A Service for Advent with Carols [R] Chapel of St John’s College, Cambridge 3.xii.23

[Nick Armstrong]

Not at 3pm, but you could join the LIVE streaming of York's Advent Procession at 5:30pm instead.

Have been enjoying this very much today on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/live/Jd6j8qSNvsg?si=fU0NBlj7DICbauHb

I must confess to having been underwhelmed by the St John’s transmission, both in terms of music choice and choral sound.

The wide choice available on YouTube these days makes for fascinating and celebratory comparisons. For example I’ve also enjoyed the one at Merton, Oxford from last week.

Taking that and the York Advent Procession together, you might be forgiven for thinking that I’m happy as long as there’s a good lusty rendition of Hills Of The North Rejoice…

… because you might well be right!

[Pulcinella]

Have been enjoying this very much today on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/live/Jd6j8qSNvsg?si=fU0NBlj7DICbauHb

I must confess to having been underwhelmed by the St John’s transmission, both in terms of music choice and choral sound.

The wide choice available on YouTube these days makes for fascinating and celebratory comparisons. For example I’ve also enjoyed the one at Merton, Oxford from last week.

Taking that and the York Advent Procession together, you might be forgiven for thinking that I’m happy as long as there’s a good lusty rendition of Hills Of The North Rejoice…

… because you might well be right!

You might have heard my partner and me trying to speed things up with our lusty singing.
I know there have been comments elsewhere about the speed of congregational hymns, but we continue to find them too slow in the minster.
Good to know that the event came over well; we thought it better than last year's.

[Nick Armstrong]

You might have heard my partner and me trying to speed things up with our lusty singing.
I know there have been comments elsewhere about the speed of congregational hymns, but we continue to find them too slow in the minster.
Good to know that the event came over well; we thought it better than last year's.

Yes it was quite slow… but that melody can take it!

I’ll have another listen…

Try the Merton version, about 49:50 in:

https://www.youtube.com/live/H6f_mcjg8Ys?si=2f5NdmctokKqgHNp

[Alison]

Have been enjoying this very much today on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/live/Jd6j8qSNvsg?si=fU0NBlj7DICbauHb

I must confess to having been underwhelmed by the St John’s transmission, both in terms of music choice and choral sound.

The wide choice available on YouTube these days makes for fascinating and celebratory comparisons. For example I’ve also enjoyed the one at Merton, Oxford from last week.

Taking that and the York Advent Procession together, you might be forgiven for thinking that I’m happy as long as there’s a good lusty rendition of Hills Of The North Rejoice…

… because you might well be right!

I must admit there are normally two or three items that I want to replay, sometimes many times over, but yes the service was a bit short of highlights.

[Keraulophone]

Yes it was quite slow… but that melody can take it!

Try the Merton version, about 49:50 in:]

Martin Shaw's great tune Little Cornard, named after the village in Suffolk where the composer spent his honeymoon, is usually taken closer to the Merton tempo of around crotchet = 104. Of course, their chapel (quire and antechapel; the nave was never built) is compact in comparison with the immense spaces of York Minster, yet York's crotchet = 74 (approx - it varies) does seem somewhat lugubrious.

There is a version with descant in The Novello Book of Hymns (ed. David Hill) which suggests it should be sung 'With vigour, but steady' if that helps!

[Keraulophone]

New College, Oxford - always worth listening to.

https://www.youtube.com/live/37d8flC32lc?si=DDqbzDEWR_RF3CKt

[Benjamin]

[COLOR=#3300ff]Have been enjoying this very much today on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/live/Jd6j8qSNvsg?si=fU0NBlj7DICbauHb

I must confess to having been underwhelmed by the St John’s transmission, both in terms of music choice and choral sound.

Where choral sound is concerned, I do disagree about the service from St John's. I found the choir adept as ever and expertly colourful: capable of suggesting here frostiness and there warmth, as called for by the texts and by the music chosen (much of which, admittedly, I'd need to hear again to decide how I find it in its own right). I'll look forward to listening again in the—I hope—calm of a ~38,000 foot cruising altitude.

On York, whose Advent procession Nick Armstrong shared above, I thought others on this forum might be interested in one of the Minster's own Advent traditions: an orchestral Evensong on 'Stir-Up Sunday,' featuring BWV 140 (Wachet Auf) as the anthem. I'd need to be reminded of when the custom started, but it dates from at least Francis Jackson's tenure: there is a 1965 or '66 bootleg of his choir singing the cantata in English(!). This year—and for many years—it was sung in German, accompanied by both Ben Morris on the chamber organ and a scratch ensemble of York-based instrumentalists. It's a major set piece of the Minster Choir's year, and I thought this year's offering was outstanding. The livestream is available here:

https://www.youtube.com/live/IHzx8aZcFo8?si=DtL7ZKHSmtCW-SWZ

[Kingfisher]

I was a singer at a Cambridge college ( St Catharine’s) in the early 1980s. Many of the Colleges had just ‘gone mixed’. Prior to that, Sops were recruited from women’s colleges and from Homerton ( not then part of the University). Once the girls arrived it became something of a golden age, and standards shot up. John’s, King’s and Jesus retained their boys only choirs.

The admission of girls to the top line at John’s will be interesting.

Views will differ as to the likely effect on the sound.

The aspect which worries an old dinosaur like me is the effect on boys in choirs around the country. They are an endangered species as it is. Early experience suggests that once girls come in the boys will leave.

So the law of intended consequences will come into play. We will lose the tenors basses ( and countertenors) of the future. Access will not have widened, it will have narrowed.

I hope that I will be proved wrong.

[Kingfisher]

Unintended!

[gurnemanz]

The aspect which worries an old dinosaur like me is the effect on boys in choirs around the country. They are an endangered species as it is. Early experience suggests that once girls come in the boys will leave.

I was struck by this last point which had not occurred to me. Personal experience re girls and boys in choirs came to mind. I was teaching in a large comprehensive school in the 80s. There was an enthusiastically run school choir which performed regularly. Volunteers were plentiful but almost exclusively girls. Our head of music used to go round the staff room signing up male staff members to take part in order to be able offer SATB with some sort of viably balanced sound. I had never sung in a choir but showed willing, found I was able to make valid a contribution and really enjoyed it. I went on to join our local Choral Soc - and still turn up there to this day.

[DracoM]

<<the effect on boys in choirs around the country. They are an endangered species as it is. Early experience suggests that once girls come in the boys will leave.

So the law of intended consequences will come into play. We will lose the tenors basses ( and countertenors) of the future >>

Intended, I suspect........but a fine posting, and iMO, and alas....smack on the money.