CE St Mary's Collegiate Church, Warwick Wed, 7th June 2017

[DracoM]

CE St Mary's Collegiate Church, Warwick


Order of Service:


Introit: My eyes for beauty pine (Howells)
Office Hymn: Come down, O Love divine (Down Ampney)
Responses: Radcliffe
Psalm 136 (Bielby)
First Lesson: Genesis 15
Canticles: Philip Moore in A
Second Lesson: Romans 4: 1-8
Anthem: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me (Elgar)
Final Hymn: Angel voices ever singing (Angel Voices)

Organ Voluntary: Choral varié sur le thème du 'Veni Creator', Op 4 (Duruflé)


Assistant Director of Music: Mark Swinton
Director of Music: Thomas Corns


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08slxbk

[ Please note this is a recording ]

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[ardcarp]

Good to hear from Warwick. Can anyone remember when they last broadcast? And does anyone know the musical set-up? I'd guess at some choral scholars plus a few more mature back-row voices.

On my system, the organ sounded quite 'forward' cf the choir.

[DracoM]

Yes, agree about the choir / organ perspective, esp in the canticles - did they forget to adjust the balance after the hymn?
Nice top line, plenty of maturity but little wobble. Musically alert.
And liked the Durufle vol too.
Thx Warwick.

[dcwarwick]

As it happens, we last did a broadcast from Warwick just a few weeks ago -- May 21st, Radio 4 Sunday Worship (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08qy1l4) but our last Radio 3 Choral Evensong was a while back. I think it might be March 25th 1998, under Mark Shepherd.

[dcwarwick]

Warwick has separate boys and girls choirs which sing together occasionally for special services. We had a selection of both for this: 12 girls, 8 boys. Backing them up were I think 9 gents (AATTTTBBB) plus 3 young men (ABB: recent retirees from our front row). That's from memory.

[ardcarp]

Good to hear from you dcw. Tell us more about the choir. Are young choristers (boys and girls) still signing up to sing?

[dcwarwick]

Yes - recruitment is always a challenge of course, as it always has been and probably always will, but we've been able to maintain both choirs well over recent years. Our boys' choir went through a bit of a dip with several older boys moving on a bit ago, so it's quite a young group now but already building up nicely. There are choral scholarships available for boys who attend the Warwick School, but we also have boys from various other local schools; and the gents here are all volunteers.

And just to keep us on our toes we're also right now interviewing and auditioning for a new director of music! Thomas Corns who conducted for this broadcast has now moved on to Sheffield.

[twmsioncati]

Possibly too mature a sound for my tastes, it sounded a bit much like ladies of a choral society at times.

I thought the organ came across very well, other than the Trompetta which sounded quite brash.

Durufle well managed, played VERY fast, but other than an unfortunate car crash in the scale near the end, a very convincing performance.

Well done all!

TSC

[ardcarp]

it sounded a bit much like ladies of a choral society at times.

O fie, fie and thrice fie! I thought the lads and lasses did extremely well. Great to hear a CE from a non-cathedral, non-Oxbridge college from time to time. Places like St Mary's Warwick do sterling work in keeping a strong choral tradition going....it's one of 'the places where they sing'.

[DracoM]

O fie, fie and thrice fie! I thought the lads and lasses did extremely well. Great to hear a CE from a non-cathedral, non-Oxbridge college from time to time. Places like St Mary's Warwick do sterling work in keeping a strong choral tradition going....it's one of 'the places where they sing'.

[twmsioncati]

Great to hear a CE from a non-cathedral, non-Oxbridge college from time to time. Places like St Mary's Warwick do sterling work in keeping a strong choral tradition going....it's one of 'the places where they sing'.

Absolutely agree, it's wonderful that the tradition is still there!

[dcwarwick]

Thanks -- and we'll do what we can to keep it here!

The point about 'mature sound' in the top line is probably fair (although I won't pass on the exact words used to our choristers!) -- our girls' choir runs up to age 18, always has since it was founded by Simon Lole back in '92, and that does give it a mature sound, and as I mentioned our boys are still a young set. I hope perhaps we can do another of these in a while, when our new director has had a chance to work with the boys a bit, and the sound then might be somewhat different.

[DracoM]

Q: genuine question and not a mischief-making one to choir-trainers:
Do you find that in a mixed treble line the young boys tend to imitate the sound of the girls who after all may be up to nearly twice their age and look / behave pretty 'mature' round the choir vestry?

Boys are great imitators, consciously or unconsciously, hence the 'singleness' of the boy-tone can get influenced?

[mw963]

Putting my head on the block, and again - like DracoM - stressing that this is not in any way meant mischievously:

In my (limited) experience of listening to cathedral choirs, it tends to be the "sound" of the girls that dominates when normally separated choirs sing together.

For me, most - not all - younger girls' choirs can be easily distinguished by the sound of the vowels. Sometimes that "give-away" characteristic is trained out of them. But if it's there, and you mix it with the boys' sound, it dominates.

I'll say no more, given the presence of the rapid response team that often blazes in on this forum when this sort of thing is discussed....

Didn't hear the broadcast but will try and listen tomorrow. I do remember the excellent one with Simon Lole back in 1992 or 1993, so it's good that things are still going so well by all accounts.