CE Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban Wed, 21st June 2017

[DracoM]

CE Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban Wed, 21st June 2017
The Eve of the Feast of St Alban


Order of Service:


Introit: Suscepimus Deus (Alec Roth)
Responses: Radcliffe
Psalms 3, 11, 126 (Hopkins, Hurford, Garrett)
First Lesson: 1 Maccabees 2: 15-22
Office Hymn: True, merciful and brave the saint whose name we celebrate (Farley Castle)
Canticles: Howells in G
Second Lesson: John 12: 24-26
Anthem: Lo, God is here (Philip Moore)


Final Hymn: Ye that know the Lord is gracious (Hyfrydol)

Organ Voluntary: Incantation pour un jour saint (Langlais)


Nicholas Freestone: Organ Scholar
Tom Winpenny: Assistant Master of the Music and Director of the Abbey Girls’ Choir

[mopsus]

Can't fit those words to Farley Castle unless we've got part of the second line too! Presumably a hymn in honour of St Alban.

[BasilHarwood]

Can't fit those words to Farley Castle unless we've got part of the second line too! Presumably a hymn in honour of St Alban.

Knowledge!

[weston752]

Can't fit those words to Farley Castle unless we've got part of the second line too! Presumably a hymn in honour of St Alban.

True, merciful and brave the saint whose name
we celebrate on this his festal day;
on Britain's soil no martyr yet had died
when Alban at the feet of Romans lay.

The text is by Paul Wigmore; he died in Bath three years ago.

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[mopsus]

True, merciful and brave the saint whose name
we celebrate on this his festal day;
on Britain's soil no martyr yet had died
when Alban at the feet of Romans lay.

The text is by Paul Wigmore; he died in Bath three years ago.

I'll draw this to the attention of a family member whose name-day this is.

[DracoM]

This service's material was a daunting test of any choir, and the girls were pretty resilient, and kept leading from the front. Liked the Moore, and a stunning vol.
Inside St A was probably one of the coolest places in UK!!

[omega consort]

This service's material was a daunting test of any choir, and the girls were pretty resilient, and kept leading from the front. Liked the Moore, and a stunning vol.
Inside St A was probably one of the coolest places in UK!!

I too liked the Moore very much, and it was lovely to hear that Hurford chant. The voluntary was superb - do we know who played it (ie. organ scholar or assistant organist)?

[ardcarp]

I'd just like to go beyond 'resilient' and say I thought the girls and men sang with great polish and poise!

[Keraulophone]

Hear, hear that carp!

[Finzi4ever]

teratogen and mw963 may care to comment on 'suscepiMOOSE DeOOSE' - (just being deliberately provocative of course in relation to recent comments on St Mary's Warwick thread). I agree that vowel sound is intrusive and readily corrigible.
Should add I did enjoy this excellent broadcast.

[Dafydd y G.W.]

teratogen and mw963 may care to comment on 'suscepiMOOSE DeOOSE' [....] I agree that vowel sound is intrusive and readily corrigible.

Hmmm. Rather more like the [u] "more Romano" that the Liber Usualis commends than the vowel sound most English choirs produce when singing in Latin.

[mw963]

teratogen and mw963 may care to comment on 'suscepiMOOSE DeOOSE' - (just being deliberately provocative of course in relation to recent comments on St Mary's Warwick thread). I agree that vowel sound is intrusive and readily corrigible.
Should add I did enjoy this excellent broadcast.

I'll try and listen this afternoon....

[DracoM]

Is any of the following worthy of consideration?

The way any voice - singing or speaking - navigates from vowel to consonant affects impact on listeners. Producing and placing of such navigations in the vocalising kit in the body, the offered, heard and imitated example of models around, the size of the space into which that vocalisation is taking place - all these impact hugely and largely unconsciously.

The stressed 'OOOS' sounding of the Latin '-us' is surely an attempt to push into prominence what is in essence a not very big sounding combination of letters in ordinary speech / song. There are many 'OOOS' sounds in Latin, and if they are all thrown away as almost too commonplace to bother with, the music itself limps and wilts.

If you listen to many choirs - and I do mean many - who have not thought about how to vocalise Latin vowels - irrespective of whatever style / school of Latin pronunciation you / the DOM favours, the musical impact is diminished. Each member of the choir might be left to pronounce '-us' in a nondescript or un-agreed way, and the musical line just sort of smears away into a sort of disparate anonymity.

If a DOM asks for the big 'OOOS' sound, along with big A and other vowel sounds, the choir will have more impact and drama in their delivery, and thus more projection to listeners / congregation. And even more to the point, the music underlines the power of whatever sentiment the words are designed to impress on that listening congregation. If it's just a nice, comfortable but undifferentiated mutter / murmur / wash, than the import of the meaning of the words is lost. Which seems pretty counter-productive to me.

Of course, 'holy wash / murmur' might be exactly what the composers of choral music might be aiming at, and that too takes care in both the composing, and even more in the manner of agreed articulation by the voices. Maybe yoiu then suppress the big open Latin vowels?

[mw963]

Very enjoyable and well sung Evensong.

Of course we knew in advance which choir it was, and sadly I missed the Introit. But had I been listening blind it would have been the word "heathen" (at least I think it was that word) in the Psalms that would have first made me sit up and say "I suspect those are girls". After that there were various indications, particularly when the treble line was on its own, which would have confirmed my initial hunch.

I'm not saying this to annoy anyone, it's simply that I quite enjoy trying to guess, and I continue to be surprised by people who claim that there are no differences in the sound between boys and girls. And I would emphasise - again - that I thought it was extremely well-sung, and I'd go a long way to hear the same team sing (but am too far away from St Albans to be ever likely to do so).