George Guest's method

[Alison]

Possibly but probably not relevant ... wasn’t GG a believer? Sometimes the slower tempo gives other believers chance to think on the words and, yes, worship!!

[ardcarp]

Good Heavens. The very idea.......

[Miles Coverdale]

I'm not sure that sound was always there. This recording, which I think was made in 1972 or 73, doesn't sound like the choir did in later years particularly.

I have been informed that that recording was actually made in 1961, and was therefore made before the ‘St John’s sound’ had really begun to develop.

[Vox Humana]

I'm not taking sides on the slow/fast debate (each tune tends to have its own measure) but I would have thought it took more breath to sing a melodic line slowly.

Of course it does - if you are musical and singing with a sense of artistry. Few congregation members are over-concerned with such finesse.

[PeterboroughDiapason]

I have been informed that that recording was actually made in 1961, and was therefore made before the ‘St John’s sound’ had really begun to develop.

Recorded in March 1960.

[Keraulophone]

I have been informed that that recording was actually made in 1961, and was therefore made before the ‘St John’s sound’ had really begun to develop.

The Complete Argo Recordings boxed set of CDs contains a useful essay ‘George Guest - The Sound of St John’s’ by Geraint Lewis, tracing the history of music at the college and GG’s forty-year tenure there.

For those yet to purchase this treasure box, the booklet describes how, while listening to Boris Ord’s choir in King’s chapel, GG realised that choral sound-production must be related to a specific acoustic. The huge reverberant space of King’s chapel had become even more immediately reverberant in the early 1960s when changes were made to the floor and walls at the east end, leading David Willcocks to further refine the style of his choir. St John’s Victorian chapel is a much smaller space but with a high ceiling which allowed GG to encourage ‘a fuller-throated, uninhibited [vocal] production’ similar to what George Malcom was doing at Westminster Cathedral. Harley Usill at Argo began recording the choir in 1958, just two years after his first recording of King’s down the road at which time the survival of St John’s choir school had been in doubt (Trinity’s choir school had closed down fifty years earlier).

Recording both choirs rarely led to duplication of repertoire, and the record-buying public benefited from them sounding so different. ‘The cool perfection so often achieved by Willcocks was eschewed by Guest, who aimed instead for a more passionate and emotionally direct approach. These were contrasts not merely of performance practice, but also of spiritual and psychological dimensions, and Guest’s emphasis on clarity of diction was not only a question of a clearer acoustic, but of an attitude rooted in the primacy of text over music [as has been pointed out above]...[The forty-two CDs trace] the evolution of a distinctive tradition in which the continuity of sound and style seems to transfer seamlessly from one generation of boys and men to the next, creating that unmistakeable “Sound of St John’s” which soon became one of the most treasured in the international choral world.’

Andrew Nethsingha, current DoM and former Organ Student under GG, adds: ‘George’s ability to engender exquisite phrasing, musicianship and feeling among his choristers was extraordinary. He showed us the importance of choral singers communicating emotionally and expressing the inner meaning of the words. The spontaneity which could take hold in a performance was profoundly moving. It is a tribute to George that all three of his successors at St John’s have made it a top priority to seek to continue many aspects of his sound and style. George’s breadth of repertoire [of over 1500 works] was pioneering in its day and I am thrilled that this seminal collection of recordings is now available.’

Thus the ‘Sound of St John’s’ continues to evolve today, still under the benign influence of that passionate Welshman. I would venture to suggest that this choir is at present, as it was for many years under GG, the finest of its type anywhere.

[Dafydd y G.W.]

Picking up on the points of text, understanding and communication, and linking this to breadth of repertoire. One deficiency George Guest was conscious of was a lack of German repertoire (the choir did perform a few pieces in English translation). He explained, "There's a very simple reason for this: I don't know German."

[Keraulophone]

a lack of German repertoire

Yes, he must have been aware of this limitation early on as he included ‘Ye are now sorrowful’ from Brahms’s German Requiem as well as Bach’s ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’ on the very first recording by Argo in 1958. It must have been the custom at that time only to sing settings of German texts in English translation as it was the meaning of the words for the congregation rather than their sound that would have been of paramount importance to Guest. Unfortunately, this argument is weakened by the recollection of the occasions on which he insisted that the choir sing in Welsh! All the Austrian, German and French works included in the boxed set are either sung in English translation or have original Latin texts.

[DracoM]

Again, many thx to all for such illumination.

[Dafydd y G.W.]

Unfortunately, this argument is weakened by the recollection of the occasions on which he insisted that the choir sing in Welsh!

Ah, the zeal of a patriotic Welshman is a powerful thing! And it was usually only once a year (on S. David's day), and there usually were a few Welsh singers in the choir (possible slight bias in recruitment??!).

[Vox Humana]

The Complete Argo Recordings boxed set of CDs contains a useful essay ‘George Guest - The Sound of St John’s’ by Geraint Lewis, tracing the history of music at the college and GG’s forty-year tenure there. ...

Thanks for that illumination, Keraulophone.