Choral Vespers Wed, Oct 9th 2019 [A] Westminster Cathedral

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

..OK, maybe a flawed masterpiece...conceived and realised at a vastly higher level than The Kingdom or The Apostles.

I have to disagree with you there. Like Sir Adrian Boult, I place The Kingdom right at the top of Elgar’s choral tree.

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[jonfan]

I have to disagree with you there. Like Sir Adrian Boult, I place The Kingdom right at the top of Elgar’s choral tree.

Absolutely. Whatever we may now think about Newman and Gerontius, Elgar was a devout Roman Catholic at the time he wrote the music and responded accordingly. ‘This is the best of me’ I think he wrote.
Re this service: Wonderful devotional experience with lush expressive and emotional singing beautifully caught by the engineering.

[MrGongGong]

Absolutely. Whatever we may now think about Newman and Gerontius, Elgar was a devout Roman Catholic at the time he wrote the music and responded accordingly. ‘This is the best of me’ I think he wrote.
.

Just shows how wrong our own impressions of ourselves can be IMV

[ardcarp]

jonfan. Just in case anyone's confused, I think 'the best of me' Elgar quote applied to The Dream, as you suggest. Not The Kingdom.

Today's service had some lovely sensitive phrasing, especially in the so-well-known Stanford Justorum Animae. Likewise in Poulenc's Salve Regina.
The Stanford Double Choir Mag (with its homage to Bach) is difficult to pull off...even with professional sops, and I think the WC choir acquitted itself valiantly.

[DracoM]

Well, yes, decent singing.
Not my cup of tea. Sorry.
I am an ardent fan of the Drome, but this just wasn't for me a music / service to remember fondly.

[Keraulophone]

‘This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another: my life was as the vapour and is not; but this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.’ (Ruskin: Sesame and Lillies)

Sounds as if EE was wrapped in some sort of high Roman Catholic stupor, temporarily unhinged enough to give unreliable judgements. Anyhow, The Kingdom wasn’t till six years later, when it became ‘the best’.

[ardcarp]

I still think one has to take into account the fashions, tastes, mores, etc, etc of the times. Quite interesting to have a gander at this:

https://3choirs.org/about-us/history-of-the-three-choirs-festival/long-history/

Much stuff there from, say, 1875 onwards, probably doesn't bear a second look. But amazing that the 3 Choirs even countenanced doing Gerontius in 1902 when the Anglican Church was still fairly iffy about Roman Catholicism.

[Op. XXXIX]

After all the fuss about Newman and Elgar, may I mention that the closing Bruhns -such fascinating music!- was beautifully and sensitively played. Loved the Stanford and Poulenc also. Great archive, in a day or so I'll do a third listen.

[DracoM]

Yes, vol was AOK.