CE Tewkesbury Abbey with the Exon Singers – Sunday 28th Dec 2014

[DracoM]

CE Tewkesbury Abbey with the Exon Singers – Sunday 28th Dec 2014
Archive of broadcast Christmastide 2002



Order of Service:



Introit: No small wonder (Paul Edwards)
Responses (Clucas)
Psalm 12, 13, 14 (Barnby, Camidge, Vann)
1st lesson: Genesis 12: 1-7
Office hymn: From east to west, from shore to shore (A Solis Ortus)
Canticles: Second Service (Leighton)
2nd lesson: John 6: 1-14
Anthem: Long, long ago (Howells)
Hymn: Unto us a boy is born (Puer Nobis)



Organ voluntary: Toccata on 'Vom Himmel hoch'
(Edmundson)



Carleton Etherington, Organist
Matthew Owens, Director of Music

[DracoM]

Well, for me the voluntary was star of the show! And the Edwards introit.
And how creepily redolent and relevant the first lesson was to what is happening now in the Middle East. Crikey!

[mopsus]

I sang on a summer tour with the Exons some years before this broadcast was recorded, under the direction of Christopher Tolley. In those days they had a very stable and long-standing membership (a few founder members were still there!) The choir was unusual for the number of couples it contained, although I think this was because only singers got free board and lodging on the tour; so in some cases the weaker partner was given a place in the choir, in order to secure the voice of the stronger one.

Nowadays the average age of the choir seems much younger and maybe it is tapping into the pool of twentysomething aspiring professionals that many choirs use. I don't know exactly when this transition occurred, how gradual it was or who was responsible for it, but the sound of the choir now is different from when I toured with it. I would guess that the change was well under way when this recording was made. Was this one of the last Tewkesbury Abbey Exon broadcasts? They were once annual, but the Rodolphus Choir now occupy that slot (as they will on Wednesday).

[ardcarp]

Am I in a time warp or did the announcer introduce the service as being 'on this Christmas Eve' ? I suppose it is an 'eve' in Christmas....

[ardcarp]

Mopsus. I sang with them most recently (about 10 years ago?) with Matthew Owens at the helm. They were, as you say, on their way to becoming a young aspirational choir. As I'm no spring chicken, I guess they must have been desperate for tenors! I am rather sorry that on their website they do not credit their original founder, Chris Teuten who had in his line-up a promising young soprano by the name of Emma Kirkby.

[mopsus]

Roderick Williams also used to sing with them I think. We performed a composition by him on the tour I went on.

[ardcarp]

Just heard the service on i-player. Very assured singing, with Matthew Owens' careful and measured approach working well in that lovely building. The Leighton Nunc is especially beautiful IMO, and Howells' Long Ago....well, just scrummy.

[Vox Humana]

Howells' Long Ago....well, just scrummy.

It's a wonderful piece and still not nearly as well known as it deserves to be, although it must be becoming so, thanks to recent recordings. I guess it's a case of everyone except me being out of step, but I can't help feeling that both words and music call for a much more yearning, nostalgic (i.e. more reflective) interpretation than we usually hear. Nearly all performances are too perfunctory for my taste, including the one on this broadcast. The performance on the Rodolfus Choir's recent Howells CD is the one that, so far for me, comes nearest to capturing the essence of this piece.

[mopsus]

I think the Rodolfus Choir broadcast it on CE just after Christmas in about 2008. (I recall the year because the only time I have sung this anthem was shortly afterwards).

[subcontrabass]

Am I in a time warp or did the announcer introduce the service as being 'on this Christmas Eve' ? I suppose it is an 'eve' in Christmas....

The repeat on Sunday 28th was previously repeated on Wednesday 24th, which was Christmas Eve, a broadcast which clashed with the KCC Carol Service on Radio 4.

[ardcarp]

Ah. I see. Hic. Thanks.

[mw963]

Shame the usual incompetence in Radio 3 Con caused the reverb at the end of the voluntary to be chased into oblivion. It is honestly beyond me how this sort of thing happens, not just once in a while but on a regular basis. Is it a lack of training or do they just employ muppets now, who have respect neither for technical standards nor musical wholeness?

In other news I continue to make tea while Leighton is on - the first few bars of the Mag were enough to send me from the room. Pace ardcarp!

[Finzi4ever]

Roderick Williams also used to sing with them I think. We performed a composition by him on the tour I went on.

The Roddy Williams piece was Dr Seuss' Sleep Thoughts... I too sang with them regularly from the mid-80s, the era of the 'good Dr' Tolley and the Victoria recordings, through those of Andrews Lumsden & Carwood and finally Matthew Owens. In fact this broadcast was my last gig with them. I don't recall there being more than 1 or at most 2 couples regualrly in the choir. The men in particular were a mix of loyal die-hards and young, destined-for-great-things professionals, not least Roddy himself and James Gilchrist, while sparing the blushes of several others who write on this board. Good Times! Personally I preferred the winter Gloucester/Pershore/Tewkesbury sessions, despite the chill, to the long slog of the Summer Festival despite the glories of Buckfast and Exeter.

[Keraulophone]

In other news I continue to make tea while Leighton is on...

Aha! A fellow sequences-of-parallel-fourths-hater. At this point I usually summon up an image of 1960s office blocks in Croydon's CBD... but perhaps we should just keep quiet and carry on with our knitting* at a safe distance from the radio.

On the other hand, his early Coventry Carol: Lully, Lulla, Thou Little Tiny Child and 1964 set of Preces And Responses are masterly.


*(The organ part that brings the Nunc Dimittis of Leighton's Magdalen Service to a quiet rest is supposed to represent him knitting.)

[ardcarp]

On the other hand, his early Coventry Carol: Lully, Lulla, Thou Little Tiny Child.......

That's the well-known one (and IMO one of the most beautiful and poignant carols of the 20th C) but it is in fact he second of Three Carols Op 25 written in 1956, each for soprano solo with SATB. No parallel fourths in sight nor indeed anything else to frighten the horses. I can't imagine why the other two are rarely performed...well maybe they are; I sang for the first time ever No 3 An Ode to the birth of our Saviour this Christmas. Also, Polyphony did all three at their Winter Festival Concert from Temple Church a couple of weeks ago. If anyone's organising a carol concert next year, do have a look at them all.

For Easter, Leighton's Drop, Drop Slow Tears is heart-wrenching, and often performed on its own....a little gem. It is the final movement of a larger (and quite tricky) work, Crucifixus Pro Nobis for solo tenor and choir. That isn't perhaps easy-listening, but I'm a big Leighton fan and think it captures perfectly the agony of The Crucifixion..