Originally posted by Richard Barrett
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heaven forfend!-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEvXs11RaSg ...! heaven forfend! -
People are welcome to start them! My reason for starting this one was really to gauge whether people felt the lack of any regular slot in the schedule where listeners could *expect* to hear substantial/full-length choral works (this because even the 3-hour Essential Classics could only find time for 'excerpts' from the Mozart Requiem which had been the BaL choice). It seems to me that as the successor to Choir Works, The Choir neither is nor was it supposed to be, a programme for people who appreciate the choral repertoire.Originally posted by mopsus View PostIt isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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How hold on a moment GJ. The camptickles in F and D are splendid! Morning as well as EveningOriginally posted by Gabriel Jackson View Post
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With people like Dyson I think a lot depends on one's tolerance level for the English pastoral style and sentiment, but, more importantly, for structural weakness. I happen to love Dyson in F, but I could never call it great music and can appreciate that others find it mawkish. I think one has to concede that Canterbury Pilgrims is second tier stuff at best, but I can think of one composer and D.Mus, a man of very eclectic tastes, who would have unloaded a bucket of ire on me if I had dared to suggest that it wasn't good (as he once did when I ventured a similar opinion about a piece of Guilmant). It depends on your definition of 'good'.Comment
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It would be hard to argue, I think, that Stravinsky's "Perséphone", Honegger's "Jeanne d'Arc au bucher" or Bartók's "Cantata profana" (to take three fairly randomly-chosen examples of neglected works from around the same time as "The Canterbury pilgrims") are not more deserving of being heard than the Dyson. Why are they performed so much less frequently than, say, "Belshazzar's feast", I wonder? Is it solely because the Walton is in English, and is English?Originally posted by Vox Humana View PostComment
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I don't think one has to concede anything of the sort. I remember being at a performance of it at one of the Three Choirs cathedrals. At the interval a friend of mine said 'It's like Elgar after a few drinks, isn't it.' I agreed, adding that I'd much rather than listen to this than Elgar. Obviously this is heresy in Three Choirs country, and a woman a few seats away looked at me as if I'd just trampled on her mother's grave.Originally posted by Vox Humana View PostMy boxes are positively disintegrating under the sheer weight of ticks. Ed ReardonComment
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'Fraid Walton and Elgar would be the first things to put me off taking part in any choral event or attending a concert of same.
Woops!
There - at last, it's out!!Comment
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There was a big imperative, I believe, to compose pieces which, in the heyday choral societies, they would (a) be able to tackle and (b) get their teeth into. They loved...and still do love...their Handel and Mendelssohn works because they are well within their comfort zone. Maybe the Karl Jenkinses of this world see the gap in the market and fill it. It is unfortunately true that from the early 20th century onwards works just became more difficult. Carmina Burana, love it or hate it, is very approachable, likewise VW's Hodie (much less often done). Walton's Belshazzars Feast is do-able, likewise Britten's War Requiem, but the size of orchestra (and you don't want your hard-rehearsed programme mucked up by a group of naff players) becomes prohibitive. Tippett's A Child of Our Time is basically too difficult (apart from the Five Spirituals) and sadly has less audience appeal. I know I've wandered off the topic of secular music, but I wonder if there are any suggestions for a big choral-society type work, written since, say 1950, that would be do-able, enjoyable, and not too expensive to put on? If not, why cannot composers write something in whatever idiom they like, and without compromising their integrity, but with these parameters in mind?Comment
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Just back from choir (well, the pub afterwards, actually).
Mostly Verdi Requiem, for a performance on 23 April, but a sneak preview (working on one of them) of Moeran's Songs of Springtime, some of which we are doing next term.
Quite a gear change needed in our singing!Comment
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Neither composer does very much for me either, by and large.Originally posted by DracoM View PostComment
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Walton's The Twelve? Fantastic piece. Belshazzar's Feast? Amazing. Elgar Gerontius? Incredible. Many Elgar choral songs, as on....
...are wonderfully written for voices, There is Sweet Music (written in two keys simultaneously) being an especial favourite. (I agree some of his 'lesser' oratorios, e.g. The Kingdom, The Music Makers are not everyone's cup of tea. Care to comment, Pabs?)
Has Holst's Hymn of Jesus been mentioned yet? A masterpiece...though his Choral Fantasia (a Three Choirs commission) probably isn't.Comment
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I do NOT deny the Walton and Elgar pieces have brought many to love them, love singing, been moved by them, find solace and exhilaration in them. It's just me.......I just find them......unsympatico. Just not my thing. Sorry.Comment
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This is really just degenerating into a parade of tastes, isn't it? That's the trouble with opinions about quality: they nearly always do.Comment
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Yes it is and I suppose I started it by commenting on George Dyson.Originally posted by Vox Humana View PostComment
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Sorry if I have trivialised it. Very far from my intention. what I posted was the merest footnote.Comment
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