CE Chapel of Merton College, Oxford [R] Wed, 20th April 2022

[DracoM]

CE Chapel of Merton College, Oxford [R] Wed, 20th April 2022


Order of Service:


Introit: Now the green blade riseth (Trad. French, arr. Terry)
Responses: Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Psalm 105 (Murrill, Nicholas, Buck)
First Lesson: Song of Songs 3: 1-11
Canticles: Stanford in A
Second Lesson: Matthew 28: 16-20
Anthem: Te Deum in G (Vaughan Williams)

Voluntary: Symphonie Romane, Op 73 (Moderato) (Widor)

Simon Hogan (Organist)
Owen Chan (Organ Scholar)

Benjamin Nicholas (Director of Music)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016bbn

[ardcarp]

Glad the VW Te Deum is getting an airing. One of my fave Te Deum settings.....and as there's no broadcast Mattins, the anthem slot in CE seems a good place to have an occasional morning canticle.

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 4 p.m.

[jonfan]

Recorded 2 November last year according to Radio Times.
The Responses are new and challenging to sing according to a member of the choir who posted last November.

[jonfan]

This is one of the finest CEs I've ever heard, not only on a musical and spiritual level but also with superb balanced and exciting sound capturing the detail and huge climaxes. I can't find words to describe the beauty and the fervent communicatiion of the singing. A lovely introit based on 'Now the green blade' with Martin Shaw's delectable harmony and arranged by Terry [not RR].
The responses were very challenging and attacked; convincingly sold to me! [The 'Lord have mercy's could have been addressed on behalf of the singers!]
I enjoyed the quirky harmony in the DOM's chant in the psalm - full of colourful detail. The Canticles and anthem were delivered with passion and inner detial as though every note mattered and must be communicated.
The spoken elements were equally important to the success of the whiole.
Just as important to the service were the organ and the organists, with delectable use of this superb Dobson instrument. The long psalm enriched with colourful descriptiions of the plagues of Egypt, equal to Handel's. Subtle colour and flashes of reeds in the Canticles, ending with a superb voluntary.
This CE should please Barry Rose's conditions in spades - full psalm and voluntary with very high quality delivery and [to me] a very moving act of worship. I do recommend giving this CE a close hearing.

[Vox Humana]

I enjoyed the quirky harmony in the DOM's chant in the psalm - full of colourful detail.

Actually, it's by his dad.

Yes, a very fine service indeed. Merton are consistently one of the best ecclesiastical choirs out there.

[DracoM]

Recorded 2 November last year according to Radio Times.
The Responses are new and challenging to sing according to a member of the choir who posted last November.

Dead right - REAL challenge. Bet they were relieved to have the Howells to sing later!
Some beautiful moments.

[jonfan]

Actually, it's by his dad.

Yes, a very fine service indeed. Merton are consistently one of the best ecclesiastical choirs out there.

Thanks for the correction, I hadn’t looked closely enough.
BBC Sounds headline, but not the listing, and the closing announcement state Kentaro Machida as the second organist. A bit of left hand not knowing what the right is doing?

[cat]

According to their site, last week's evensong featured Johann Sebastian Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suite No.5 in C Minor performed Yo‐Yo Ma. I find they get this sort of thing absurdly wrong more often than not.

[jonfan]

According to their site, last week's evensong featured Johann Sebastian Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suite No.5 in C Minor performed Yo‐Yo Ma. I find they get this sort of thing absurdly wrong more often than not.

In their defence this time Cat that indicated a fillup at the end of the service as it ended early.

[ardcarp]

I agree with jonfan and others that this was an excellent Evensong. The VW Te Deum was so well balanced and phrased. Stanford in A Canticles are not my favourite of his settings.....they are a bit over-symphonic IMVHO and the organ part is a bit of a so-and-so to play neatly; but done well here. (I wish Stanford in G was heard more often, but I suppose it depends on a really secure treble/soprano soloist. The organ part of the Mag...the spinning wheel...isn't really hard at all. The arpeggios seem to fall quite happily under the fingers.) But I digress. Yes, Merton is certainly up there with the best.

[jonfan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVND1ImoerM&t=4528s

A link to 9 April Evensong where the Frances-Hoad Responses were sung again - well done to the Chaplain Precentor for somehow hanging on to his reciting notes. Big Reubke and Liszt organ pieces book end the service. I may be new to the party here, and Merton's webcasts are well known, but they not only sound good but look superb as well. I like how the DOM is unobtrusively off to the side and not the centre of attention in the middle of the space between the stalls. It emphasises that it's not a concert but an act of worship with the music a part of the whole.

[ardcarp]

I like how the DOM is unobtrusively off to the side and not the centre of attention in the middle of the space between the stalls.

I had two old friends (now both departed to sing with the angels) who were choral scholars at Kings pre- WW2. One even sang under 'Daddy' Mann but both under Boris Ord. They were both very sniffy about the modern practice of the O&C conducting the choir mid-aisle. Apparently Boris would place himself in a treble stall and wag a finger...or the choir would often sing un-conducted. Richard Greening, organist at Lichfield in the 60s and 70s also stood in a treble stall and made absolutely microscopic movements of a finger to direct the choir. It certainly made everyone watch!

[jonfan]

I had two old friends (now both departed to sing with the angels) who were choral scholars at Kings pre- WW2. One even sang under 'Daddy' Mann but both under Boris Ord. They were both very sniffy about the modern practice of the O&C conducting the choir mid-aisle. Apparently Boris would place himself in a treble stall and wag a finger...or the choir would often sing un-conducted. Richard Greening, organist at Lichfield in the 60s and 70s also stood in a treble stall and made absolutely microscopic movements of a finger to direct the choir. It certainly made everyone watch!

The famous 1954 TV carols shows Boris O finger wagging! I have a feeling Willcocks and Ledger conducted from the treble stalls?

[Keraulophone]

The famous 1954 TV carols shows Boris O finger wagging!

I was about to quote the same… and it’s a very discreet forefinger. I remember Bernard Rose doing a similar thing from the same position at Magdalen, Oxford in the late 1970s.

Although I do have a preference for relatively undemonstrative direction during services, we quickly found that when teenage girl choristers stood between us and the conductor standing beside cantoris, he disappeared! This has necessitated a central position. By contrast with the YT link, the photo of Merton on the R3 CE webpage shows the DoM conducting centrally in the quire.