Choral Vespers from Westminster Cathedral 25.i.17

[mw963]

I've realised suddenly what so irks me about this sort of Catholic service, (and I agree it was very well sung).

I am greatly bothered by sudden spurious key changes, always have been. I love elegant and intelligent modulation, and loathe what I term gratuitous key-changes (think pop records going up a tone for no good musical reason).

Anglican Choral Evensong largely avoids this by interspersing the big musical chunks with some speech. The closest we get to a sudden change is between the initial responses and the psalms. Then there are the Lessons that divide (although Mag and Nunc are of course in the same key normally); Creed separates Nunc from responses, and there's normally an introduction - albeit short - to the Anthem.

So Vespers is ghastly for me, some beautiful musical achievement is immediately brought crashing down by some intoning prelate - and persuading them to leave even a midget's minim of a pause is nigh on impossible it seems - in a totally unrelated key.

So all that and a Homily and I'm hardly uplifted, however good the "production"

There, I feel better for that!

[Pulcinella]

I am greatly bothered by sudden spurious key changes, always have been. I love elegant and intelligent modulation, and loathe what I term gratuitous key-changes (think pop records going up a tone for no good musical reason).

Not just pop music is afflicted: some Rutter pieces do this, I think, as well as ghastly arrangements of 'worship songs'!

Key relationships and contrasts between pieces of music are important in planning concerts too, I feel.
Certainly a whole concert of pieces in B flat would have our friend Eine Alpensinfonie rushing for the exit (if he had gone to the concert in the first place!), but some juxtapositions of different keys are harder on the (my?) ear than others.
Having an organ launch into a loud final voluntary in a different key than that of the final hymn is also a particular horror moment for me.

[jean]

The 'spurious' key changes...the boring old homily...aren't those clues that it's a real service, not a concert?

[Pulcinella]

The 'spurious' key changes...the boring old homily...aren't those clues that it's a real service, not a concert?

Very true, jean, but a bit of judicious planning could possibly avoid some of the nastier jarring key changes, surely.

[mw963]

But sadly many priests don't realise that less is more, and assume that their contribution is indispensable, particularly the Catholics with their homilies. Few people are brave enough to tell them that sometimes a piece of music or a poetry reading (for example) can be far more effective.

Few priests I've met or worked with have the humility to see this.....

You can perfectly well have a "real service" without a sermon, although I would be the first to concede that a total absence of prayers would be a step too far.