CE Edington Priory [R] Wed, 15th Sept @ 4p.m.

[DracoM]

CE Edington Priory [R] Wed, 15th Sept @ 4p.m.
Recorded 27 August 2021

The 2021 Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy


Order of Service:


Introit: Litany of the Saints (Plainsong)
Responses: Plainsong
Office hymn: Urbs Jerusalem beata (Plainsong)
Psalm 48 (How)
First Lesson: Ezekiel 11:14-25
Canticles: Harwood in A flat
Second Lesson: Revelation 21: 1-7
Anthem: Blessed City, heavenly Salem (Bairstow)
Hymn: Christ is made the sure foundation (Westminster Abbey)

Voluntary: Empyrean (Francis Pott)

Alexander Pott, Charles Maxtone-Smith (Organist)
Jeremy Summerly, Peter Stevens (Conductors)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zmp0

[ardcarp]

A great institution the Edington Festival. At times in the past they had a separate plainsong choir. Looks as if they might this time?
Just a personal thing, but I'd like Harwood in A flat to be banished to the outer darkness. (Harwood did write a good hymn tune though...Luckington.)
Blessed City is a good romp, which I doubt could have been done with the old pre-Harrison organ.

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 4 p.m.

[ardcarp]

Apart from the opening processional plainsong (and the Canticles which I loathe) I enjoyed the Edington CE very much. I'm sure that plainsong would have been more spectacular if experienced in person, but to me it came over as too boringly repetitive and not flowing. The plainsong hymn was fine and those melodic fragments used by Bairstow in Blessed City were a lovely foreshadowing.

Can anyone in the know give any info about the main SATB choir? The treble line used to be made up of 'invited' boy choristers, often retiring head choristers. Today it was good regardless of age and sex, and the soloist in the Bairstow was excellent, those few notes in the lower register causing no diminution of tone.

[Simon Biazeck]

Apart from the opening processional plainsong (and the Canticles which I loathe) I enjoyed the Edington CE very much. I'm sure that plainsong would have been more spectacular if experienced in person, but to me it came over as too boringly repetitive and not flowing. The plainsong hymn was fine and those melodic fragments used by Bairstow in Blessed City were a lovely foreshadowing.

Can anyone in the know give any info about the main SATB choir? The treble line used to be made up of 'invited' boy choristers, often retiring head choristers. Today it was good regardless of age and sex, and the soloist in the Bairstow was excellent, those few notes in the lower register causing no diminution of tone.

This was the consort - mixed voices with women on sop. as ever was. There was no choir of boys and men in this broadcast. In years past they would have sung the Preces & Responses and the canticles, with the consort doing the psalms and anthem, I think. Not sure if I've got that absolutely right, but it was a similar even distribution. The litany didn't work for me.

[ardcarp]

There was no choir of boys and men in this broadcast.

I suspected not. Mrs A reminded me that it was over 40 years ago when we last attended Edington.

We remember even now the choir's wonderful singing of Ps 136 where the first half of each verse was Dec, while Can sang "For His mercy endureth for ever" each time.

[Miles Coverdale]

Blessed City is a good romp, which I doubt could have been done with the old pre-Harrison organ.

Not least because it was nearly a semitone sharp. It did get quite tiring to sing with ...

[Keraulophone]

Blessed City is a good romp

Early on perhaps, but its meltingly beautiful final section is anything but.
.

[Magister Chori]

Apart from the opening processional plainsong (and the Canticles which I loathe) I enjoyed the Edington CE very much. I'm sure that plainsong would have been more spectacular if experienced in person, but to me it came over as too boringly repetitive and not flowing. The plainsong hymn was fine and those melodic fragments used by Bairstow in Blessed City were a lovely foreshadowing.

Agreed: the plainsong litany was indeed very plain, with every single syllable hammered. The responses and the office hymn had a much better flowing.

[ardcarp]

Early on perhaps, but its meltingly beautiful final section is anything but.
.

Agreed, the 'tune' (in this temple where we call Thee) was a reference to the plainsong hymn we heard earlier. But the two organ intros plus the solo in the middle were what I was thinking of. (I had to learn the accomp at 24 hours notice when I was a tenor lay clerk. Both organist and assistant ill will 'flu, and cathedral packed with Freemasons for their annual service. ('Heavenly architect' and all that.) Played it again at Lincoln with left-hand greenhouse door open.

[Finzi4ever]

Agreed, the 'tune' (in this temple where we call Thee) was a reference to the plainsong hymn we heard earlier. But the two organ intros plus the solo in the middle were what I was thinking of. (I had to learn the accomp at 24 hours notice when I was a tenor lay clerk. Both organist and assistant ill will 'flu, and cathedral packed with Freemasons for their annual service. ('Heavenly architect' and all that.) Played it again at Lincoln with left-hand greenhouse door open.

Do explain the 'greenhouse door' ref.

[ardcarp]

The console, up on the screen on the North side, used to have a sort of lean-to greenhouse built over it. You opened the RH door if you wanted to listen to the nave and the LH door the choir. Communications with conductor were not good in those days. We're talking about the early 70s here. No 'greenhouse' now and modern tech. for keeping together.