New YouTube channel from the Ship of the Fens

[ardcarp]

I would just like to add that I have always had huge admiration for Arthur Wills the composer. He was certainly not one to wallow in an outdated sound-world (as some organist/composers do) and I too really enjoyed Tongues of Fire. I also remember, years ago, seeing Arthur direct the boys of Ely in Britten's Ceremony of Carols. It was the sort of sound BB might have enjoyed, very direct and full of enthusiasm.

[Quilisma]

Quite right, ardcarp! And here's just the thing for you: courtesy of the YouTube channel of the Archive of Recorded Church Music, Britten's Ceremony of Carols in a (live?) broadcast from Ely Cathedral in December 1956, during the all-too-brief but by all accounts very exciting tenure of Michael Howard as Director of Music. (Arthur Wills was already here as Assistant Organist. In fact, he arrived in 1949 along with Michael Howard's predecessor, Sidney Campbell.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwau3Y2xDoY Before coming to Ely in 1953, Michael Howard had spent time working with such revivalist pioneers as Henry Washington at Brompton Oratory, who was developing a sound and style of delivery more suitable for Renaissance polyphony than that more commonly employed in England at the time, with particular regard to maximising clarity of the notes and of the words in acoustically challenging spaces. (A broadly similar approach was being taken by George Malcolm at Westminster Cathedral.) Michael Howard also had particular admiration for John Whitworth, a distinguished pioneering countertenor soloist and Westminster Abbey Lay Vicar, who, coincidentally, had been born in Ely. (It's perhaps slightly interesting to note that the Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey at that time, William McKie, had been Acting Deputy Assistant Organist at Ely during a summer vacation while Organ Scholar at Worcester College, Oxford, back in the 1920s, and from this experience had learned the critical importance, given adverse acoustic conditions, of getting choirs to produce a sound that will carry and not simply sound pretty within a radius of just a few feet. The former McKie WAbbey chorister Tim Brown used to characterise this impactful type of vocal production as "both shrill and plummy", and that apparent oxymoron is very helpful indeed in the Ely context.) When Michael Howard took the job in Ely he brought with him the methods and philosophy of Henry Washington, no doubt some (at least indirect) advice from William McKie about the acoustic peculiarities of the building, and John Whitworth as a singing teacher for the choristers, and he linked up with the like-minded Arthur Wills, who was already in post and delighted to be part of the team effort. At the beginning of Michael Howard's tenure one of the choristers was a certain James Bowman, who cites his Ely experiences and Howard/Whitworth/Wills training as being very formative, and of course he later became a great favourite of Britten. There was talk of "the Ely sound", which some loved and others hated, but it certainly met the requirements of projecting through the building, while the sorts of soft-grained, veiled, flutey, cooing or warbly noises that some people seem to consider a benchmark of perfection are about as effective in that space as a chocolate fire guard. Arthur Wills kept that general sound world in mind when he inherited the Directorship of Music, and while things continuously metamorphose from year to year there's certainly at least a thread of that carrying through to the present day, although interestingly it's a lot less controversial than it was in the 1950s and many more choirs have adopted broadly similar approaches over the past few decades. (I daresay there are still a few who chunter at it, but that's up to them.) That's not to say that it has always been done brilliantly, but il faut cultiver le jardin. The 1974 remodelling of the organ, overseen by Arthur Wills, was in line with this: an in-your-face love-it-or-loathe-it tangy French-style response to big acoustical conundra and challenges which the 1908 Harrison and Harrison wasn't quite meeting. But to be fair it wasn't without its own problems and ungainly features, so when the organ had to be removed in 1999-2001 the opportunity was taken to keep all the best of the 1974 changes but to make it more cogent and versatile as an instrument. It's all about compromise, really.

By the way, Roger, I have taken the liberty of sending you a message on another medium, namely the Liber Facierum, or Prosopobiblion if you will...

[ardcarp]

Thanks for all that Q !

Sidney Campbell came to 'open' a new Harrison in the Midlands, and he also wrote an anthem for the choir of St Michael's, Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. I don't know if it was ever published as I can find no trace of it among his oeuvres. Alas I have no copy, but would love to track it down if anyone knows of its whereabouts.

[Vox Humana]

Sidney Campbell came to 'open' a new Harrison in the Midlands, and he also wrote an anthem for the choir of St Michael's, Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. I don't know if it was ever published as I can find no trace of it among his oeuvres. Alas I have no copy, but would love to track it down if anyone knows of its whereabouts.

Here you go, Ardcarp: http://www.musicroom.com/se/id_no/027688/details.html