CE Ely Cathedral Wed, 9th November 2016

[DracoM]

Was it just me?
Much of that service seemed pretty slow, esp the Howells.
Nerveless soloists need to be congratulated.

[Olddib]

The service was sung beneath the Octagon, not in the Quire, a, shall we say, 'spacious' acoustic...

[ardcarp]

Brilliant that we should have the word TRUMP in the psalms,

Indeed Ps47 couldn't have been better timed! There must have been near hysterics in the choir.
Enjoyed the service, and am glad the mix of the choir was announced at the start. The kids sounded like kids (i.e. mot manicured) which I liked. The final voluntary was obviously chosen because of its solemnity. It is, maybe, untypical of AW's organ compositions, many of which are quite 'French' and fiery. Really liked the canticles and wish they were done more elsewhere.

[Magnificat]

THE SPIRITUAL RAILWAY

The Line to heaven by Christ was made
With heavenly truth the Rails are laid,
From Earth to Heaven the Line extends,
To Life Eternal where it ends.

Repentance is the Station then
Where Passengers are taken in,
No Fee for them is there to pay,
For Jesus is himself the way.

God's Word is the first Engineer
It points the way to Heaven so clear,
Through tunnels dark and dreary here
It does the way to Glory steer.

God's Love the Fire, his Truth the Steam,
Which drives the Engine and the Train,
All you who would to Glory ride,
Must come to Christ, in him abide

In First, and Second, and Third Class,
Repentance, Faith and Holiness,
You must the way to Glory gain
Or you th Christ will mot remain.

Come then poor Sinners, now's the time
At any Station on the Line,
If you'll repent and turn from sin
The Train will stop and take you in.
.

I would just add:

Their flesh in hope shall rest
and for a season slumber
till Trump from east to west
shall wake the dead in number.

VCC

[Quilisma]

Brilliant that we should have the word TRUMP in the psalms, and that the P should be given such explosive articulation. One wonders whether the latter was officially sanctioned (perhaps even encouraged) or just a spur of the moment unauthorised "comment".

(Apologies Qu, hadn't read your final comment when I wrote mine).

A hint: that verse is usually neither full nor unison. Following discussion, the brief on this particular occasion was "full, unison and jubilant but not silly" (paraphrase). Within the context of the Octagon (where only extreme projection can mitigate inaudibility) we followed that instruction, although jubilation wouldn't necessarily have been our unanimous natural response...

[Quilisma]

'O pray for the peace of America'...

And of the world...

[Finzi4ever]

And of the world...

too true, but it doesn't scan...

[Quilisma]

The service was sung beneath the Octagon, not in the Quire, a, shall we say, 'spacious' acoustic...

Indeed, albeit the site of the Quire until the late eighteenth century. All sound gets trapped in the vertical plane unless you preemptively and perhaps counterintuitively "put it out there". Audibility of the organ in that position is also an issue. This at least partly explains the pacing, but there's no harm in using a vast canvas occasionally...

[Finzi4ever]

Indeed, albeit the site of the Quire until the late eighteenth century. All sound gets trapped in the vertical plane unless you preemptively and perhaps counterintuitively "put it out there". Audibility of the organ in that position is also an issue. This at least partly explains the pacing, but there's no harm in using a vast canvas occasionally...

especially as the current quire is resonantly pretty dead. In my day we always broadcast from the Octagon, if not in the wonderful acoustic of the Lady Chapel.

[Quilisma]

especially as the current quire is resonantly pretty dead. In my day we always broadcast from the Octagon, if not in the wonderful acoustic of the Lady Chapel.

Yes, I think unless this is still the case. The one exception was the last broadcast before this one, Easter Sunday 2015, when it had to be in the quire because there was Orchestral Festal Eucharist in the Octagon that morning: there just wouldn't have been enough time to set up the microphones and equipment in the short gap between the end of that service and the sound-check/rehearsal for the broadcast Choral Evensong, not much more than an hour. That was a service that really should have been in the Octagon, because it was the first broadcast with the boys and girls and men and it was very cramped indeed in the quire with that number of singers. The men had to be in the canons' stalls on that occasion, which was hardly ideal.

Incidentally, it turns out that Ely has broadcast the Wills Verse Service twice before, in 1977 and in 2001, but it then slipped out of the repertoire for some reason until Easter Sunday this year, and again as a reminder this Monday. So this may in fact have been only its third outing since 2001. I hope we don't have to wait another fifteen years until it comes out again! The Nunc in particular is absolutely classic Wills. He seemed to be enjoying it in the front row of the congregation...

[ardcarp]

It's quite interesting how the 'quires' of various cathedrals differ. (I've sung in Ely with a visiting choir in the past, and it's not very kind acoustically.) Exeter is OK though Dec and Can are rather widely spaced. Lichfield feels quite 'dead', though heard from the nave, the choir sounds good. Lincoln is just big, with the organ(-ist) miles away. The gem must be Truro, surely? Any advance on Truro?

[teamsaint]

It's quite interesting how the 'quires' of various cathedrals differ. (I've sung in Ely with a visiting choir in the past, and it's not very kind acoustically.) Exeter is OK though Dec and Can are rather widely spaced. Lichfield feels quite 'dead', though heard from the nave, the choir sounds good. Lincoln is just big, with the organ(-ist) miles away. The gem must be Truro, surely? Any advance on Truro?

sorry if this is veering off track a bit, which it is, but out of curiosity, has anybody sung in Brussels Cathedral?

if so, any thoughts?

I heard a modest sized University orchestra play there, and the sound and reverb was quite extraordinary.. I'd imagine that the building must offer some great possibilities, and fearsome challenges.

[Quilisma]

Was it just me?
Much of that service seemed pretty slow, esp the Howells.
Nerveless soloists need to be congratulated.

You're not wrong; but perhaps over the radio one doesn't get the full impression of a very large space which, somewhat notoriously, demands to be fed with sound. Tempi which would probably be ideal elsewhere (and maybe in the sound as broadcast too) can sometimes just not feel right in there, particularly as clarity is always a challenge, and indeed audibility. It's certainly not the only building with its own knotty acoustical considerations, and it's interesting that the musicians in such places tend to adopt broadly similar approaches towards overcoming them, which make a lot of sense on location but aren't always fully understood when viewed out of that context. Of course, one could argue that much of the music in this service is meditative and reflective (as befits the season) and does not suffer from being performed at a relatively slow speed providing that direction and "life" are maintained. It could be one of those instances where it "worked" better in the building than over the radio.

[Finzi4ever]

It's quite interesting how the 'quires' of various cathedrals differ. (I've sung in Ely with a visiting choir in the past, and it's not very kind acoustically.) Exeter is OK though Dec and Can are rather widely spaced. Lichfield feels quite 'dead', though heard from the nave, the choir sounds good. Lincoln is just big, with the organ(-ist) miles away. The gem must be Truro, surely? Any advance on Truro?

While not tech. a cathedral, Tewkesbury must come pretty close to having the ideal resonance, as well as being simply stunning.

[ardcarp]