CE St Alban Wed, 24th June 2015

[DracoM]

CE Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban
Wed, 24th June 2015
Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist




Order of Service:



Introit: The great forerunner of the morn (arr. Vaughan Williams)
Responses: Bernard Rose
Psalms 80, 82 (Hopkins, Smart)
First Lesson: Malachi 4
Office Hymn: On this high feast day (Coelites Plaudant)
Canticles: Naylor in A
Second Lesson: Matthew 11: 2-19
Anthem: Vox dicentis: Clama! (Naylor)



Organ Voluntary: Prelude and Fugue in D (from 'Homage à Marcel Dupré' - David Briggs)



Tom Winpenny, Assistant Master of the Music
Andrew Lucas, Master of the Music

[subcontrabass]

For those bothered about such things the cathedral music list states that this service will be sung in the Nave and the choir will be "boys and men".

[jean]

Draco, did you write St Alban so as not to have to make a decision about an apostrophe?

[Miles Coverdale]

The name of the city does not use an apostrophe, not does that of St Davids.

[jean]

No indeed - but it does have an s. As does the Cathedral, and/or Abbey, I believe.

[Miles Coverdale]

No indeed - but it does have an s. As does the Cathedral, and/or Abbey, I believe.

The title St Albans Abbey/Cathedral is correct, but so is the title of the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban. At least that's what their web site says.

[DracoM]

Thank you, MC.
The title is taken from both the Abbey's own site AND the BBC's Choral Evensong site.
Sorry it doesn't meet with jean's exacting standards

[DracoM]

Deliberately shortened because otherwise it would not have fitted the title box if I had included the complete date and the Feast the CE was celebrating
e.g. CE Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban on the Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist Wed, 24th June 2015
See what I mean?
The assumption was that most people probably realises what the abbreviated title indicated.

[jean]

The saint's name has a different function in the two different forms of the name of the Cathedral/Abbey.

In the form St Albans Abbey/Cathedral (without apostrophe), it's the name of the city used as a premodifier.

In the form the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban, it's the name of the saint the Cathedral/Abbey is dedicated to.

If you abbreviate the second version by omitting the Cathedral and Abbey Church of... it does appear that the service is emanating from the Saint in person without the mediation of clergy or musicians.

(Sorry...this should of course have been in Pedants' Paradise.)

[Miles Coverdale]

Yes, but in the second case, one would surely say the service comes from St Albans. One couldn't say it comes from St Alban, because that is patently nonsense. If one were to say it comes from St Alban's, it could legitimately be asked, from St Alban's what? In other words, in your second form, one has to use the name of the place to retain any meaning.

[Magnificat]

For those bothered about such things the cathedral music list states that this service will be sung in the Nave and the choir will be "boys and men".

Subcontrabass,

As usual from St Albans ( unlike many other cathedrals ) you can always easily see from the music list which choir is singing a particular service and its location.

CE from St Albans is invariably sung by the boys and men because they are the cathedral choir and sing the great majority of the services.

The Abbey girls' choir, which regularly sings evensong on its own on Wednesdays and Fridays, has sung CE a couple of times to my recollection once as a service recorded for a later broadcast under Andrew Parnell and once for an Ash Wednesday broadcast under Simon Johnson ( the Abbey Girls choir and the men of the cathedral choir regularly sing the Ash Wednesday evening choral eucharist.

ardcarp

You recently posted elsewhere that I will be like the cat who has got the cream next Wednesday. ( I didn't reply so as not to be accused of highjacking another choir's thread !! )

Well, I am certainly looking forward to this broadcast as I have not heard the choir since the end of February when they gave their annual Cathedral Music Trust concert out in the diocese at Old Welwyn. As with all these concerts their reputation certainly seems the go before them with some 400 people turning out to hear them on a filthy night. The audience seemed to be very appreciative of what they heard.

I hoped to attend a choral eucharist in the cathedral last month when they were giving a first performance of a new setting of the communion service by the Dubai based composer Joanna Marsh commissioned by the Abbey as part of its celebrations of the 900th anniversary of its dedication in 1115 and which was subsequently to be performed by the choir on its recent half - term tour of northern Germany at concerts and services in Hannover, Brunswick and Hildesheim. Unfortunately I was unwell but evidently the music critic of the Church Times was there and said ( Church Times 22nd May ) that the choir gave a masterly performance - very well prepared - of this demanding unaccompanied mass.

The choir I heard at Welwyn in February had five year nine boys amongst the twenty that sang that night. Whether they have all managed to keep their voices until now I don't know but judging by the above review, just a month ago, I should imagine that the choir is in pretty decent shape and shouldn't have much trouble with Naylor's unaccompanied setting of the canticles!

VCC.

[jean]

Yes, but in the second case, one would surely say the service comes from St Albans. One couldn't say it comes from St Alban, because that is patently nonsense. If one were to say it comes from St Alban's, it could legitimately be asked, from St Alban's what? In other words, in your second form, one has to use the name of the place to retain any meaning.

That was exactly my point.

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[light_calibre_baritone]

How to fill a spare 10 minutes... Psalms at half speed!

[underthecountertenor]

Positive and affirming as ever, I see.