BBC4 Tues, 17th 9 p.m. Development of Evensong

[jean]

When I sang in a Catholic church, we were hidden away in an organ gallery at the west end (though we never sang West Gallery music) and we did not have to wear anything (in particular). The Oratory choir are similarly hidden, but they wear grey robes with a short red cape over. No headwear for the women, though it's so traditional there you still occasionally see a woman in the congregation wearing a mantilla.

Now, I sing in a choir in a church that's opposed to women priests. We do wear cassocks and surplices. There are no women servers, but there are women acolytes including a thurifer, and they all wear cassocks and cottas.

[Miles Coverdale]

No, I don't understand misogyny either.

Further research indicates there's something going on here I suspected but don't fully understand:

When I went to Mass few Sundays ago at a liberal parish, I was shocked to see two grown women (40's-50's) serving at Mass and they wearing a Cassock and a Surplice???? Aren't only men supposed to wear this???? It was very troubling to say the least...don't even get me started about women not belonging on the Altar whatsoever, that is another argument for another thread...but dang it, if they are going to be up there, they should only wear that white, aesthetically unpleasing, bath robe looking thing....THEY SHOULD NEVER WEAR CASSOCK AND A SURPLICE. Does this happen anywhere else, or am I the only lucky one that gets to experience it (Satire intended)

Among the replies:

If they can wear an alb, then they can wear cassock and cotta or surplice. The alb is exactly what the priest wears under vestments for eucharistic services, so I would think you would prefer women in cassock and surplice, as that is not the same as what a priest wears.

In Anglican churches, before the deluge, women in the choir (when they became permitted to sing in choirs), would wear academic gowns with an Oxford style soft cap. You still see this in some third-world churches. Now, women and men all wear cassock and surplice.

(Several of the respondents think it's a surplus the women are or aren't wearing, which opens up new avenues of research...)

[subcontrabass]

Alb, surplice, and cotta are historically all variants of the same garment.

[Dafydd y G.W.]

Alb, surplice, and cotta are historically all variants of the same garment.

Indeed, and technically a cotta is just a form of the surpliice.

A rochet is another variant. Now worn only by bishops, save for the winged rochet, which is the correct designation of the garment that usually gets called an "organist's surplice" (not many people know that ...).

[Dafydd y G.W.]

No, I don't understand misogyny either.

Aren't you conflating (arguable) sexism, or discrimination against girls/women, with misogyny?

[Miles Coverdale]

Aren't you conflating (arguable) sexism, or discrimination against girls/women, with misogyny?

Perhaps, but in my experience of matters ecclesiastical, the distinction is more often than not rather blurred.

[french frank]

Perhaps, but in my experience of matters ecclesiastical, the distinction is more often than not rather blurred.

Sexism, discrimination the result, misogyny the (arguable) cause? Goes back a very long time within the church.

[jean]

Alb, surplice, and cotta are historically all variants of the same garment.

I think that's what my second quote is trying to say to my first, who so objects to women in surplices but doesn't mind them in albs, which he refers to as that white, aesthetically unpleasing, bath robe looking thing.

Ironically (the other points out) in present use, while they're all arguably male attire, the alb is more priestly than the other two, so surely more objectionable on a woman?

(Off to watch the programme now.)

[DracoM]

Interesting?
Or...................?

And is it now de rigeur to have Roderick Williams on every show, radio or Tv, that involves singing in almost any form?

[ardcarp]

He's a nice bloke though. Thought the programmme...which was for Everyman, not musos....was good. One just has to get over the BBC thing of the presenter trying his/her hand at everything such as pumping the organ, singing Merbecke, etc. New to me were the bellicose English words to Tallis's Gaude Gloriosa supplied by Catherine Parr (as discovered by David Skinner). Either that or I'd forgotten the fact...it may have formed part of one of his Alamire concerts.

[jean]

I thought it was really very good, given that it was only an hour long.

I'd have traded Lucy's singing for some more informatuion about what was actually in that pile of books that were all distilled into the Prayer Book, though - we could have been told a bit about the monastic offices and how it was Vespers and Compline that coalesced into Evensong.

I did wonder what Josquin's Praeter rerum seriem was doing there, though, I think around the death of Edward VI. Surely he wasn't part of the repertoire?

And Cranmer's lawn sleeves! To die for!

[oddoneout]

Interesting?
Or...................?

And is it now de rigeur to have Roderick Williams on every show, radio or Tv, that involves singing in almost any form?

Well if it was his setting of the Lord's Prayer it wasn't a totally unreasonable choice to illustrate the point about the music in contemporary choral evensong?

[Miles Coverdale]

He's a nice bloke though. Thought the programmme...which was for Everyman, not musos....was good. One just has to get over the BBC thing of the presenter trying his/her hand at everything such as pumping the organ, singing Merbecke, etc. New to me were the bellicose English words to Tallis's Gaude Gloriosa supplied by Catherine Parr (as discovered by David Skinner). Either that or I'd forgotten the fact...it may have formed part of one of his Alamire concerts.

The Parr text was discovered by David Skinner in 2015, I think. There are very interesting articles about that, new dating information about O sacrum convivium, and a number of other Tallis-related matters in the May 2016 issue of the journal Early Music.

[Vox Humana]

I'd have traded Lucy's singing for some more informatuion about what was actually in that pile of books that were all distilled into the Prayer Book, though - we could have been told a bit about the monastic offices and how it was Vespers and Compline that coalesced into Evensong.

Of the pile of books Diarmaid MacCulloch had on the table, the bottom one of the four didn't have a title on the spine, but I'm guessing that it was a missal. Then came an antiphonal and gradual and the little book on top was one volume of a breviary. I strongly suspect that none of these was a sixteenth-century original, but all were nineteenth-century facsimiles or editions. Prayer Book Matins and Evensong were distilled from the breviary, the Communion was from the missal and the occasional offices (e.g. marriage) from the manual. The breviary contained just the texts. The missal and manual were also primarily text books, although being books for the priest they contained the notation for the bits that he had to sing - in the case of the missal the intonations for the Gloria and Creed, the prefaces and a few other things. The antiphonal and gradual were chant books containing the bits from the breviary and missal respectively that the choir had to sing.

On the whole I thought the programme was decent and the choirs were excellent. I had a few issues with Dr Worlsey's pen-picture of music under Henry VIII (even without being pedantic about the fact that, more than once, she referred to a Matins respond setting as "Evensong music"). It was said (and I've made a similar mistake here before about votive antiphons) that polyphony was basically a private affair. In fact, it was all perfectly available to the public so long as the churches were unlocked. The casual viewer might also have been led (unintentionally, I hope) to assume that polyphony in Edward's Chapel Royal was sung by men only. I was slightly surprised that no one pointed out the pretty obvious fact that Merbecke's book was really just a new plainsong repertoire for the BCP - and if Lucy was suggesting that this was intended to be congregational music I don't buy it.

[Vox Humana]

The Parr text was discovered by David Skinner in 2015, I think. There are very interesting articles about that, new dating information about O sacrum convivium, and a number of other Tallis-related matters in the May 2016 issue of the journal Early Music.

Magnus Williamson's article on O sacrum is freely available on academia.edu: http://www.academia.edu/27646630/Que...a_Latin_Litany. Skinner and Alamire have recently released a Tallis CD containing the Parr piece.