CE 2011 London Festival of Contemporary Church Music [A] Wed, May 13th 2020

[DracoM]

CE 2011 London Festival of Contemporary Church Music [A]
St Pancras Church, London.
First broadcast 11 May 2011


Order of Service:


Introit: Save us, O Lord, waking (Andrew Simpson)
Responses: Cecilia McDowall
Psalms: 59, 60, 61 (Léon Charles)
First Lesson: Genesis 3: 8-21
Canticles: The Fifth Service 'The Bells' (Gregory Rose)
Second Lesson: 1 Corinthians 15: 12-28
Anthem: Te Deum (Antony Pitts)
Final Hymn: How shall I sing that majesty (Coe Fen)

Voluntary: Easter Alleluyas (Thomas Hyde)


Léon Charles (Assistant Organist)
Christopher Batchelor (Director of Music)

[Serial_Apologist]

I wonder how they define Contemporary Church Music... Passed by the Alpha Course?

[ardcarp]

I think that question has been asked before. Strictly speaking it is music 'written in our time'...so even if someone wrote something sounding suspiciously like a Brahms pastiche last night, it's contemprorary! Discuss.

[oddoneout]

It's quite a few years since that broadcast so how much of that music is in use now?

[DracoM]

A question I ask myself every time the St Pancras Church CE is posted on R3, I fear!!

[ardcarp]

A few pieces 'catch on' though, eg (but not from St Pancras) Tavener's Lamb and Whitacre's Lux Arumque. I just wonder what future generations will think of our generation of composers.

In answer to oddoenout's question, Coe Fen! Despite its recent provenance [50 years ago?] it is very much in the 'Public School Hymnal' style.

[Serial_Apologist]

A few pieces 'catch on' though, eg (but not from St Pancras) Tavener's Lamb and Whitacre's Lux Arumque. I just wonder what future generations will think of our generation of composers.

And just how many famous 20th century composers of sacred music are or were themselves conventionally religious, at most? There's that Scottish chappie, of course; and among french modernists Messiaen just about was; and Lili Boulanger definitely was. But Vaughan Williams? Holst? Howells? Harvey was as much attracted to Buddhism as the Anglican. Britten - possibly.

[ardcarp]

...and many practising church musicians are at best agnostic. Not quite sure this is germane to the question though?

A demain.

[mopsus]

In answer to oddoenout's question, Coe Fen! Despite its recent provenance [50 years ago?] it is very much in the 'Public School Hymnal' style.

Coe Fen could have been written as long ago as the 1950s, when Ken Naylor taught at the Leys School in Cambridge, but it wasn't published till the 1990s. It can't really be held up as a 'great recent hymn tune' any more. (If indeed it ever could - ducks quickly!)

[NorfolkDavid]

A few pieces 'catch on' though, eg (but not from St Pancras) Tavener's Lamb and Whitacre's Lux Arumque. I just wonder what future generations will think of our generation of composers.

But isn't this true of any generation? One 'key feature' of our generation is that there is two prevalent styles of choral composition, in my humble opinion; the 'hymn-anthem' style, or the style-ecstatic. If we take Rutter and Whitacre as an example of each style, I think the Whitacre will be more long lasting. JR's music, much like Sir John Stainer before him, will probably fall into obscurity save for a couple of standout works as the popular music idioms of the day advance. Works will either endure, or remain as transitory. Fr. John Patton's wonderful book 'A Century of Cathedral Music' is a great example of this. A quick opening suggests that 94% of English Cathedrals sang Stephen Elvey in A in 1898, and 62% in 1938. Has anyone sung it this millennium?!

Time is a great sifter. There is a reason that all cathedral choirs have the Stanford three motets in their repertoire, and not the work of Caleb Simper.

[MrGongGong]

Time is a great sifter.

Which often lets wonderful things pass through the mesh leaving lumps of crud ?

[oddoneout]

Which often lets wonderful things pass through the mesh leaving lumps of crud ?

To be unearthed by future generations looking for something more interesting?

[MrGongGong]

To be unearthed by future generations looking for something more interesting?

Indeed

Actually I would rephrase the statement to

"Time is a lousy sifter"

[cat]

But isn't this true of any generation? One 'key feature' of our generation is that there is two prevalent styles of choral composition, in my humble opinion; the 'hymn-anthem' style, or the style-ecstatic. If we take Rutter and Whitacre as an example of each style, I think the Whitacre will be more long lasting. JR's music, much like Sir John Stainer before him, will probably fall into obscurity save for a couple of standout works as the popular music idioms of the day advance. Works will either endure, or remain as transitory. Fr. John Patton's wonderful book 'A Century of Cathedral Music' is a great example of this. A quick opening suggests that 94% of English Cathedrals sang Stephen Elvey in A in 1898, and 62% in 1938. Has anyone sung it this millennium?!

Time is a great sifter. There is a reason that all cathedral choirs have the Stanford three motets in their repertoire, and not the work of Caleb Simper.

Interestingly Stanford's canticles have seen a big decline on R3 Choral Evensong broadcasts. I think Stanford in G for example, which was innovative at the time of composition, has featured only once in the last ten years.

[ardcarp]

Which often lets wonderful things pass through the mesh leaving lumps of crud ?

Of whom did Beecham say, 'I trod in some once'.