CE Durham Cathedral Consort of Singers Wed, 28th Feb 2018

[DracoM]

CE Durham Cathedral Consort of Singers **
Durham Cathedral Chapter House

Order of Service:


Introit: Super flumina Babylonis (Palestrina)
Responses: Shephard
First Lesson: Job 1:1-22
Canticles: Norwich Canticles (John McCabe)
Second Lesson Luke 21:34 – 22: 6
Anthem: Ne irascaris Domine (Byrd)
Hymn: Jesu, grant me this, I pray (Song 13)


Organ Voluntary: Voluntary for my Lady Nevell (Byrd)



Daniel Cook (Organist)
Francesca Massey (Director)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09sqz7k

** This is a recording

[Peanut]

https://www.durhamcathedral.co.uk/worshipandmusic/consort-of-singers

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[jonfan]

In binaural sound as well. Sounding fantastic and spacious. Brilliant, let’s have binaural every week?!

[DracoM]

Well, don't hold your breath because next week's is an 'archived' service from Chichester.

[BasilHarwood]

Well, don't hold your breath because next week's is an 'archived' service from Chichester.

You weren't bothered when I mentioned that Windsor wasn't live, I seem to remember that was an archive recording........

[ardcarp]

To the music. Just listened to Ne Irascaris through the cans. Great sound. The sopranos' slightly hard tone suited the music well, I thought, though a somewhat brisk tempo robbed this yearning piece of some of its...yearning. Also a few snatched phrase ends. I note they didn't do the strange 'ficta' note on desolata...which I always think most unlikely anyway.

[jonfan]

Beautifully sung contemplative Evensong as befits the season. The McCabe was new to me and I greatly enjoyed it. He takes great care to illustrate the text. Well sung throughout I thought with some challenging writing. With the clear sound in a responsive acoustic there was nowhere to hide; but they didn’t need to.

[DracoM]

Yes, totally agree about the pace of Ne Irascaris. It is a sublimely emotive piece and the singing was ...well, OK< but...well,,,,,just a teeny tad 'businesslike'!
Not saying they did not sing it well, but just that I'd have preferred us to have more space, make the inner desperation more prominent: 'Sion...Jerusalem...' moments pushed through.

[DracoM]

Rpt today @ 3 p.m.

[DracoM]

listened to the Byrd again.
Notes all there, mic / acoustic balance good - this time heard via headphones.
But it was a scramble, as if against the clock.

I kept asking myself whether they truly understood what they were singing: this is an impassioned, desperate cry from a faith embattled, pursued, and feeling hunted, abandoned not so much by the rest of Anglican England, as by God.
'Sion deserta', then 'desolata' repeated so many times with increasing intensity and then falling to that almost unresolved murmured emptiness at the close.
We got none of that. Disappointing.

[mopsus]

I welcomed this broadcast as there are now a number of voluntary choirs singing occasional services at Cathedrals, and the best ones are certainly worth hearing. (Although I appreciate that the increasing number of 'archive' broadcasts means more choirs competing for fewer broadcast slots.)

I gather that plainchant was used for the psalms because only a chamber organ was available; this seemed a rather feeble reason because I've certainly done Anglican chant with a chamber organ, or unaccompanied. (There's also a lingering view in some quarters that adult women can't sing Anglican chant, which I've never understood, but I assume this didn't apply here!)

[DracoM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_aWR2J81Zw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejqyze5_Di8

How different is THIS for the Byrd!!
Ely Cath / Trepte

And recorded in that fabulous Lady Chapel acoustic.

[Nevilevelis]

Too slow for my taste, losing the architecture of the phrases. The acoustic can certainly handle more movement. The singing is fine and it's nice to hear boys and girls together. That said, I agree that the broadcast performance was too fast. I doubt diminutum of tempus imperfectum equates to modern alla breve (even though it is its direct ancestor) if that was the thinking behind it. We know that chant and polyphony were performed at slower tempi during Lent and Holy Week, but how much slower is anyone's guess.

[DracoM]

Good point about the Lenten / Holy Week shift of tempi.
I just thought the Ely gave the 'Sion Deserta' particularly sequence a more impassioned and appropriate reading, given the weight of history behind both the scriptural original, and the pressure of Byrd's own times. Made me think how brave he was in writing such unequivocal music.