CE Chapel of Rugby School [L] Wed, 23rd June 2021

[DracoM]

CE Chapel of Rugby School Wed, 23rd June 2021 [L]
The eve of the birth of John the Baptist


Order of Service:


Introit: Fuit Homo missus a Deo (Palestrina)
Responses: Byrd
Psalms 114, 115 (Bairstow, Martin)
First Lesson: Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25
Office hymn: On this high feast day honour we the Baptist (Iste Confessor)
Canticles: Stanford in G
Second Lesson: Luke 1: 5-25
Anthem: Benedictus in G (Stanford)
Hymn: Hail, harbinger of morn (Hail, harbinger of morn)

Voluntary: Postlude in D minor, Op 105 (Stanford)


Ian Wicks (Organist)
Richard Tanner (Director of Music)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x701

[ardcarp]

I always look forward to the treble/soprano solo in Stanford in G. And the morning canticle is seldom heard. Glad it finds a place in the Evensong anthem slot.

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m. LIVE.

[Magister Chori]

Some really impressive and powerful moments in the first psalm (the earth trembled for sure...!) and in the Nunc Dimittis (despite the soloist...).

The Benedictus, which I didn't knew, was an appreciated re-discovery.

[jonfan]

A good Stanford Fest with a confident soloist in the Magnificat who sailed above the choir serenely.
Some huge climaxes which seemed to throw the quality of sound to my ears, in fact I felt the sound image never really settled so I didn’t get a feeling of the space we were in. The service felt like a performance rather than an act of worship, or that may be me today, so apologies Rugby as the music was superbly executed.

[cat]

Great to hear the G again, as noted elsewhere it is somewhat out of favour nowadays in broadcast CEs.

I was interested to note that today they have publicly launched a choristership program with a nearby prep school, giving both under-14 boys and girls the opportunity to participate in the regular services in Rugby School chapel, I guess similar to what Radley College have been doing for some time:

https://www.rugbyschool.co.uk/school-life/chorister-programme/

[DracoM]

Some fine stuff, tenors better than most school choirs can muster. Razor incisive sop soloist ubiquitous?
BUT
Not impressed by the slow pace in places esp psalms - but then one reads above - "today they have publicly launched a choristership program with a nearby prep school', and maybe rather a little too much is explained about the service.

[DracoM]

Reminder: rpt today @ p.m.

[Serial_Apologist]

It seems they decided to hang around at Thugby for today's Sunday Service on R4 - which I always, often against my better judgement, listen to while having my Sunday morning bath. Today was such a day: I never, ever thought we'd be subjected to "I Vow To Thee My Country" from this slot, taking me back as it did to the fascist boarding school I was made to attend in the 1950s. It leaves me wondering if broadcasting religious services from privileged educational establishments is to become a regular thing, in what is fast becoming a really rather unpleasant sort of a country.

[ardcarp]

SA, I know what you mean about items from The Public School Hymn Book (later re-named Hymns for Church and School). 'I Vow to Thee my Country' is often thought of as jingoistic, and yet the second verse explains, 'And there's another country I've heard of long ago'...etc. etc. That of course refers to the Kingdom of Heaven, and the verse goes on to dismiss thoughts of armies, and ends, 'And her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are Peace.'

Having played the organ countless times for a chapel full of adolescent boys bellowing out such things as the above, not to mention 'Jerusalem' which they also did this morning, one cannot help but be stirred by the experience....in a Cardiff Arms Park sort of way. They are very good tunes!

Back to CE, there cannot be many schools which could do what Rugby did. I agree with Draco about the somewhat lugubrious tempi; but it was all well under control.

[cat]

It seems they decided to hang around at Thugby for today's Sunday Service on R4 - which I always, often against my better judgement, listen to while having my Sunday morning bath. Today was such a day: I never, ever thought we'd be subjected to "I Vow To Thee My Country" from this slot, taking me back as it did to the fascist boarding school I was made to attend in the 1950s. It leaves me wondering if broadcasting religious services from privileged educational establishments is to become a regular thing, in what is fast becoming a really rather unpleasant sort of a country.

I'm sorry that you have had a bad experience of it, but it's consistently voted as one of the public's favourite hymns so I wouldn't say it's too outrageous that Radio 3 broadcast it on a Sunday morning.

Hopefully the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School will gives us a CE soon - they were scheduled for a live broadcast just after lockdown arrived last year, and that would have been the first ever by a state school choir.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm sorry that you have had a bad experience of it, but it's consistently voted as one of the public's favourite hymns so I wouldn't say it's too outrageous that Radio 3 broadcast it on a Sunday morning.

Holst himself is said to have disapproved of the words set to his famous tune from "Jupiter", and I'm on his side when it comes to such nationalistic tub-thumping, even if it comes down to being in a minority of one - which I don't believe I am.

[mopsus]

I'm sorry that you have had a bad experience of it, but it's consistently voted as one of the public's favourite hymns so I wouldn't say it's too outrageous that Radio 3 broadcast it on a Sunday morning.

I also would have felt that it stuck out, had I listened to the broadcast. In decades of going to CofE churches of a traditional cast, I could count the times I've sung it on the fingers of one hand and have fingers left over. I wonder how familiar people under about 50 are with it at all, let alone having it as a favourite? Maybe it's what non-churchgoers think people sing in church.

[Serial_Apologist]

I also would have felt that it stuck out, had I listened to the broadcast. In decades of going to CofE churches of a traditional cast, I could count the times I've sung it on the fingers of one hand and have fingers left over. I wonder how familiar people under about 50 are with it at all, let alone having it as a favourite? Maybe it's what non-churchgoers think people sing in church.

During World War Two, I could imagine that. But I thought we were supposed to have outgrown such jingoism? Is it to be the new de rigueur, do you suppose, post-Brexit?

[Serial_Apologist]

SA, I know what you mean about items from The Public School Hymn Book (later re-named Hymns for Church and School). 'I Vow to Thee my Country' is often thought of as jingoistic, and yet the second verse explains, 'And there's another country I've heard of long ago'...etc. etc. That of course refers to the Kingdom of Heaven, and the verse goes on to dismiss thoughts of armies, and ends, 'And her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are Peace.'

Having played the organ countless times for a chapel full of adolescent boys bellowing out such things as the above, not to mention 'Jerusalem' which they also did this morning, one cannot help but be stirred by the experience....in a Cardiff Arms Park sort of way. They are very good tunes!

Well Jerusalem is a different matter altogether: its locale may be local but its message is universal. The "other country" is another country, not the one we're asked in Verse 1 to pledge ourselves to.