Choral Vespers Wed, Oct 4th 2017

[DracoM]

Not at all: it just seemed a tad weird when they go to the trouble of setting up / hiring in the technical in Catalonia, but import a Brit team to conduct it all, much of it in English, when at least for me, one of the excitements could be - as it is most weeks in CE - to hear the HOME team in action. Esp if that home team has a pretty decent track record.

Mine not to reason why, apparently.

[jean]

Don't you think the 'Brit team' were probably there anyway, rather than making a special journey for the benefit of Choral Evensong?

[jean]

...the inadequacy of The Liverpool Way...

You weren't thinking of the Liverpool Pathway, were you? About which doubts have been expressed...

[DracoM]

Don't you think the 'Brit team' were probably there anyway, rather than making a special journey for the benefit of Choral Evensong?

Aha, so it might have been a PR opportunity landed by a canny UK agent for his charges? Hadn't thought of that. Hmm.
Wonder if they'll give a visiting choir from Australia doing a UK tour the Ash Wednesday Service from St John's Cambridge next year? Any chance?
Of course not.

[french frank]

Don't you think the 'Brit team' were probably there anyway, rather than making a special journey for the benefit of Choral Evensong?

Exactly my thought. Their presence was surely for such of the Montserrat congregation as cared to attend (make of it what they will), not for the Radio 3 audience back at home.

Nay, I haven't heard of The Pathway!

[french frank]

Aha, so it might have been a PR opportunity landed by a canny UK agent for his charges? Hadn't thought of that. Hmm.
Wonder if they'll give a visiting choir from Australia doing a UK tour the Ash Wednesday Service from St John's Cambridge next year? Any chance?
Of course not.

If you're going to stipulate St John's and Ash Wedneday, probably not. That would be a coincidence. But a different foundation on a different day? Why not?

[jean]

Q: if Choral Vespers was being scheduled by the BBC in the CE slot from Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, and the choir singing was Boston Camerata, and prayers were read / homily given by a Canon of, say, St Thomas Fifth Avenue in NYC, I wonder how the Liverpool parishioners / regulars might feel about what such a broadcast said about their cathedral and its resources, musical and clerical?

Visiting choirs quite often sing there. I don't know why anyone would object to their being broadcast.

Look at it another way: if you are a choir not fortunate enough to have a beautiful building of your own, why shouldn't you have the chance to broadcast from a cathedral you happened to be passing through?

I know nothing about the Pilgrim Consort except that the clue may be in the name - they've done this sort of thing before, it seems.

(You may think I am rather defensive about this since my own appearances on Choral Evensong were (both) from a building I did not sing in regularly.)

[Vox Humana]

Given that Montserrat is a highly commercialised tourist-magnet (the Google Earth car was clearly there on a slow day), I can't get worked up about visiting choirs singing in the abbey. The views are breath-taking, but the rest... meh.

[jean]

You're not required to get worked up about anything - just stop complaining and listen, whoever's singing.

[DracoM]

Hey, jean, that's a bit uncalled for......................
Chacun a son gout and all that?

[jean]

I know nothing about the Pilgrim Consort except that the clue may be in the name...

I was right about that:

We’ve broadcast a service of Choral Vespers from Montserrat Abbey in Spain with the Pilgrim Consort, a group of young singers who first sang together on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. They also sang an Easter Vespers in the Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls in Rome.

[french frank]

Some people liked it, some people didn't. I'm not sure the reasons stand up, but they are explanations which is fair enough. Otherwise, I suppose they picked this archive recording because Oct 4 happened to coincide with a CE Wednesday, as in 2006.

[mw963]

I rarely venture onto the Choir Thread on my own, but I would like clarification of what you mean by " 'normal' cathedral relays" and "conventional cathedral evensong", mw963. Are you suggesting that this broadcast of Choral Vespers was somehow "abnormal" and/or "unconventional" - and if so, in what way(s)?

I must say I'm at a loss to know how to answer you FHG, as I'm really not sure how it could be any clearer.

However, my original "observation" is here

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?16290-So-few-Cathedral-broadcasts-this-winter

and I'm not sure there's anything I can add to it to enlighten you, other than to say that I'm the first to admit that a "conventional cathedral evensong" is my favourite service, and I make no apology for being easily pleased by tried and tested/well worn fare.

It follows that exotic excursions and oddly-selected repeats in place of a live cathedral relay tend not to please me greatly, and seem to occur more frequently than in my early days of listening to broadcast CE, ie in the late seventies and eighties.

But it's all a matter of taste, and the off button is a useful ally.

I'm sure you will dismiss my views as Luddite, and I'm happy for you to do so. I'm comfortable where I am, and have about 600 "selected" digital recordings of CE from the past, for use if all else fails.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I must say I'm at a loss to know how to answer you FHG, as I'm really not sure how it could be any clearer.
However, my original "observation" is here

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?16290-So-few-Cathedral-broadcasts-this-winter

and I'm not sure there's anything I can add to it to enlighten you, other than to say that I'm the first to admit that a "conventional cathedral evensong" is my favourite service, and I make no apology for being easily pleased by tried and tested/well worn fare.
I'm sure you will dismiss my views as Luddite, and I'm happy for you to do so.

Not at all - I had read your post back in January, but had forgotten it (my apologies) and had thought that you were referring to " 'conventional' cathedrals" rather than " 'conventional' broadcasts of Evensong" - which explains my earlier confusion. My thanks for the clarification.


(Given my stance on CDs and Streaming/Downloads expressed on another Thread, I am the last person to call anyone else a "Luddite". Indeed, I did for a moment consider changing my nom-de-web to "King Ludd". )

[mw963]

Thanks FHG. I hope that my response didn't come across as over-prickly, but experience on this forum has taught me that sometimes one's responses have to be prepared with "care". On this occasion it seems I was perhaps worrying unnecessarily.

On the subject of Luddism, elsewhere I am having to defend my refusal to join Facebook, which (it has been suggested) should house a new discussion group on a technical subject. It isn't always easy sticking to one's principles!