CE Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford [A] Wed, Nov 6th 2019

[decantor]

I'm sure this has already been used as an archive service only a few years ago. Archiving the archive rather than making the little effort required to ensure they broadcast only recordings they haven't put out recently is very poor show.

In fact this is a third outing for the same archived service - it was previously aired on 10 Jan 2007 and on 5 Nov 2014. On those previous occasions, the closing voluntary was Howells' Rhapsody in C#mi. Perhaps it will be again.

I have to agree with Finzi4ever that Choral-Evensongers are not being well served by the BBC: for example, in the three months Sept-Oct-Nov, there are only two live broadcasts from cathedrals. All my own explanations for this failing are deeply cynical, I'm afraid.

[ardcarp]

Join the club......

[DracoM]

Ditto.

[Master Jacques]

Has anybody asked R3 just what they think they are doing? It is a scabrous way to save a few pennies, and immensely insulting to today's cathedral choirs. Terminal, cynical laziness.

[mw963]

Pity that the continuity announcer (*) had to make a barbed comment about the "archive accents" heard in the broadcast. What a stupid thing to say.

Says more about her and the current state of Radio 3 than about the beautiful diction of the priest.

(*) I expect she'd like me to call her a "presenter".

[Finzi4ever]

Pity that the continuity announcer (*) had to make a barbed comment about the "archive accents" heard in the broadcast. What a stupid thing to say.

Says more about her and the current state of Radio 3 than about the beautiful diction of the priest.

(*) I expect she'd like me to call her a "presenter".

Such statements are more likely to draw listeners to comment on her annunciation skills... and I don't mean her Scottish 'brogue'

[Finzi4ever]

In fact this is a third outing for the same archived service - it was previously aired on 10 Jan 2007 and on 5 Nov 2014. On those previous occasions, the closing voluntary was Howells' Rhapsody in C#mi. Perhaps it will be again.

I have to agree with Finzi4ever that Choral-Evensongers are not being well served by the BBC: for example, in the three months Sept-Oct-Nov, there are only two live broadcasts from cathedrals. All my own explanations for this failing are deeply cynical, I'm afraid.

I love you suggestion, Decantor, that the Beeb might have edited the voluntary to something else this time...
My main gripe isn't that it's an archived service, though live every week would of course be the preference, but that it's the third outing for this one. Since there appears to be no real significance in which archived service they use (other than perhaps date for the psalms & liturgical season), why not just start working through the whole back catalogue from the year dot, good, bad or ugly???

[DracoM]

I have had and still do have a real problem with Tippett's music, but I am glad the choir didn't.

Dramatic, even operatic canticles, quite a shout, and certainly a severe test of intonation. CCCOx record commercially in Merton Coll Ch as a rule, since the home pitch is a notoriously dry acoustic, and for engineers v.diff to balance for a choir with big things to sing and full on theatrical relentlessness in how they are driven - SP took no prisoners. His method might work well enough in Tippett, but the bashing the Byrd took was, for me, a step too far. Sound of trebs crying for mercy as the back row piled in? Hey ho!.

Referring to the archive: in advance the Beeb would have known the recording would fade out on 45 mins, so why on EARTH did they not have a recording of the Howells vol to hand to play IN FULL? Weird.

[Finzi4ever]

...that said, the Dean's reading of Revelation 4 had more than something about it of Lt.-Cmdr 'I was in the spirit' Woodrooffe's attempt to describe the illuminated fleet at the Spithead Review. I particularly enjoyed: 'as it were of a trumpet talking with me'.

[underthecountertenor]

Pity that the continuity announcer (*) had to make a barbed comment about the "archive accents" heard in the broadcast. What a stupid thing to say.

Says more about her and the current state of Radio 3 than about the beautiful diction of the priest.

(*) I expect she'd like me to call her a "presenter".

I thought it was a fair observation. The accent in which the final prayers were delivered has died out, for better or worse. The last person I heard speak in that manner was Brian Sewell (d. 2015), and in his case it always sounded like a conscious (if rather charming) affectation.

[Finzi4ever]

I have had and still do have a real problem with Tippett's music, but I am glad the choir didn't.

Dramatic, even operatic canticles, quite a shout, and certainly a severe test of intonation. CCCOx record commercially in Merton Coll Ch as a rule, since the home pitch is a notoriously dry acoustic, and for engineers v.diff to balance for a choir with big things to sing and full on theatrical relentlessness in how they are driven - SP took no prisoners. His method might work well enough in Tippett, but the bashing the Byrd took was, for me, a step too far. Sound of trebs crying for mercy as the back row piled in? Hey ho!.

Referring to the archive: in advance the Beeb would have known the recording would fade out on 45 mins, so why on EARTH did they not have a recording of the Howells vol to hand to play IN FULL? Weird.

Simple answer to that one, DM: that would imply that they had given it any thought.

You're right about the building - all the more reason why the classical Rieger now sounds so insipid - SP's 3 Byrd masses recording in Merton was one of my favourite recordings when I was a lad.

[Roger Judd]

I think that I must have missed the previous iterations of this broadcast. What a wonderful choir Simon Preston created there - fabulous treble sound and a splendid mix of lay clerk and choral scholar in the back rows. The psalms, I thought, were glorious - so much variety of tone, great organ support (I loved all the 'naughty' passing notes between verses), and how good to hear the 'old' organ doing what it was built to do so well. Even the solo trumpet (Tuba) in the Tippett had a good ring to it! Was it my imagination or did the BBC find some more acoustic with which to envelop the sound?
RJ

[omega consort]

I heard this recording a few years ago and loved it then, especially Colin Walsh's superb accompaniments on what must have been, by then, a severely clapped out old Edwardian organ!

[Roger Judd]

I wonder who played what ... does anyone know?
RJ

[oddoneout]

I thought it was a fair observation. The accent in which the final prayers were delivered has died out, for better or worse. The last person I heard speak in that manner was Brian Sewell (d. 2015), and in his case it always sounded like a conscious (if rather charming) affectation.

But did it really need to be said? I thought it was particularly unwise in view of her mangling, before CE, of the title of the Messiaen work being broadcast tonight.