Choral Evening Prayer Wed, 10th August 2016

[DracoM]

Choral Evening Prayer

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral
Sung by the Royal School of Church Music Millennium Youth Choir


Order of Service:


Introit: Sing joyfully (Byrd)
Responses: Andrew Reid
Office Hymn: O glorious King of martyr hosts (Plainsong)
Psalm 116 (Rogers)
Canticle: Worthy are you, our Lord and God (Gelineau)
Reading: 1 Peter 4
Motet: Geistliches Lied (Brahms)
Magnificat: St Paul's Service (Howells)
Final Hymn: Give me the wings of faith (San Rocco)
Motet: Totus Tuus (Gorecki)


Organ Voluntary: Fantaisie-Improvisation sur L'Ave Maris Stella (Tournemire)


Organist: Daniel Cook
Director of Music: Adrian Lucas

[Vox Humana]

The Gorecki has to be the most gut-slittingly, terminally boring piece I have ever had the leg-chewing inconvenience of having to sit through. Not that I am opinionated or anything, you understand - but honestly: is this what passes today for musical invention? Looking forward the Byrd, Howells, Brahms and Tournemire though.

[edashtav]

Can Slower Tempi Decrease Boredom?

The Gorecki has to be the most gut-slittingly, terminally boring piece I have ever had the leg-chewing inconvenience of having to sit through. Not that I am opinionated or anything, you understand - but honestly: is this what passes today for musical invention? Looking forward the Byrd, Howells, Brahms and Tournemire though.

.

I don’t want to go overboard in defence of Gorecki’s Totus Tuus as I don’t regard it as one of the composer’s finer works. I think that we must accept that minimalist works that rely so heavily on repetition, that have little development, and that proceed at a pace a snail would describe as dilatory do split listeners into two camps, one containing the terminally bored such as Vox Humana. Others hear Totus Tuus more as a prayerful cantus firmus, a meditative background that encourages us to concentrate our thoughts on the BVM. Pacing is a problem and I fear that will be shown in the forthcoming Liverpool performance. Gorecki asks for a duration of 10 to 12 minutes. That marking indicates that he wants the piece to be mighty slow. Most performances that I’ve heard last 7 to 9 minutes. In practice, I find that faster speeds increase boredom and make the piece sound trivial. There are further issues with Gorecki's expression markings that are neither clear nor consistent. However, an organic sense of line and natural dynamics are important and their absence blunt the music's impact.

The same issue occurs with some of the religious music of Tchaikovsky that, again, tends to receive a bad press. I love conducting my Choir in Tchaikovsky’s Cherubic Hymn no 1 (Hymn to the Trinity). Some Western European choirs despatch it in under three minutes! Their average tends to be around 5 minutes. Yet, if you listen to the St Petersburg Chamber Choir under Nikolai Korniev on Youtube, you’ll find that Russian Choir takes 8 minutes and 15 seconds. They are rapt and expressive and use rubato to dramatic effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNM0REpKCk8

To my mind their performance is excellent and whilst neither my Choir nor its conductor have the technical excellence to risk such a slow speed, I always keep the St Petersburg Choir in mind as my ultimate goal.

[DracoM]

Maybe they chose it [a] because of the numbers in the Millennium choir and thus the well of sound they could plumb, and [2] the HUGE acoustic in L'pool Met?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

- but honestly: is this what passes today for musical invention?

"Today"? It's nearly thirty years old.

[jean]

...the HUGE acoustic in L'pool Met...

How the Byrd is going to sound there is what I want to know.

[jean]

Choral Evening Prayer

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral
Sung by the Royal School of Church Music Millennium Youth Choir.

Does anyone know if they're doing anythig else around Liverpool in the next few days? I can't find any notices of anything.

The course starts today, so they should have something ready to perform before next Wednesday!

[DracoM]

http://www.rscm.com/courses/international-summer-school/

No details I can find ref repertoire.
Also, please note: Liverpool, Monday 8 – Sunday 14 August 2016

[jean]

I found that, but it only tells you how to apply for the course!

[Don Basilio]

Given the date (10 August) and the office hymn for martyrs, they must be celebrating St Laurence.

Followed no doubt by a summer BBQ appropriately.

[Vox Humana]

In practice, I find that faster speeds increase boredom and make the piece sound trivial.

That can be true. I once read an anecdote about Bernard Rose saying, in effect, that if you are doing a piece of mediocre music it will seem to have more stature if you perform it slowly. I have a feeling that this had something to do with Stanford in C, but I expect I'm misremembering that.

"Today"? It's nearly thirty years old.

Fair cop - but come next Wednesday it will be being performed "today".

Apologies if my post seemed extreme. I should have added a winking smiley. I'm not by any means immune to atmosphere, but I'm afraid I have never been able to regard endless repetition of a musical "cell" as a substitute for musical invention. I don't do conceptual art either. My loss maybe, but I'm comfortable with it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Fair cop - but come next Wednesday it will be being performed "today".

[edashtav]

Maybe they chose it [a] because of the numbers in the Millennium choir and thus the well of sound they could plumb, and [2] the HUGE acoustic in L'pool Met?

Excellent points, DracoM

[edashtav]

How the Byrd is going to sound there is what I want to know.

Spot on, Jean!
But... it may sound alright on R.3.

[jean]

I'll try both.