CE: Ely Cathedral Wed, 30th Jan 2019 [L]

[Quilisma]

Thanks for Vol II Quilisma (post 24). Nothing gives me more pleasure than wandering around churches/cathedrals and trying to figure out their architectural 'evolution'. Such a shame that in many glorious French churches any printed information is scarce...often absent. As with Ely's Lady Chapel, similar acoustical problems prevail at Buckfast Abbey. Great for Renaissance polyphony, but doing a Baroque Choral choral/instrumental work results in a mish-mash for the listener, especially as the only space large enough to site the performers is East of the choir in that great space under the chandelier.

Incidentally, the lovely CD of Amner verse anthems was, I think, recorded in Ely's Lady Chapel...very successfully.

It's a pleasure! There are of course some things for which documentation is vague, such as when and how the north-west tower came to be a ruin (it is sealed off from the inside) and why it was simply truncated and tidied up as far as practical rather than being reconstructed. I suppose there was no real need for it. I think the theory is that it was probably more or less a mirror image of the south-west tower, and presumably before the Galilee Porch was added in the thirteenth century this entirety of this peculiarly and rather unnecessarily ornate Norman west front (without the north bit missing!) would have been quite a spectacle.

Interesting to hear about Buckfast Abbey. I have only been there once, a very long time ago. Time for another visit, I think!

Unfortunately by the time I submitted Post 24 I had been logged out (perhaps no surprise!), and although auto-recovery salvaged most of it I completely lost my last paragraph... What I was going to say was that thinking about how to address acoustical challenges through developing and nurturing a particularly suitable style of sound and delivery has been something of an Ely hallmark for several decades now. Michael Howard (Master of the Choristers from 1953 to 1958) was quite explicit about it, but to be honest he probably rather overstated the extent to which his predecessors had not had his level of insight into the matter. Nevertheless, before coming to Ely he had been greatly influenced by Henry Washington at Brompton Oratory and George Malcolm at Westminster Cathedral, and he was also a great admirer of Boris Ord and George Guest. Also during his time in London he had forged a good relationship with John Whitworth, one of the countertenors at Westminster Abbey under William McKie and a fine and pioneering countertenor soloist in his own right. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, John Whitworth was born in Ely and knew the Cathedral well, while William McKie had spent his summer vacations doing work experience in Ely Cathedral while he was organ scholar at Worcester College, Oxford. I understand from one of McKie's choristers at Westminster Abbey, who went on to be a very fine choir trainer indeed, that he would often stress the importance of making a sound which will be effective in the context of the acoustic conditions of the space and the scoring of the music, even if it might feel wrong (and perhaps completely unmusical) from one's own personal vantage point or according to one's own understanding of an ideal sound. Apparently McKie would suggest that quite often the sound will need to be rather more "shrill" than one might like, or rather more "plummy", or indeed both simultaneously! (That third option sounds like an oxymoron, but it does in fact make sense providing one gives it the benefit of the doubt...) This very engaged style of singing may well be what Westminster Abbey needs (I'm by no means an expert on that space, and have only sung there once), but it also happens to be tailor-made for overcoming the acoustical oddities of Ely Cathedral. One can imagine that McKie developed this conclusion during his summer visits to Ely while moving around and observing what types of sounds were and were not effective when listening from various different locations in the building.

In any case, Michael Howard certainly bore these insights in mind when he arrived in Ely in 1953 and brought John Whitworth in to help train the choristers, and the sound they aimed at was explicitly geared towards the demands of the building (and indeed the repertoire, which now included a lot more Renaissance Polyphony and Gregorian Chant than previously). When Howard left, rather unexpectedly, in 1958, Arthur Wills took the reins, and was able to carry on working along more or less the same lines, because he had been Assistant Organist since 1949 and had therefore been part of that particular project from the beginning. The next three decades had their ups and downs, but the principle remained the same, and at its best the choir was very good. When Wills retired in 1990 Paul Trepte was an idea successor, because the bright, bold, sparky, vigorous and energetic sound which he already favoured was a very close match for what Wills had always attempted to achieve at Ely, and it came as a timely reinforcement, reinterpretation, rejuvenation and revitalisation of the Ely continuum. Even if that sound does not appeal to absolutely everybody, the building itself seems to approve!

Oh, and yes, that Amner CD was indeed recorded in the Lady Chapel (in 1993, I think), although presumably Amner himself didn't work there, because at that time the Lady Chapel was acting as Holy Trinity Parish Church and was not part of the Cathedral. But then again, the acoustic of the Cathedral itself at that time no longer exists. So it's horses for courses. The CD of Tye Masses was also recorded in the Lady Chapel, although likewise by the time when Tye was working there the Lady Chapel was officially redundant; but obviously he would have known the Lady Chapel well and presumably would have longed for his music to be sung in there; and maybe, if ever the coast was clear, it might have been!

[Vox Humana]

... by the time when Tye was working there the Lady Chapel was officially redundant; but obviously he would have known the Lady Chapel well and presumably would have longed for his music to be sung in there; and maybe, if ever the coast was clear, it might have been!

Since Tye was Master of the Choristers at Ely by 1542 (and possibly since leaving Cambridge in 1538/9) he must have had about seven years when his masses could have been sung in the monastery and cathedral before the first prayer book was imposed on everyone.

[Quilisma]

Since Tye was Master of the Choristers at Ely by 1542 (and possibly since leaving Cambridge in 1538/9) he must have had about seven years when his masses could have been sung in the monastery and cathedral before the first prayer book was imposed on everyone.

Well, the Priory was dissolved in 1539 and the statues in the Lady Chapel were ritually defaced at that time by instruction of Bishop Thomas Goodrich, and with the new foundation in 1541 the Lady Chapel was officially redundant until it was repurposed as Holy Trinity Church in 1564 (I think); it was returned to the Cathedral in 1938. So I daresay it was technically possible to use the Lady Chapel in the 1540s, but the Bishop of Ely at the time seems to have been of a distinctly Protestant persuasion so would have had to remain unaware. Presumably it would have been possible to use the Lady Chapel again during Queen Mary Tudor's reign, but during those years Tye seems to have absented himself from Ely until 1558.

I have tended to assume that Tye had strong Catholic (rather than Protestant) sympathies, owing to his composing much music in the full mid-sixteenth-century Latin polyphonic choral idiom; but he was also a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, a member (and former lay clerk) of King's College, Cambridge, and a Doctor of Music in the University of Cambridge, and in all those private institutions the use of Latin even as the standard language of discourse and liturgy was still permitted despite the changed ecclesiastical circumstances. So it may be somewhat more complex than that.

Incidentally, it is also worth noting that in the days before the Cathedral Priory was dissolved the Cathedral Choir as currently understood did not exist in its current form. As in other monastic cathedrals, the services in the Quire were typically sung by the community of monk, while Lady Mass in the Lady Chapel was furnished with a specific Lady Chapel Choir of boy choristers, supplemented as necessary by (lay) adult specialist singers. It seems to have been this model that formed the basis for the new Cathedral Choir "proper" when it was established in 1541 for services in what had been the Monks' Quire, with eight choristers, eight lay clerks and eight minor canons (who presumably also sang when they were required). The specialist Lady Chapel Choir had probably come into being by the end of the fourteenth century, but of course the continuous round of services sung by the monks themselves went back much further, to the time of the monastery's re-establishment as a Benedictine foundation by Saints Dunstan and Æthelwald in around 970.

[Vox Humana]

If the monks and the lady chapel choir were turfed out in 1539, I suppose that argues against Tye being employed there at that time. Was it William Cavendish who was Cromwell's agent in the dissolution? I understand that he had responsibility for the temporalities of Ely in 1539 and didn't settle his account until many years later. I need to read up on that - if I can find out where.

I'm interested to know why you say that the lady chapel was redundant after 1541. Even the secular cathedral and parish churches had lady chapels (or at least lady altars) which continued to be used for votive masses and antiphons up to the Reformation, although the abolition of chantries must have had a significant negative impact, not least on the funding streams that supported more than a few choirs in the land. Protestant bishop or not, there were not as yet any vernacular services and, until there were, worship would have been conducted according to the Use of Salisbury (after the new foundation, that is), which did specify votive masses. Henry VIII was no Protestant. He wanted reform, but his vision was of a reformed Catholicism. He introduced the reading of lessons and Gospel in English, but there was no reason to suppose that the Latin services would be completely binned until Edward VI came along. Cranmer's proposed revisions to the Sarum breviary were still in Latin.

I am not sure that Tye's sympathies were strongly Catholic (except, presumably, as a boy). At some point he must have become quite strongly inclined the other way, for it was after Elizabeth's Act of Settlement that he became ordained and abandoned Ely. That remark, made soon after he became rector of Doddington, about him being "a doctor of music, but not good at preaching" is a bit of a tease, is it not?

[Quilisma]

Am I correct in guessing that this is because she was a last-minute substitute? (My source is usually reliable, but I know nothing of his.)

You'll have to probe your source about that! (I wonder who that might be...) I can only answer in a purely hypothetical sense, although frankly this was a public event and there was nothing to hide or to be ashamed about.

Donald Hunt died on 4th August 2018. Not long afterwards, it was confirmed that there would be a BBC Radio 3 Choral Evensong broadcast from Ely Cathedral on 30th January 2019. Because of this, in his initial thoughts about what repertoire to choose, PT thought it would be a nice idea to include some of DFH's music as a tribute to his mentor, and the idea of doing the Second Service seemed to be worth serious consideration. There was some rather challenging solo writing, but, purely hypothetically, let us suppose that there was one particular very obvious candidate to sing the treble solos, who was an excellent, confident and very reliable singer and musician and had recently been doing some outstanding solo work. Now let us suppose that this particular hypothetical individual had a persistent and vocally debilitating cough through much of the autumn, and that voice change was also beginning to complicate the issue. Now let us suppose that this hypothetical person was still more than able to do a very decent rendition of these solos most days, but continued to have a terrible cold and, with voice change also a factor, could not necessarily be guaranteed to be in top condition on the day when the time came to be singing live on air, and was likely to be worried about it. Of course, one needs to have devised some back-up plans quite some time in advance. If none of the other boys are judged to be quite suitable as potential candidates to stand in for the hypothetical Plan A option if necessary, one has to think of other options. If none of the girls are going to be available to do the broadcast, that option is not open. If there happen to be a number of very accomplished women on the choir's books, who can be booked to sing as extras or deputies when needed, and if it is an occasion where extra singers from the pool are going to be engaged anyway in addition to the six lay clerks, one possible hypothetical solution is to engage not just six extras but a seventh as well, who, hypothetically, is usually engaged by that hypothetical choir to sing alto but is in fact a very versatile soprano and can readily adapt her way of singing to make a sound appropriate to the music she is asked to sing. Purely hypothetically, of course, she is asked some while in advance to be the back-up plan, on the understanding that the preferred option is still to stick with Plan A unless this proves to be unwise, and Plan A is also kept fully in the loop about this, so that he can remain positive about the whole experience and not worry too much because a back-up plan is in place if he needs it. Then, purely hypothetically, as the date approaches and is now only about two weeks away, the hypothetical Director of Music comes to the conclusion that under the circumstances, on balance, sticking with Plan A is too risky and will cause him too much stress, and, also purely hypothetically, Plan A is not overly disappointed and is in fact rather relieved, and is happy to devote himself to doing an outstanding job leading the chorus parts, because, after all, that hypothetical person still has the notes, if not quite as much facility as before, and is nowhere near ready to be pensioned off just yet... So the hypothetical back-up option then gets the hypothetical gig for definite and no longer has to wonder whether or not it will end up being her. All hypothetically, of course.

Although the plan was certainly to have a boy singing the treble solos, if that was not the case on this occasion there is nothing whatsoever fraudulent, dishonest or clandestine about it. This broadcast was indeed sung by the boy choristers and adult singers of Ely Cathedral Choir. The adult singers consist of the six lay clerks plus a number of extras booked from the choir's "expanded choir" pool of extra singers. The pool of extra altos now contains both (male) countertenors and (female) mezzo-sopranos/contraltos, and has done for about three years. Furthermore, since the beginning of 2019 the two alto lay clerks themselves have in fact been "one of each" for the first time. There is certainly no policy that female altos should be engaged only when the girl choristers are singing (or indeed that male altos should be engaged only when the boy choristers are singing), and in fact even if this were desirable (which it isn't) it would be impossible to achieve now that one of the two alto lay clerks themselves happens to be female and the other happens to be male. As the top lines are provided by boy and girl choristers, the adult female singers on the "expanded choir" extras list are almost always booked to sing alto rather than soprano, but a couple of them are in fact generally more comfortable singing soprano. If occasion should arise for one such person to be booked to sing soprano for a particular engagement, that person still counts as one of the adult singers of Ely Cathedral Choir.

[Vox Humana]

...this was a public event and there was nothing to hide or to be ashamed about.

I absolutely agree.

I am most grateful for the hypothetical background to this broadcast, for which I thank you heartily - and hypothetically. :)

[Quilisma]

I absolutely agree.

I am most grateful for the hypothetical background to this broadcast, for which I thank you heartily - and hypothetically. :)

It's a pleasure! And about your further questions about the history of the use of the Lady Chapel between the mid 1530s and mid 1560s, I really don't know, but I was basing my account on what I've read in the big book "A History of Ely Cathedral", which is a collection of essays. I shall have to look into it further. You're right about the Doddington thing, though. And apparently Tye was described as a very grumpy and difficult individual at the time.

Incidentally, there was certainly no such Plan B for the bass solos in the Nunc dimittis! Being himself somewhat stricken with the seasonal cold-and-cough bug, your humble servant might occasionally have wished that there had been... But that peril comes with the territory!

For an insight into why the girls could not possibly have been involved in this broadcast, have a glance at the not particularly light music list for today (Candlemas), which is girls and adults, on top of Thursday evensong (girls only), a girls' cabaret evening on Friday, and evensong yesterday (girls and adults). Music lists are available on the website. You only live once...

I'm rather beginning to wonder whether anyone else on here has actually listened to this broadcast yet, but if anyone feels they have anything to say (positive or negative) about the service itself I daresay they might get round to it at some point...

Anyway, Happy Candlemas!

[ardcarp]

I think many listen to many CEs but don't necessarily feel the need to comment. The same goes for the Early Music sub-forum where Dovers keeps us in order.
I don't think the hypothetical line up for Ely's CE was hypothetically fraudulent at all.

[DracoM]

Sorry - I'm not getting the 'hypothetical' stuff at all.
Expliquez, s'il vous plait?

And I did / have listened at least twice....!!

[Quilisma]

Sorry - I'm not getting the 'hypothetical' stuff at all.
Expliquez, s'il vous plait?

And I did / have listened at least twice....!!

Fine, it's just that for any given broadcast from anywhere there is usually at least some discussion (sometimes heated) about the repertoire and/or the way it was rendered, or about the organ and/or registration and whether or not it is/was the best/worst thing ever. Perhaps particularly when it happens to have been the final broadcast in a particular DoM's tenure. But I suppose no news is not necessarily bad news. Comments in equivalent fora on Facebook have generally been on the positive side, so that is probably a good sign.

The "hypothetical" business is simply cover in case there are quibbles about what can or should be allowed to become public knowledge. But I am not aware of any such quibbles.

Right. On with Candlemas...

[jonfan]

Just caught up with this CE and wow what a wonderful expression of light in its different nuances. The opening Lux drawing the worshipper in with a gentle coaxing, leaving behind worldly cares. Strong delivery of the psalms with great communication of the text. Fantastic solos in the canticles, if the treble was Plan B how amazing must Plan A be! Fantastic colours from the trebles raining down from the octagon; great contrasts in strength and tenderness. All strands heard with excellent engineering giving a vivid feel of the building.
Another great light event was the Dove with again strong stuff from everyone building to the overwhelming climax of the brightest of light. Fantastic , but brought back down with a bump with prayers addressing worldly concerns, as we must. A fitting joyous voluntary crowns a triumphant final broadcast of CE for Paul Trepte. Good to hear the boys in awesome form, having bought the Christmas cd of the girls which is my favourite disc of the festive season by far. The music ministry is in a strong position for the future.
The images of light permeating the service brought vivid pictures of the fens surrounding the cathedral at this time of year, mists, dim haloed sun. Mm, where’s the number for the Lamb.?