CE St Alban Wed, 24th June 2015

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

LCB

The best psalm singing I've heard on CE since St Albans' last broadcast.( look back at the tributes paid then )

The other choirs we hear get nowhere near it. Often because they sing them far too fast and gabble the words.

As far as I am concerned this was a very finely sung service throughout.

VCC

[ardcarp]

The choir makes a very fine sound... a delight to adherents of the all-male tradition. Very well done to the trebles and the gents.
The CE was presented with great dignity and breadth... but alas slightly too much breadth, as I realised when I found Mrs Ardcarp 'feigning dead' on the carpet halfway through the psalms. When she was at length resuscitated, she muttered that she now knew why St Alban was a Martyr. I regret that if I were singing psalms regularly at that pace I would get very bored, not to say out of puff. Having said all that, it's clearly their house stye, and they do it very well.

Vox Dicentis is a great staple of the Anglican repertoire (the very same Mrs.A sang it at a CE last Sunday) but I find his Canticles (new to me) terribly 'ordinary'. Again, there was a lovely sound from the choir, but the whole thing resembled a harmony exercise with little sense of line or progression and IMHO nothing to make them special or memorable.

Loved the introit, hymn and organ voluntary. Briggs was clearly born in the wrong country at the wrong time!

[Miles Coverdale]

Vox Dicentis is a great staple of the Anglican repertoire (the very same Mrs.A sang it at a CE last Sunday) but I find his Canticles (new to me) terribly 'ordinary'. Again, there was a lovely sound from the choir, but the whole thing resembled a harmony exercise with little sense of line or progression and IMHO nothing to make them special or memorable.

A quick historical note. The canticles were written for King's in the early 1900s, and initially sung from MS copies. After the First World War they were published, and the Nunc was dedicated to all those who had sung in the choir and had died in the war.

[Magnificat]

[QUOTE I find his Canticles (new to me) terribly 'ordinary'. Again, there was a lovely sound from the choir, but the whole thing resembled a harmony exercise with little sense of line or progression and IMHO nothing to make them special or memorable.QUOTE]

ardcarp

They are very, very, difficult to sing well.

Can I congratulate the Precentor, Rev Paul Arbuthnott who has just been appointed Minor Canon and Sacrist of Westminster Abbey, on a beautifully intoned service . Superb singer and lovely man. WA are very lucky to get him. Wait till they hear him sing the Passion - a real test for any Precentor - they have a treat in store.

VCC.

[DracoM]

Vox Dicentis and the Briggs vol were highlights for me.

Anthem was disciplined, focused, nicely paced, had a thrill factor as well, and very decent top line soloists, some excellent tenor work in there too

One knows that St A sing psalms like this - as ardcarp says it is their house 'stye', [ahem!] but nevertheless a healthy and peaceful antidote to the overly-soloistic shouting we seem to get fairly regularly as if back row men were using CE on R3 as an audition piece. So, yes, those psalms were slow by modern standards, but they breathed, gave time to think, and of course that way take a lot more singing and watching. Whether too slow is AMoO.

Briggs vol terrific. Love to have been there in that fine organ-friendly acoustic.

Thank you, team, and thx to precentor as well.

[Op. XXXIX]

Many thanks to all for the interesting info here, especially concerning the Naylor compositions. I finally visited St. Alban's last May. Had long been on my 'to do' list!

Great service, I loved listening to it.

Incidentally, I heard David Briggs in recital about five years ago. Splendid concert. We missed nothing of his technique on the big screen and he spoke briefly before each selection. I fondly remember a profound rendition of the Franck C major Fantasy, and a piano improvisation which could easily have passed for Messiaen. The last half of the concert was his rollicking transcription of the Tchaikovsky 4th. Not to my fancy perhaps -I prefer organ transcriptions of shorter orchestral works, not whole symphonies- but he played it with incredible panache and the enthusiastic applause was well deserved.

[ardcarp]

So, yes, those psalms were slow by modern standards, but they breathed, gave time to think, and of course that way take a lot more singing and watching. Whether too slow is AMoO.

Indeed to sustain them (and one's interest) at that speed requires concentration and stamina. I have to say it wasn't just the speed I found difficult, it was the slightly irrational dwelling on certain syllables. But still, psalm-style is a quirky thing, and there are as many ways of singing them as there are choirs. I'm sure everyone will remember there was a 'speech rhythm' movement which was promoted (in the 50s ?). This was laudable in many ways but led the average parish choir to adopt speech speed as well as rhythm, and led to much psalm-gabbling. My own preference is for psalms to have the natural inflections of speech (i.e. shortening unimportant words such as 'in' or 'the').... something that plainsong psalmists do naturally anyway. But Anglican chant (weird but wonderful) needs it all to be slowed down a bit...but not to extremes.

[Miles Coverdale]

They are very, very, difficult to sing well.

Really? I've done them a few times, and I don't think they're more difficult than most other pieces of the period.

[light_calibre_baritone]

Really? I've done them a few times, and I don't think they're more difficult than most other pieces of the period.

Was about to say a similar thing.

They are in quite a simple double choir format, and once started seem to just roll along quite well... And rather un-taxing!

[Magnificat]

Really? I've done them a few times, and I don't think they're more difficult than most other pieces of the period.

MC

My emphasis is on the 'well'.

As ardcarp said above the harmony is all. SA did this exceedingly well in my opinion. Other choirs might not be so good at it.

Draco

You are absolutely right about the psalmody.

It's not just about the singers, its about the people listening. How can a choir bring out all the moods and nuances of the psalms if they are sung at 100mph. The congregation need to have time to consider the words.

VCC

[vinteuil]

SA did this exceedingly well in my opinion.

... clearly our Serial Apologist is a man of many - unexpected - talents.

[Miles Coverdale]

My emphasis is on the 'well'.

I suspected as much.

As ardcarp said above the harmony is all. SA did this exceedingly well in my opinion. Other choirs might not be so good at it.

No doubt the cathedral choir with which I sang them wasn't a patch on St Albans.

[bach736]

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

Never have 27 verses seemed so long.
How do they cope with the 15th evening?
Are there rest breaks?

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Never have 27 verses seemed so long.
How do they cope with the 15th evening?
Are there rest breaks?

Bach 736

With superb chanting like that they could have gone on for ever as far as I am concerned.

They did psalm 78 on CE a few years back to six chants if I remember correctly: Mann, Barnby,Ley,Cooper,Stanford and Atkins.

You might be able to locate the service somewhere and listen and hear for yourself.

They managed to get an introit, canticles, responses, anthem, prayers and organ voluntary in as well so perhaps you can work out roughly how long then psalm took!

VCC

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I suspected as much.



No doubt the cathedral choir with which I sang them wasn't a patch on St Albans.

MC

You tell me.

VCC.