CE Chapel of New College, Oxford Feb 14th 2018

[DracoM]

Ash Wednesday
CE Chapel of New College, Oxford Feb 14th 2018


Order of Service:


Responses: Plainsong
Psalm 51: Miserere mei (Allegri)
First Lesson: Isaiah 1:10-18
Canticles: Walmisley in D minor
Second Lesson: Luke 15: 11-32
Litany (Tallis)
Anthem: Peccantem me quotidie (Palestrina)
Hymn: Lord Jesus, think on me (Southwell)


Organ Voluntary: An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653 (Bach)


Timothy Wakerell (Organist)
Robert Quinney (Director of Music)

[DracoM]

Reminder: tomorrow @ 3.30 p.m.

[subcontrabass]

Ash Wednesday
CE Chapel of New College, Oxford Feb 14th 2018


Order of Service:


Responses: Plainsong
Psalm 51: Miserere mei (Allegri)
First Lesson: Isaiah 1:10-18
Canticles: Walmisley in D minor
Second Lesson: Luke 15: 11-32
Litany (Tallis)
Anthem: Peccantem me quotidie (Palestrina)
Hymn: Lord Jesus, think on me (Southwell)


Organ Voluntary: An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653 (Bach)


Timothy Wakerell (Organist)
Robert Quinney (Director of Music)

The college music list seems to put the Litany at the beginning.

Whose version of the Allegri will we get?

[DracoM]

Concern about timings in a live broadcast, maybe? Preparing to ditch the hymn if necessary?

[greenilex]

Plenty of people weeping by Babylonian watercourses just now, I am afraid.

[Alison]

I preferred Johns.

[jean]

Whose version of the Allegri will we get?

It sounds like one of those composite versions designed to trace its development. With a double top C I don't think I've ever heard before!

[oddoneout]

Whose version of the Allegri will we get?

The choir's I think....

[ardcarp]

Passing swiftly over today's CE, here are a few comments about Allegri's Miserere, to which others more scholarly than I will no doubt add.

Allegri presumably wrote a bog-standard faux-bourdon setting of Ps 51 The practice at the Sistine Chapel was for the singers to embellish the music, and no doubt these abbellimenti became something of a (secret) tradition. (We all know the Mozart story.) The version which was used in my younger days was in English, arranged by Ivor Atkins and published by Novello. It was based partly I think on a copy which Charles Burney picked up in his travels. Whatever its provenance, this is the version which was made VERY famous by Kings College Cambridge in Willcocks' day, and the version to which choirs all over the land aspired. Then it became cool to do it in Latin, and George Guest produced an edition that was published by Chester. I don't think GG used any original sources, but merely Latinised the English version.

Since then there have been many (speculative) versions which try to re-create...or maybe guess at....some of the Sistine abbellimenti. One of my favourites is on a CD entitled 'Miserere' (how do they think up the names?) by Ensemble William Byrd. Fabulous singing and great fun.

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/gregorio_allegri/miserere__ensemble_william_byrd_/

I don't know what NCO were using today. It sounded a bit of a mish mash to me. Again, I stand to be corrected.

Edit: Some have suggested Tonus Peregrinus as the basis for the faux-bourdon, implying that it should be used for the plainsong bits.

[mopsus]

Then it became cool to do it in Latin, and George Guest produced an edition that was published by Chester. I don't think GG used any original sources, but merely Latinised the English version.

The Guest edition came out in a revised version a few years after it was first published. The first edition of it had all sorts of errors in the Latin. iniquas vias tuas is one that I recall.

[DracoM]

<< Passing swiftly over today's CE..............>>

Indeed and ahem.
Wasn't the version of the Allegri that made me want to pass over this CE................

[Alison]

At least it was live.

[Wolsey]

http://ancientgroove.co.uk/essays/AllegriBook.pdf

[DracoM]

At least it was live.

Some there might have wished it wasn't? Just an idle thought.............it's a heck of a service to navigate, so maybe some sympathy?

[jonfan]

Some there might have wished it wasn't? Just an idle thought.............it's a heck of a service to navigate, so maybe some sympathy?

Yes, loads of sympathy. Allegri a dangerous piece to do live and to keep your head if things go adrift. I enjoyed the service and there was sensitive singing in all departments and a beautiful, serene Bach Chorale Prelude finish. It’s good to travel away from Cambridge on Ash Wednesday sometimes. How about a Nine Lessons from Truro? It’s where it started after all.