'Time Out' guide to choral evensong services

[ardcarp]

I am an intellectual lightweight, so feel ill equipped to discuss form and content without Jean. Late medieval and early Renaissance church composers would have regarded their forms (cantus firmus, isorhythm, menusuration canons, etc) as religious devices in themselves, and hence, for them, content would be an inevitable result.

This put me in mind of an unpleasant performacne of VW's G minor Mass broadcast yesterday on Afternoon on 3. VW had (rather in the same vein as a Renaissance composer) set out to write this with a set of 'rules', namely that there should be no dissonances whatever, just pure triads. There's the form. Content, i.e. an ethereal, spiritual sound soaringl to the heights of (perhaps) a great medieval vault, was entirely missing because the BBC Singerrs cannot and should not attempt music where the beauty of well-tuned triads and effortless soaring lines (the form) are the means of producing it.

Got a bit off topic there maybe. Possibly it was the early Romantics (and I regard Weber as one such) who thought of content first and then strove to achieve it with the musical language at their disposal. Think how The Storm in Beethoven's Sixth might have turned out if he'd had the tools of, say, Korngold at the tip of his quill?

[Keraulophone]

Korngold - 'Der Sturm' (1913, when EWK was 16, pub.2001) for choir & orch.

...though it's about a storm at sea rather than watering an agricultural landscape. The mind boggles at what LvB might have done with K's musical paintbox in 1913. (If the Tardis were to pay him a visit, we might hear some sugar Beet.)

[ardcarp]

Here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY-E9a5NOGQ

(Thanks Ceraulophone ;-)

[Vox Humana]

Gosh, and I thought it was something to do with religious observance.

Now here's a thing. I no longer have any faith and regard religion as something that has to be endured in order to hear good church music in its best context. The reason why I would much rather do so in a service than a concert is that I continue to value the way in which a service can deliver a unique ambience of timelessness, other-worldliness and what Howells once famously described as "the immemorial sound of voices" - music to lift one out of one's self. The way in which so many pieces seem to open windows onto the eternal is still just as meaningful to me, even though I no longer believe in the eternal. Illogical, but true.

Late medieval and early Renaissance church composers would have regarded their forms (cantus firmus, isorhythm, menusuration canons, etc) as religious devices in themselves, and hence, for them, content would be an inevitable result.

I would just like to add that the Latin liturgical music of the likes of Taverner, Tallis and Sheppard was just one of the tools deployed to lend magnificence to the ceremonial on feast days or other important occasions, alongside a plethora of things such as the use of rulers of the choir, the donning of silk copes for certain chants and the use (or non-use) of incense. The music was part of the splendour of such occasions.

[Magnificat]

Does one have to wear a suit to go to Choral Evensong...




...I'll get mine (coat, that is)


OG

OG

I believe the etiquette is that if the lay clerks wear collar and tie,suits or sports jacket with flannels and polished shoes, gentlemen in the congregation should do the same; but if the lay clerks wear tee shirt, jeans/shorts,trainers and are unshaven then you can wear whatever you like!

VCC

[Triforium]

OG

I believe the etiquette is that if the lay clerks wear collar and tie,suits or sports jacket with flannels and polished shoes, gentlemen in the congregation should do the same; but if the lay clerks wear tee shirt, jeans/shorts,trainers and are unshaven then you can wear whatever you like!

VCC

How delightfully parochial. There are few things more unpleasant than a certain type of lay clerk more concerned with form than content. Often the focus of much derision.

[Pulcinella]

Now here's a thing. I no longer have any faith and regard religion as something that has to be endured in order to hear good church music in its best context. The reason why I would much rather do so in a service than a concert is that I continue to value the way in which a service can deliver a unique ambience of timelessness, other-worldliness and what Howells once famously described as "the immemorial sound of voices" - music to lift one out of one's self. The way in which so many pieces seem to open windows onto the eternal is still just as meaningful to me, even though I no longer believe in the eternal. Illogical, but true.



I would just like to add that the Latin liturgical music of the likes of Taverner, Tallis and Sheppard was just one of the tools deployed to lend magnificence to the ceremonial on feast days or other important occasions, alongside a plethora of things such as the use of rulers of the choir, the donning of silk copes for certain chants and the use (or non-use) of incense. The music was part of the splendour of such occasions.

Similar illogicality obtains here. But I am concerned about using rulers: what for?

[Pulcinella]

OG

I believe the etiquette is that if the lay clerks wear collar and tie,suits or sports jacket with flannels and polished shoes, gentlemen in the congregation should do the same; but if the lay clerks wear tee shirt, jeans/shorts,trainers and are unshaven then you can wear whatever you like!

VCC

But don't the lay clerks usually don cassocks and surplices to cover up their t-shirts and jeans?

[Nick Armstrong]

There are few things more unpleasant than a certain type of lay clerk more concerned with form than content.

Would that what you say were even close to being true - the world would be a much more agreeable and amusing place than it is!

How delightfully parochial...

O the irony...

[Magnificat]

But don't the lay clerks usually don cassocks and surplices to cover up their t-shirts and jeans?

Pulcinella

Yes, but the trainers always give them away!

VCC

[light_calibre_baritone]

Pulcinella

Yes, but the trainers always give them away!

VCC

My, St Alban has slipped. What would "St" Barry say?

[jean]

...if the lay clerks wear collar and tie,suits or sports jacket with flannels and polished shoes...

There were a couple of women lay clerks singing evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral last Saturday. I just thought you ought to know.

[ardcarp]

[terratogen]

There were a couple of women lay clerks singing evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral last Saturday. I just thought you ought to know.

But were they in collar and tie?