Stanford's Mass Via Victrix

[ardcarp]

Haydn’s orchestral Masses, which I think we agree are better than this one, don’t get performed in concerts

...er

[Stanfordian]

I’ll spell it out a bit more. Haydn’s orchestral Masses, which I think we agree are better than this one, don’t get performed in concerts, so the Via Victrix is even less likely to be programmed (and it really is a concert piece, not a liturgical one). Perhaps it will be trotted out occasionally like Stanford’s symphonies (which I don’t know).

Bax's symphonies are rarely encountered so I'm not sure where Stanford's symphonies are trotted out!

[Stanfordian]

Indeed Ferney, don't quite see the Nelson Mass connection! (Tho' it is IMVHO the best of Haydn's Masses.)

Back to Stanford. It was a worthy venture to be bring it to life, and I'm sure to have been at the performance 'live' would have been fun. I too shall not be making any efforts to hear it again! It really isn't special enough. Nothing seemed to cohere structurally, and though Stanford wandered into interesting keys at times, I was never quite sure where he was going. The orchestration seemed that of an organist, with passages for 'brass choir', 'woodwind choir', etc. with a lot of use of solo horn plus string accomp. Such a shame that at the words "et vitam venturi" I felt a fugue coming on...which never happened. The most original feature (as someone mentioned in the interviews) was the March in the middle of the Agnus Dei. I almost expected The Lord High Executioner to make an appearance. Shame the orchestra got a bit out of step with itself at one point. Surely not difficult to keep together in a march?

Stanford isn't, I suppose, a 'great' composer, whatever that may be, so perhaps we shouldn't expect too much. I guess he'll continue to be remembered for his small-scale gems...The Bluebird, Stanford in G Mag, some of the songs, etc.

Interesting to hear what Pabs might have made of it and of Stanford's larger scale and much-neglected oeuvres?

I know of no greater part-song than Stanford's 'The blue bird' - To my ears it's perfection.

[DracoM]

<< Maybe you mean pruning? >>

Ahem......exactly so....!

[mopsus]

Stanfordian - in view of your name, if you've heard the broadcast, or indeed the live performance, I'd be interested to know your views on Via Victrix. I am too closely connected to some of the performers to feel able to comment much on it here.

[Keraulophone]

It's too long for liturgical use (even with organ) and these days not many orchestral Mass settings get done in concert, apart from some very famous ones.

A particular favourite of mine which unfortunately finds itself in this category is Herbert Howells’s Missa Sabrinensis of 1953. I’ve only got Rozhdestvensky‘s excellent 1994 recording with the LSO/LSC on Chandos to go on, as I’ve never attended a live performance or even heard one on the radio. When Andrew Nethsingha was at Gloucester Cathedral I tried unsuccessfully to persuade him that it would make an ideal Three Choirs Festival work, but he thought at that time that only the 20-minute Gloria of the Mass might be a possibility. It’s approximately 76 minutes “magnificently encapsulates Howells' exuberantly ecstatic absorption in spirituality, celebration, redemptive anguish, high hills radiance and the dazzle of the invincible sun. His is a decidedly un-Protestant stance. The music mediates between Delius and Roman Catholic spirituality but the spiritual dimension is no more intrusive or distracting than is RVW's humanism in works such as Dona Nobis Pacem... it’s explosive propulsion has not a shred of Victorian fustian about it. It speaks directly to twentieth and twenty first century man and woman in music that is exalted, exciting and transformational” (Rob Barnett). As we remain a nation of choral societies, I am at a loss to explain the near total neglect of this exceptionally fine and important choral work.

[Vox Humana]

The Missa Sabrinensis, conducted by Sir David Willcocks, was the subject of Howells's 90th birthday concert in 1982. It was broadcast and I have a cassette tape of it somewhere. There's a significant problem it in that it is reputed to be extremely difficult. I seem to recall that the first performance was not an unqualified success, but I daresay it's more approachable these days - with the right calibre of choir. I also find it decidedly less memorable than his other big works. Since the choir who first sang it christened it "The Severn Bore", that problem may not be just mine.

[Keraulophone]

"The Severn Bore"

...an intriguing fluvial phenomenon but not one by which I would care to describe this piece. Maybe the Worcester Three Choirs Chorus of 1954 were under-prepared for the first performance, so didn’t respond well to its complexities. I agree with the late Michael Kennedy’s assessment that it is one of Howells’s finest works.

‘briania’, in an Amazon customer review of the commercial recording, mentions that he took part in the first London performance in the ‘50s under Sargent at the Royal Albert Hall: “Howells had taken most of the rehearsals and, through wasting time explaining the structure of his composition, had not ensured that the 600-strong chorus was adequately prepared. Sargent arrived for the last three rehearsals and was in despair. The performance was the first occasion for a "run-through" by the chorus and orchestra together and it was disastrous - at one point in a double chorus section Choir A was four pages behind Choir B! Nevertheless the haunting atmosphere of the composition remained with me and this excellent modern performance is a joy to hear.” Such things may happen, but they ought not to condemn the work itself.

[Vox Humana]

The Worcester performance of the Severn Mass can't have been anything like as bad as the London one. According to the liner notes of the CD it wasn't consistently bad but was far from consistently good. Rabbits were dying everywhere in 1954, which resulted in the other nickname the Worcester chorus gave to the work: the "Missa Myxomatosis". The late Christopher Palmer acknowledged a certain "sameness" about the work, which might explain why I find it unmemorable, but he rated it very highly nonetheless. I probably need to make more effort with it.

[ardcarp]

‘briania’, in an Amazon customer review of the commercial recording, mentions that he took part in the first London performance in the ‘50s under Sargent at the Royal Albert Hall: “Howells had taken most of the rehearsals and, through wasting time explaining the structure of his composition, had not ensured that the 600-strong chorus was adequately prepared. Sargent arrived for the last three rehearsals and was in despair. The performance was the first occasion for a "run-through" by the chorus and orchestra together and it was disastrous - at one point in a double chorus section Choir A was four pages behind Choir B! Nevertheless the haunting atmosphere of the composition remained with me and this excellent modern performance is a joy to hear.” Such things may happen, but they ought not to condemn the work itself.

Just loved reading that! (Nothing worse than choir-rehearsers who talk too much.)

[Keraulophone]

Nothing worse than choir-rehearsers who talk too much.

That is so true. One quite famous conductor, taking the final chorus rehearsal before the full one with orchestra, walked into the hall, picked up his baton, and told us that he wasn’t going to say anything other than that he thought the piece a very fine one, in spite of it being rarely performed; but that we were to watch his stick carefully because everything we needed to know was going to be conveyed by it; and so it was. It turned out to be a masterclass in how to run an efficient rehearsal. Would that others could do the same .

[Pabmusic]

Well, I've now been able to listen to the Stanford, thanks to one of you who very kindly sent me the recording.

I thought that I might be a bit underwhelmed, and I was right. Not that there was anything I didn't enjoy in some way, but I quite often found myself thinking of other things for a while until a very-worthy-but-highly-predictable passage finished. But again - as is often my reaction to Stanford - there were some quite thrilling moments (I'm not well used enough to it yet to be able to analyse it as I'd like). I was constantly reminded of one thing - this is post-WW1! It must have been awful for an established late-Victorian composer to write something as standard as a setting of the mass in 1920 or so, and yet make it seem 'fresh'. And I really don't think Stanford succeeded. Yet Vaughan Williams did succeed wonderfully with a mass at roughly the same time - he was 20 years younger than CVS, of course, but still no Spring chicken.

I shall certainly listen again, and my initial impression might change, but overall it was a disappointment for me.