CE Rochester Cathedral 21st Oct 2015

[DracoM]

CE Rochester Cathedral



Order of Service:



Introit: It was in that train (Barry Ferguson)
Responses: Leighton
Office Hymn: Father, hear the prayer we offer (Cypress Court)
Psalm: 106 (Atkins, Wesley, Parry)
First Lesson: 2 Kings 23: 4-25
Canticles: Arthur Wills on plainsong tones
Second Lesson: 1 Timothy 3
Anthem: See, see the Word is incarnate (Gibbons)



Organ Voluntary: Master Tallis's Testament (Howells)



Assistant Sub Organist: Benjamin Bloor
Assistant Director of Music and Sub Organist: Claire Innes-Hopkins
Director of Music: Scott Farrell

[Vox Humana]

This will be Rochester Cathedral Choir, accompanied by the organ of Hereford Cathedral - sort of.

The Rochester Cathedral organ is currently out of action and likely to remain so for a year or two yet. In the meanwhile the choir is being accompanied by a Hauptwerk set-up. (For the non organ buff, Hauptwerk is software that enables MIDI-enabled keyboards to play a range of different organs whose individual pipes have been sampled in CD quality.) As digital organs go, it's as realistic as you can get - if you can get it working. Rochester are using the Hereford sample set.

I am pleased to see that they have chosen Barry Ferguson's fine "Cypress Court" for the hymn tune - but I do wish that they (and other places) would stop using that silly term "office hymn".

[ardcarp]

"Office hymn" has just come to mean a hymn sung within the service (in CE between opening responses and Final prayers.) It may offend liturgical purists, but I think we all know what it means.

[Vox Humana]

Yes, we all know what it means, but, as I'm sure I have argued here before, it's a tautologous, pointless term used thoughtlessly. When Evensong has two hymns are they both called office hymns? No. Why not? - they are both being sung at the "office" of Evensong. It's nothing to do with where in the service it is sung either. Anyway, there are many far worse rantable offences, so I shall now put my hobby horse back in the broom cupboard. :)

(Apostrophes can get me going too. :) )

[DracoM]

Could it be that this is a relic in nomenclature of the monastic orders of prayer in which 'office' hymns are based on / taken from the appointed office / duty prayer of the day?

Just a thought?

[subcontrabass]

Yes, we all know what it means, but, as I'm sure I have argued here before, it's a tautologous, pointless term used thoughtlessly. When Evensong has two hymns are they both called office hymns? No. Why not? - they are both being sung at the "office" of Evensong. It's nothing to do with where in the service it is sung either.

Er, no. The second hymn (when there are two in the usual pattern in broadcast services) is most commonly placed AFTER the office (as given in BCP) has been completed.

I take exception rather to the choice of such "office hymns" (which mostly have no connection to the particular service) and to their positioning before the Psalms (following post-Vatican II Roman Catholic practice) rather than linked to the principal canticle (i.e. before the Magnificat - where it is positioned in the older order of Vespers).

[Vox Humana]

Could it be that this is a relic in nomenclature of the monastic orders of prayer in which 'office' hymns are based on / taken from the appointed office / duty prayer of the day?

Just a thought?

It wasn't just monastic liturgies. The secular uses (Sarum, York, Hereford) also had a hymn at each office.

Er, no. The second hymn (when there are two in the usual pattern in broadcast services) is most commonly placed AFTER the office (as given in BCP) has been completed.

OK, point conceded. :)

I take exception rather to the choice of such "office hymns" (which mostly have no connection to the particular service) and to their positioning before the Psalms (following post-Vatican II Roman Catholic practice) rather than linked to the principal canticle (i.e. before the Magnificat - where it is positioned in the older order of Vespers).

I am reasonably confident that I care a great deal less than Henry VIII about anything that the Vatican might decree. I take the nowadays highly individual (some might even call it eccentric) view that the true, historical liturgy of the C of E is the Use of Sarum - because it is (and the nineteenth-century liturgiologists knew it). However, I agree about the positioning of the first hymn. Where Rochester place it would be correct at Matins, but not at Evensong. On the other hand, given that the canticles at Matins and Vespers replace the pre-Reformation responsories that (nearly always) followed lessons and readings, I object even more to the interruption of that rhythm by placing a hymn between a lesson and its canticle - it's a liturgical faux pas from that point of view. Of course, Cranmer wanted hymns altogether "cut off", along with "anthems, responds, invitatories and such like things".

[Jeffrey Gray]

I thought I'd mix it up a bit by not being incognito. So I'm thinking it's pretty obvious who Vox Humana is! Don't need my degree to work that one out. Anyway, I hope the service goes really well. See, See... is such a good piece. And, by the way, my real name is Sam Corkin.

[Vox Humana]

So I'm thinking it's pretty obvious who Vox Humana is!

Oh dear, I do hope not. You might be mistaken. I'm a nobody. Honestly.

I'm with you on "See, see". Gibbons's counterpoint is always so very elegant.

[ardcarp]

I love 'See.see' too. It's so unusual in that the text will do for almost any season, giving as it does the whole sweep of Christ's birth, life, death and resurrection in just a few lines. A mistake to sing it too fast, IMO.

[weston752]

IAnd, by the way, my real name is Sam Corkin.

So, Mr Corkin, will you be singing at Rochester tomorrow?

[16'Bombard]

So, Mr Corkin, will you be singing at Rochester tomorrow?

I've heard that Mr Corkin, Rochester's premier tenor, sadly won't be singing today.

[Keraulophone]

Continuity announcer, at 4.35pm : "Well, the time now is half past four and time for In Tune with Sean Rafferty..."

Does that R3 studio need a new clock?

CE never overran by four minutes in Rev. Shipley's day!

[ardcarp]

Well, there was certainly some enthusiastic singing from Rochester! I liked the Barry Ferguson introit...unusual...and was glad to hear the Wills canticles. Wills was probably one of the best composers amongst his generation of cathedral organists.

The psalms seemed a bit relentless. I probably ought to know this, but what was the alternative 'As it was in the beginning' in the Leighton responses?

The engineered sound seemed quite distant, rather like hearing the choir, in the choir, from the nave. (I don't know Rochester.)

[Nazard]

I probably ought to know this, but what was the alternative 'As it was in the beginning' in the Leighton responses?

I haven't yet heard the broadcast, but I do know that there are two settings of that response in the copy (i.e. Leighton set that response twice) - I guess Rochester did the other one to what you are used to.