CE Chapel of Clare College, Cambridge Wed, 6th Jan 2016

[DracoM]

CE Chapel of Clare College, Cambridge
A Service for the Feast of the Epiphany



Order of Service:



Introit: Here is the little door (Howells)
Bidding Prayer and Lord's Prayer
Hymn: O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (Was lebet)
Omnes de Saba (Lassus)
Reading: Isaiah 60: 1-7
Illuminare, Jerusalem (Judith Weir)
Reading: Matthew 2: 1-12
Videntes stellam (Poulenc)
Reading: Matthew 3:13-17
Tribus miraculis ornatum (Palestrina)
Reading: John 2: 1-12
Mater ora filium (Bax)
Reading: Journey of the Magi (T S Eliot)
Bethlehem Down (Warlock arr. Hill)
Epiphany Litany and Collect
Hymn: Hail to the Lord's Anointed! (Crüger)
Blessing



Organ Voluntary: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern BuxWV 223 (Buxtehude)



Anthony Daly (Organ Scholar)
Graham Ross (Director of Music)

[ardcarp]

Ooh the Bax! Just love that piece. Not too hard to sing the dots, but 'bringing it off' isn't that easy. I'm sure GR and his merry band will acquit themselves admirably. The list includes many of my faves, so I'm looking forward to it very much.

[Nevilevelis]

Bax's Mater ora filium live! Sop's wheeling out their high C's. Terrific piece!

[PeterboroughDiapason]

Why does the Warlock need arranging?

[Roger Judd]

The Warlock / Hill arrangement is an amalgam of the version for solo voice and piano, and that for 4-part choir.
RJ

[PeterboroughDiapason]

Thanks. I'll be interested to see if I find it an improvement.

[ardcarp]

It avoids the monotony of hearing all verses sung the same. Mind you, I just watched (again) that wonderful 1954 Kings/Boris Ord carol service. Musical fare was simpler and generally verse-repeating (e.g. A Virgin Most Pure), but how beautiful it was! Words and phrasing cherished. No manic tempi. Just a nod or a twitch from Boris. No flapping in the middle. Altogether there seemed a calm dignity about it, which has possibly been lost with more stuff crammed into the allotted time.

[Magnificat]

It avoids the monotony of hearing all verses sung the same. Mind you, I just watched (again) that wonderful 1954 Kings/Boris Ord carol service. Musical fare was simpler and generally verse-repeating (e.g. A Virgin Most Pure), but how beautiful it was! Words and phrasing cherished. No manic tempi. Just a nod or a twitch from Boris. No flapping in the middle. Altogether there seemed a calm dignity about it, which has possibly been lost with more stuff crammed into the allotted time.

ardcarp

I too have watched again a recording of the 1954 King's/Boris Ord Nine Lessons and Carols over Christmas.

How I agree with you about this. The singing and music was, as you say, simple and simply beautiful.

My favourite piece was the Italian carol Hail Blessed Virgin Mary - words by George Ratcliffe Woodward, tune arranged by Charles Wood - absolutely lovely.

I wish that St Albans had sung this instead of an excruciatingly loud and tuneless piece by John Tavener to go with the Annunciation lesson at their service this year!

VCC.

[Oldcrofter]

It really is most striking, isn't it - Boris Ord standing right beside and in amongst his young choristers, a nod to the small group taking the next verse of A Virgin Most Pure - and the chorus forte coming straight in without, as far as I could see, any gesture from him - no punching the air with a clenched fist, no arms waving aloft .

Was this the general style of choral conducting at the time (1940s - 1960s) ? Was it very much Ord's own style or were most DoMs trained to be restrained (at least in final performance if not in rehearsal) ?

[ardcarp]

Was this the general style of choral conducting at the time (1940s - 1960s) ?

I think it was the general practice. My two old ex-Kings friends (now long departed) spoke disparagingly of 'flapping about in the middle'. In my youth, Richard Greening at Lichfield stood next to the head chorister and just moved a finger..at times almost imperceptibly. I think moving out to conduct the anthem (just the anthem) was becoming usual elsewhere. In many places the organist just played and the choir looked after itself maybe with a nod or a flinch from a lay clark on either side. Willcocks apparently nearly always played the psalms and they were undirected, even on their two Psalms of David records.

One has to remember that being in church and attending 'divine service' was altogether more reverential than it is today. Ladies wore hats. Gentlemen removed them. Selling tickets for a concert was (in my experience) never done, though a collection was OK. Serving food or (heaven forbid) wine in church would have brought down a thunderbolt. I mention all this because I suspect that overt 'conducting' would have been regarded as unseemly during a service.

It would be interesting to hear from others who either know from their own experience or from talking to a previous generation how things were.

PS Mrs A and I were invited to sing in a (somewhat pre-emptive) Epiphany service last Sunday. It was a completely 'scratch' choir and the organist was also the director. He suggested we sing In the Bleak Midwinter (Darke) without anyone conducting, and versee 2 and 4 just happened by osmosis. It was actually rather lovely.

[DracoM]

Yes, in services, we looked across at tenor communicating one finger on the desk with alto with his finger on desk on our side.
On one never to be forgotten, DoM at the organ, both tenor cantoris( traffic jam }and alto decani (flu) who regularly conducted using finger and thumb on desks were invisible, we looked at each other across the divide with a wild surmise - Ps 23 Hylton Stewart - erm.... bit of a fright. Head chorister [then aged 12!!] calmly put a finger up and brought us in after entry chord.

[Oldcrofter]

Many thanks, Ardcarp & Draco, for your memories of how it was. I wasn't involved in singing until much later in life, and never in a church choir - the 'mysteries' of church and cathedral choir life, manners, rituals and vocabulary rather fascinate me !

[Roger Judd]

I was a chorister at Winchester Cathedral (1954-58), and our 'boss' - Alwyn Surplice - played everything that was accompanied, and a lay clerk on each side did the beating, just using a finger on the top of the music desk. Even broadcast evensongs were done like this, as for a good many years the Cathedral didn't have an assistant organist. You listened, you watched, and you 'felt' the music - not unlike an unconducted chamber ensemble. When we sang something unaccompanied, then Alwyn would stand at the west end of the boys' stall, and direct with minimal movement - certainly never, ever, standing in between the stalls.

When I was Master of the Music at St Michael's College, Tenbury (1973-85) much the same applied. I didn't have an assistant either, until towards the end of that time we had three organ scholars. I stood within the stalls to direct unaccompanied pieces, and an alto on the side opposite the organ beat with a finger when accompanied.

Incidentally, quite recently I was at evensong in St John's College Cambridge, and the choir sang the psalms without any visible direction, and the ensemble was superb. Mind you, they do have longer to rehearse than almost anywhere-else!
RJ

[DracoM]

Yes, that sense of - for purely intuitive reasons - a whole choir takes a breath simultaneously and launches into a piece without conductor is one of the great moments in musical ensembles.

So many egos, so many fears, so many chances for someone to screw it up and lead others astray, particularly if it is kids on the front line - but when it goes right, no matter how many or how few times it has been done before, it is still a 'Houston, we have lift-off' moment. Sense of quiet achievement. Gives a choir huge confidence in itself.

I truly do believe more DoMs could well have a service a week which they do NOT conduct.

[Rolmill]

When I was Master of the Music at St Michael's College, Tenbury (1973-85) much the same applied. I didn't have an assistant either, until towards the end of that time we had three organ scholars. I stood within the stalls to direct unaccompanied pieces, and an alto on the side opposite the organ beat with a finger when accompanied.

Roger, I was at St Michael's 1968-73 (not in the choir, sadly!) so just missed you, but recall seeing the same system under your predecessor, Lucian Nethsingha.