

Judith Weir ‘Brighter Visions Shine Afar’:
A very short, busy overture that wended its unremarkable way in a cheerful fashion. Very much an occasional piece, a chip off the old block served in a sauce blended by Michael Torke.

Pappano and his Coronation Overture piloted Holst’s ‘Jupiter’ with verve and chirpy rhythms and the big tune was played in a robust, business-like fashion.

Karl Jenkins trivial ‘Crossing the Stone’ featured the Royal Harpist, Alis Huws, accompanied by strings. It was strophic arrangement of a Welsh Song and its soupy scoring was grey & unimaginative.
Sarah Class is a young composer and artist. Her song ‘Sacred Fire’ was commissioned by the King for his Coronation and was inspired by the singer, Pretty Yende. The piece aspired to recreate the beauty of Dvorak’s ‘Song of the Moon’. Pretty Yende sang with great enunciation, commitment and an understanding of the arc of its ‘anthemic’ tune. Sarah Class has yet to find her own voice.
Why did William Walton’s ‘Crown Imperial’ March need a helping hand from John Rutter? I liked Pappano’s bustling, brisk pace, jaunty rhythms and swaggering lines.
RVW’s Fantasia on Greensleeves may owe much to a second Ralph (Greaves). He was a pupil of the Great Man and extracted and arranged the fantasia from Ralph’s Opera ‘Sir John in Love’. Whatever, the short piece never outstays its welcome, ‘works’, and is a popular example of the British pastoral / cowpat musical genre. Pappano conducted it with courtly decorum but without self-indulgence.
Shirley Thompson, of Jamaican descent, Nigel Hess, the great nephew of Dame Myra, and Roderick Williams, the wonderful Welsh / Jamaican baritone combined to produce a Coronation Triptych, three panels exploring ‘Be Thou My Vision’ i.e. the Irish folksong ‘Slane’. Its middle movement owed a debt to Joseph Canteloube’s orchestrated Auvergne folksongs. The finale was brash and cheap.
Iain Farringdon’s virtuosic organ piece ‘Voices of the World’ continued the brash mood, initially tricked out with Jazz elements but then lapsing into a quodlibet of snatches from a Music Halls of the World. I found it banal.
Patrick Doyle Overture King Charles III’s Coronation March for Orchestra - shades of Willy Walton? Obvious and weak progressions plus a trio of overworked scraps rather than a fully-fledged tune. I sensed that Patrick Doyle was good at musical mimicry.

[Pulcinella]

So that's who composed that piece. Unlike others I didn't think the previously unknown (to me) Walton Te Deum was top Walton - too close stylistically to the Stanfords we had to sing at school. The best music of the ceremony was for me the two anthems by Byrd.

One piece was an anthem; the other was the Gloria from one of his masses (that in his wildest dreams he could scarcely have imagined being used at a coronation 400 years hence, I would have thought).

I agree with your assessment of the Tarik O’Regan. Of the rest of the new pieces in the Coronation, I have nothing positive to record. I did listen more attentively to the Concert that preceded the Service:

Coronation Music in the Morning Concert
Three Bach pieces
Virtuosic and thrilling performances by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Baroque forces.
John and Co. were majestic in Bruckner’s vivid motet ‘Ecce Sacerdos Magnus’.

Judith Weir ‘Brighter Visions Shine Afar’:
A very short, busy overture that wended its unremarkable way in a cheerful fashion. Very much an occasional piece, a chip off the old block served in a sauce blended by Michael Torke.

Pappano and his Coronation Overture piloted Holst’s ‘Jupiter’ with verve and chirpy rhythms and the big tune was played in a robust, business-like fashion.

Karl Jenkins trivial ‘Crossing the Stone’ featured the Royal Harpist, Alis Huws, accompanied by strings. It was strophic arrangement of a Welsh Song and its soupy scoring was grey & unimaginative.
Sarah Class is a young composer and artist. Her song ‘Sacred Fire’ was commissioned by the King for his Coronation and was inspired by the singer, Pretty Yende. The piece aspired to recreate the beauty of Dvorak’s ‘Song of the Moon’. Pretty Yende sang with great enunciation, commitment and an understanding of the arc of its ‘anthemic’ tune. Sarah Class has yet to find her own voice.
Why did William Walton’s ‘Crown Imperial’ March need a helping hand from John Rutter? I liked Pappano’s bustling, brisk pace, jaunty rhythms and swaggering lines.
RVW’s Fantasia on Greensleeves may owe much to a second Ralph (Greaves). He was a pupil of the Great Man and extracted and arranged the fantasia from Ralph’s Opera ‘Sir John in Love’. Whatever, the short piece never outstays its welcome, ‘works’, and is a popular example of the British pastoral / cowpat musical genre. Pappano conducted it with courtly decorum but without self-indulgence.
Shirley Thompson, of Jamaican descent, Nigel Hess, the great nephew of Dame Myra, and Roderick Williams, the wonderful Welsh / Jamaican baritone combined to produce a Coronation Triptych, three panels exploring ‘Be Thou My Vision’ i.e. the Irish folksong ‘Slane’. Its middle movement owed a debt to Joseph Canteloube’s orchestrated Auvergne folksongs. The finale was brash and cheap.
Iain Farringdon’s virtuosic organ piece ‘Voices of the World’ continued the brash mood, initially tricked out with Jazz elements but then lapsing into a quodlibet of snatches from a Music Halls of the World. I found it banal.
Patrick Doyle Overture King Charles III’s Coronation March for Orchestra - shades of Willy Walton? Obvious and weak progressions plus a trio of overworked scraps rather than a fully-fledged tune. I sensed that Patrick Doyle was good at musical mimicry.

A scaling down of the orchestration?

[hmvman]

To be fair to Pappano, he delivered a cracking Pomp & Circumstance as TMs exited…

He did, but it was a shame both the TV and Radio3 feeds faded out the music in favour of presenter wittering. I would've like to have heard the Parry March from 'The Birds', Choral Fantasia on 'The Old One Hundredth' and Byrd's 'Earl of Oxford's March'.

[gradus]

Glad you found it.
Unattributed (apart from to Gibbons) in the Order of service.
At least with Finzi we normally see Amen from Lo, the final sacrifice.

Thanks to you both for the detective work, such a lovely Amen.

[Simon Biazeck]

Thanks to you both for the detective work, such a lovely Amen.

You are most welcome.

~SBz.

[Pulcinella]

Thanks to you both for the detective work, such a lovely Amen.

I didn't do anything! Simon deserves all the credit!

[edashtav]

One piece was an anthem; the other was the Gloria from one of his masses (that in his wildest dreams he could scarcely have imagined being used at a coronation 400 years hence, I would have thought).



A scaling down of the orchestration?

I hadn’t thought of that possibility, pulcs - I suppose the grand, composite Coronation orchestra was limited by space given the competion from large congregation and augmented choirs.

[Lordgeous]

I hadn’t thought of that possibility, pulcs - I suppose the grand, composite Coronation orchestra was limited by space given the coompetion from large congregation and augmented choirs.

They didn't look that large but sounded great, I thought

[oddoneout]

I hadn’t thought of that possibility, pulcs - I suppose the grand, composite Coronation orchestra was limited by space given the coompetion from large congregation and augmented choirs.

Scroll through the pics here https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...in-picturesand at about no 7 there is one of the instrumental forces in action, and the space they had. If it wasn't already a thing would they have started the trend to stand while performing?

[Old Grumpy]

I hadn’t thought of that possibility, pulcs - I suppose the grand, composite Coronation orchestra was limited by space given the coompetion from large congregation and augmented choirs.

IIRC, according to the ubiquitous and ever effusive KD, the Coronation Orchestra were in the organ loft.

[hmvman]

Just listened again to Paul Mealor's Kyrie sung by Bryn Terfel and found it absolutely spine-tingling as I did this morning listening live.

[mopsus]

Quite. I saw that. Perhaps it's long since been been separated from the original piece in the library... ? Who knows.

The Amen from Gibbons' anthem has long taken on a separate existence of its own. I recall singing it at St Ann's, Manchester in the 1990s from copies that were then quite old.

The anthem itself was reset to other words, the original words in honour of the Sovereign being too occasional for general use (although they would have been appropriate to this occasion!)

I am singing the Boyce anthem next week - a rare anthem from this period with a top B for the treble line! It has a couple more sections beyond what was sung today.

[ardcarp]

How about a BBC prog (picture or sound only) of the best of the music?

A CD or download of the Coronation Music, sans chatter, would probably be a hot seller if it was produced right now. But I could foreee copyright/performing rights problems.

[edashtav]

They didn't look that large but sounded great, I thought

I agree - they were ‘larger than life’. I heard that Pappano was conducting from the Organ Gallery but had assumed that his forces were below but were benefiting from some form of televisual link.

[edashtav]

Just listened again to Paul Mealor's Kyrie sung by Bryn Terfel and found it absolutely spine-tingling as I did this morning listening live.

I must listen to that piece having missed it live due to making a cuppa.