CE St Pancras Church Wed, 16th May 2018 [L]

[vinteuil]

St Martin-in-the-Fields seems to avoid its worst manifestations!

... Farm Street ain't bad, neither.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Immaculate_Conception,_Farm_Street

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[mw963]

Very interesting discussion.

But my feeling is very much that if this service were to be quietly forgotten next year then no-one would be terribly sorry....? A word needed in the BBC's ear perhaps....?

Maybe its fans have yet to comment, so I would quite understand if it was felt I was jumping to conclusions, particularly ones that happen - on my own admission - to suit me.

[DracoM]

This is when the St P's 'festival' takes place, so my bet is that it might be seen by the BBC as a little convenient because Oxbridge colleges [ not all ], cathedrals might have problems given the onset of school / college / university etc assessments and exams at all manner of levels. And because the BBC still thinks of this as a daring avant garde occasion, it is thought to tick boxes etc.

But as pointed out upthread by ardcarp et al, maybe the 'modern liturgical music' box is now being ticked rather better elsewhere.

[jean]

The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music seems to me to deserve the title of Festival as well as any.

To ask for it to be quietly forgotton or otherwise sidelined by Radiio 3 is a bit mean-spirited, isn't it?

[mopsus]

When the St Pancras Festival was more avant-garde, people on this board used to say that the pieces were too difficult to enter the repertoire, except for that of a very few choirs. In every age, most new music will not be as good as the standard pieces from previous generations, and the weaker pieces from earlier times will have fallen by the wayside.

Wells Cathedral also has a week-long 'New Music Festival' every October: "a retrospective of sacred choral and organ music of the previous forty years during all services, together with world premiere performances by Wells Cathedral Choir and organists of music by internationally renowned composers". I can't remember if any services from this festival have been broadcast - I imagine Wells would not want an annual slot because although 20th/21st century music is a very large part of their repertoire they would also like to show how they sing earlier compositions.

[ardcarp]

As someone mentioned above, some regular CE slots are taken up by 'Festivals' of one sort or another. Next week's CE was recorded at the Cambridge Early Music Festival of the Voice (though I assume it's sung by Gonville & Caius choir who usually get an annual slot anyway). I was amused to see Attwood, Mozart and Wesley (presumably S not SS) on the menu. Early???

Change of topic:

I don't know how suited the Lefébure-Wely Sortie is to a church service, but it's much more fun IMO.
I assume you mean the E flat rather than the B flat. When I first heard it I thought it was fairground music.

My reaction exactly! But it was when I was first asked to play it for a wedding. OMG, I thought, they'll be boogying out to this.

[DracoM]

Did they? Or couldn't you see from the bench?

[mw963]

The London Festival of Contemporary Church Music seems to me to deserve the title of Festival as well as any.

To ask for it to be quietly forgotton or otherwise sidelined by Radiio 3 is a bit mean-spirited, isn't it?

It's difficult Jean. I'm not trying to be mean-spirited and I'm sorry if it comes across as that. I was really trying to establish whether there are other similar events that could be covered, wondering out loud what is so special about St Pancras that it has to be broadcast every year....

My real gripe - underlying all this, and well rehearsed by me - is that it seems to be CATHEDRAL RELAYS that are bearing the brunt of the cutbacks, for clearly cutbacks they are. Festivals and Oxbridge Colleges seem to be maintaining their share of CE broadcast slots, archive broadcasts (often seemingly chosen for their quirkiness) are on the increase, whereas cathedral evensongs seem to be becoming an endangered species.

FWIW I would rather see something like St Pancras given its own prime spot, but away from the Choral Evensong regular slot, make a special thing of it on Radio 3 if it ticks the right boxes, but not on a Wednesday afternoon slot, year after year.

And - putting my head even further on the block - a lot of you illuminati love hearing modern specially composed music. I have to say I don't. I can't remember the last time I heard something on this Festival where I thought "my goodness, the great unwashed are going to really take to this and request it regularly". Including myself amongst the great unwashed, I can survey you cognoscenti dispassionately and say "I think you might be a tiny bit out of touch with what ordinary people want". That's not meant to be rude I assure you, but if the relatively cool reception of this broadcast amongst you "experts" is anything to go by, the vast majority of "ordinary listeners" are going to have found it, well, challenging ....

Good on you all for having such advanced tastes! I salute you and I wish I could be among your number. But please don't hack back the Cathedral relays, whilst declaring things like St Pancras as "sacrosanct-and-must-be-broadcast-every-year".

Sorry, I'm rambling, and I assure you all that I'm not trying to make trouble, just relating things from my own point of view.....

(and I realise that without opportunities to get new works performed music composition would simply grind to a halt!)

(and furthermore I have to admit I haven't had time to listen to the rest of the broadcast, which I am now quite determined to do!! Prepare for a good session of eating of humble pie on my part!)

[Vox Humana]

Looking down the other end of the telescope, there are, I am quite sure, a significant number of people out there who have little time for Early Music. "Why all this esoteric stuff? What I want is music with full-blooded emotion and a tune!" I know people whose musical tastes stray very little outside the two hundred years from 1700-1900, as if that narrow window comprises the totality of worthwhile music. They are perfectly entitled to their choice, of course, but I would hate the BBC to be limited to popular public taste. Sadly, however, that is the way both BBC radio and TV are going and IMO it is doing none of us any favours. I would wager that the reason modern music has such a wide following today (and it seems it does) is very largely because, in days of yore, the BBC were able to open our ears to the range of it out there. Similarly with Early Music. I would like to hear more diversity, not less.

[ardcarp]

I agree, Vox, and I do think the repertoire of Anglican Church Music needs stretching a bit. I'd just point out to MW963 that all music was 'modern' once!

[mw963]

I agree, Vox, and I do think the repertoire of Anglican Church Music needs stretching a bit. I'd just point out to MW963 that all music was 'modern' once!

It doesn't need pointing out, it's precisely why I wrote:

"(and I realise that without opportunities to get new works performed music composition would simply grind to a halt!)"

[DracoM]

But some issues:
[a] much of the truly avant garde takes considerable rehearsal, rightly makes huge professional demands on time and expertise.
[b] many cathedral foundations simply do not have the time to rehearse at required length, and the vocal demands are very frequently such that it is hard to see young choristers being able to get their heads and voices round such repertoire unless it is VERY carefully prepared and introduced. My guess is that many DoMs might be a bit wary and thus choosy?
[c] If a / b have any validity, might it not mean that only Oxbridge colleges, pro London-based-enembles might be the only ones who can feasibly encompass the demands of the VERY modern, but....
[d] many of the pro ensembles are naturally not linked as regulars to a liturgy-singing foundation
[e] which might almost certainly mean that such pieces become concert rather than embedded liturgical pieces - which in turn means a disconnect between music and role / purpose?
[f] ....or it means that if composers want to have their music performed, they have to write within the compass of the choir and maybe the congregation. Might that not force the composers into compromise, into limits on what they might wish to write,
[g] ...........OR in order to expand their horizons, does that mean the liturgical foundations ONLY commission from known and amenable / singable composers? And we know, do we not, of composers who are regularly commissioned, regularly appear on serice sheets, but that one might not term 'avant garde' or even 'challenging' or even very 'modern'?

It's an incredbly tricky situation. If many / any of the above things are felt to be true or partially true, how then DOES the Anglican / Catholic church re-animate their musical traditions / repertoires?

Feels a bit like a catch-22 situation to me.

[mopsus]

Just listening before this service goes offline. I liked the tune to the first hymn (Come Holy Ghost) but there's no information about it. Is it also by Christopher Batchelor? Definitely a touch of Turangalîla about some passages in the voluntary!

[ardcarp]

Mopsus. Just tried to listen to your hymn-tune, but sadly it has gone offline now. On of my friends is a 'hymn guru' and he would probably have identified it.

[mopsus]

Mopsus. Just tried to listen to your hymn-tune, but sadly it has gone offline now. On of my friends is a 'hymn guru' and he would probably have identified it.

I suspect it is a Batchelor one and hence local - it had that retro quality with touches of something a bit more modern.