CE 12.3.25: Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge [L]

[french frank]

Live from the Chapel of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge

Introit: Memento homo (Byrd)
Responses: Leighton
Psalms 65, 66, 67 (Russell, Garrett, Luard Smith)
First Lesson: Genesis 11 vv1-9
Office hymn: Jesu quadragenariae (plainsong)
Canticles: Jesus College Service (Mathias)
Second Lesson: Matthew 24 vv15-28
Anthem: Solus ad Victimam (Leighton)
Voluntary: Fantasia in C minor, BWV 562 (Bach)

David Skinner (Director of Music)
Samuel Kemp, Francis Fowler (Organists)

[jonfan]

A hugely rewarding act of worship with a choir which relished the contrasts in dynamics and mood. The anthem was the true climax of the service where Leighton’s build to the end was superbly done, not only by the choir but by the organ and engineering,

[Pulcinella]

I have a particular affection for that Leighton anthem, having introduced it to a choir I sang in as a graduate student; it was adopted into the Maundy Thursday liturgy.

I'm sorry to say that I thought the closing voluntary to be very dull and pedestrian, almost as though it was being sightread (albeit better than I would have played it!).

[Vox Humana]

i'm sorry to say that I thought the closing voluntary to be very dull and pedestrian, almost as though it was being sightread (albeit better than I would have played it!).

I understand what you mean, but I think you're a little hard. I thought it full of tenderness and pathos. The trouble with such a slow speed is keeping the tension and interest up right through to the end and perhaps this was not quite achieved. A very slightly faster speed would have done it, but I enjoyed the performance nonetheless.

It's always lovely to hear the psalms of the day, especially when you can hear the words, as you could here. I was less impressed with the chants, which, coupled with the indulgent delivery, made a cheerful set of psalms sound rather downbeat.

I have never previously enjoyed Leighton's Solus ad victimam, but this powerful and moving performance quite converted me.

A nice service all round.

[Keraulophone]

I understand what you mean, but I think you're a little hard. I thought it full of tenderness and pathos.

I'm with Vox H here. I thought it was an appropriately Lenten interpretation. This Fantasia lends itself to different moods. Peter Holder was unfairly criticised for playing it too slowly at the end of HM The Queen's funeral at the Abbey. Kevin Bowyer played it in a more bracing manner to cap last Sunday morning's Radio 4 service from Glasgow. Those of my vintage will probably have learnt the piece from Novello Book III (a cleverly selected introduction to JSB's organ works) which is missing the elaborate ornamentation that Bach probably meant for the pedal harpsichard. These days we usually hear the multitude of appoggiaturas, etc on the organ, and in a gentle performance as we heard from Sidney Sussex it works well. Going back to its 'different moods', 562 sounds magnificent played ff organo pleno, as the great Peter Hurford demonstrates here, a completely different experience: https://youtu.be/XqBwqwQI4qg?si=1R8pCobcRANSpXqD

[Pulcinella]

Fair comments, VH and K; I'm clearly more of a pleno man.


Haven't listened to the Hurford link but I see from the Decca set I have that he used the organ in Our Lady of Sorrows, Toronto, in that recording.
Rogg, in the other full set I have, is pretty full-throated (iirc) on the Arlesheim Silbermann instrument.

PS: Yes: it looks like that's from that Hurford set. A tad too shrill for me.
And I suspect I was used to a pretty hefty performance from Noel Rawsthorne in Liverpool.

[Vox Humana]

I'm clearly more of a pleno man.

Oh, me too. It's a very powerful, intense piece and for my money needs and intense and powerful registration. I think it needs a good, solid chorus to mixture plus a good, solid 16' reed in the Pedal. I don't know this Flentrop organ, but I do wonder whether, for all its loveliness, it was perhaps a little too refined. Some of these modern German and Dutch organs lack the oomph that the organs of Bach's time had. I'm not eough of an organ nerd to know what the difference is, but it's quite subtle because a Trost or a Hildebrandt organ is in no way an English cathedral organ.