CE Wells Cathedral Wed, 10th June 2015

[DracoM]

CE Wells Cathedral



Order of Service:



Responses: Tavener (first broadcast)
Psalms 53, 54, 55 (Flintoft, Wadeley, Cooper, Walker)
First Lesson: Isaiah 42: 5-12
Magnificat (Finzi)
Second Lesson: Acts 14: 8-end
Nunc Dimittis (Holst)
Anthem: Gaudeamus - Rejoice we all and praise the Lord (from 'A Sequence for All Saints' by Leighton)
Hymn: The Son of Consolation (Aurelia)



Organ Voluntary: Paean (Whitlock)



Jonathan Vaughn (Assistant Organist)
Matthew Owens (Organist and Master of the Choristers)

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[W.Kearns]

By chance I caught the psalms. Thought they were great - highly intelligent singing and beautiful chants. Look forward to hearing the service in full later on, but for this nugget of psalmody many thanks!

[alycidon]

I found the celebrant rather heavy going, and switched off as a result.

[Bullock in D]

A fantastic CE from a Premier League choir. It's a really difficult acoustic to sing in and I thought the basses in particular were fantastic. As was the excellent organist.

[Magnificat]

I found the celebrant rather heavy going, and switched off as a result.

I found most of the service rather heavy going.

The girls and men battled bravely with some pretty dreary music.

I wouldn't want to hear the Tavener, Finzi or the Leighton again.

The Holst and the hymn were the best bits for me.

W Kearns

Personally I found the psalmody rather plodding.

Bullock in D

Premier League? I think all you can fairly say is that the choir we heard is amongst the best of cathedral choirs made up of girls of that age range ( 8 to 14 according to the Wells site ) and men.

VCC

[LTFC1990]

Premier League? I think all you can fairly say is that the choir we heard is amongst the best of cathedral choirs made up of girls of that age range ( 8 to 14 according to the Wells site ) and men.

VCC

VCC, you could say that, although that'd be quite an odd way of saying exactly the same thing.

That's like criticising somebody for calling Chelsea a "top football team" instead of "amongst the best groups of men aged between 18 and 35 employed professionally to kick a football"

[Magnificat]

VCC, you could say that, although that'd be quite an odd way of saying exactly the same thing.

That's like criticising somebody for calling Chelsea a "top football team" instead of "amongst the best groups of men aged between 18 and 35 employed professionally to kick a football"

LTFC

It all depends on whether your Premier League of cathedral/college choirs includes all the different combinations around these days or not.

To my mind you can't include choirs of young girls and men, older teenagers and men, adult women and men and young boys and men in the same league. Their abilities are entirely different.

Chelsea play in a Premier league of football teams of top male professional players - not the same situation at all.

VCC

[ardcarp]

Wells choir was very effectively prepared, with exemplary rhythmic unanimity, disciplined diction and sound tuning. There are (at least) two camps among the top league of cathedral/collegiate choirs. 1. Those who maintain a traditional blend, with back desks always anxious to balance the top line and 2. Those who encourage/allow the men to use full voice much of the time. I think we heard style 1. at its best from Truro last week.

There was a wide dynamic range in this Wednesday's CE with some quiet, sensitive singing. There were some big crescendos to fff, and I suspect those critical in posts above found the 'full voice bits' predominated over the 'blending bits'. To use an organ analogy (and I refer to the choir, not the organ playing) it's as if Pleno with full reeds were being used a bit too often!

I thought the girls' top line was really excellent and (even if pushed a bit at times) they made a fine sound.

Unlike VCC, I welcomed the Finzi and Leighton, and am glad the latter had an all-too-rare outing.

The Tavener responses were billed as 'first broadcast performance'. The Our Father has surely been around for a while...and surely heard before?

From a 'religious' point of view, Wells has always sought to do the spoken (i.e. clergy) parts of the service with dignity; and that certainly came over.

[LTFC1990]

But they are all "Cathedral Choirs" so why shouldn't they be judged in the same way? I suspect had it been boys and men, you wouldn't have been noting that they shouldn't be judged against girls top lines. Perhaps I'm wrong in the presumption.

[DracoM]

Ahem......tiny bit disingenuous, maybe?
I think comparing like with like might be seen by many as a necessary bottom line?
e.g. BAL regularly adopts interestingly ambivalent criteria for comparing HIP perfs against others. Think Norrington vs Karajan, maybe?

Personally, FWIW, except in pretty generalised terms, I'd feel a bit uncomfortable comparing boy-led against girl-led choirs. Certainly IMO Wells's front line, whatever its composition, had to do a fair bit of arm-wrestling with the back desks in that CE to get heard - well, as it came over on radio.

I very much liked ardcarp's distinction between [1] and [2] i.e. 'trad' with back desks striving for blend but with front line leading and [2] all voices seemingly encouraged to 'sing out'.

[LTFC1990]

My point is that, since it is usually impossible to tell the difference (as has been in evidence from both Draco and VCC in the past), why draw the distinction in declaring Wells to be a top choir?

There are so many other differences between Cathedral top lines that could affect them, eg age, whether there is a choir school etc, I just don't understand why their gender is considered to be such an issue.

[BD92]

Blend is a stupid word

[Keraulophone]

Blend is a stupid word

Prof. Higginbottom would surely agree with you.

_{OTOH, many choir directors continually strive to acheve it.}

[teamsaint]

Blend is a stupid word

If the word sets your teeth on edge, and of course it may not,we have an excellent thread to which you may care to contribute.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?6704-Phrases-words-that-set-your-teeth-on-edge&p=491564#post491564

Welcome to this forum, BTW.