CE: St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge, London 15.ii.23

[Guest]

Ahem..........this CE / concert ..........erm........reminder. Today @ 4 p.m.

ROTFL!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I've more or less stopped posting here as it's often so argumentative, but it also goes hand in hand with my having stopped listening to CE. Why? Because - here we are, half way through February - and we have yet to have a Cathedral relay in 2023.

And the few Cathedral broadcasts we get almost always seem to be "Festivals", often with mixed top lines (which for me is the worst of all worlds, I'm fine with one choir or the other when there are two), and far far away from an "eavesdropped wet-Thursday-afternoon Evensong", as it's often described here.

I'm also getting a bit fed up with the apologists for the BBC on here, constantly looking for excuses for what to me looks like a gradual trashing of what I understand by the idea of a radio Choral Evensong. Oh, and the BBC staff of course do actually get paid fairly well (which wasn't the case thirty years ago).

I have less of a problem with the idea of recording CEs, as has been stated it's vanishingly rare for retakes to be done, but like S H Otley the end result is the same for me - another listener who has given up, and who - in spite of not finding the medium so easy - is trying to get into the habit of going to cathedrals via their webcasts.

My ,perhaps more current, information MW is that the staff aren’t better paid than they were thirty years ago. Back then there were things like annual increments and final salary pensions . Those went long ago. The other thing that’s happened which saves a fortune is freezing the entry level bands on salaries. The BBC staff are however better paid than the performers and quite probably the clerics.

[mw963]

Thanks for the various comments and thoughts. People have been very kind.

[DracoM]

Ref the CE: NO!

[jonfan]

Owain Park’s stars have well and truly risen both as composer and conductor. The BBCS often sound uncomfortable singing liturgical music in a worship setting but here they sounded as if they were a top class choir singing at an Oxbridge college, and that is meant as a great compliment to a group that has to adapt to all styles. Much of this is down Park I’m sure, with excellent choices of music that were fresh and stimulating in the CE context and sung with a straight sound. The Shepherd Responses are always a sheer joy to hear. The singers could be suitably romantic in the anthem with additional brass colours. Not a great Parry piece IMO but crowned with the splendid tune to ‘O praise ye the Lord’, the last verse a taxing pedal part on the organ I find!! All fun though.
Do organ and brass blend together? Not really as shown in the final voluntary with wincing intonation clashes. The pictures show a large congregation present and they joined lustily in the hymn. A rewarding CE.

[ardcarp]

Not really as shown in the final voluntary with wincing intonation clashes.

Pieces with bras and organ can be exhilarating! But those poor players presumably had to sit there, contributing very little until the final 'voluntary' with no chance to tune up. Wind instruments are notoriously affected by minor changes in temperature and humidity. I still find it rather strange, that with all the above talk about salaries and BBC frugality, that a handful of professional brass-players (+percussion?) all on MU rates presumably, could be afforded, let alone the BBCS.

I enjopyed the service very much. But it probably did not tick the boxes of our more traditional forumistas that (a) prefer services to concerts (b) like things live and (c) like cathedrals on wet weekday afternoons.

To be picky (as I often am) one soprano in the BBCS anticipated the starts of phrases on a few occasions. We're talking microseconds here.

PS Glad the Ash Wednesday service is coming live from St John's again next week.

[Peanut]

Sounds like a CE Fest. The BBC obviously isn't obsessed with saving a penny or two as some have suggested.

Au contraire. The involvement of both BBC musical ensembles in this recording will have been factored into their provision/allocation of so many broadcasts delivered to Radio 3 - and therefore funded by Radio 3 - for the whole year. (Most of the BBC musicians in this broadcast will be on a BBC salary, and therefore Choral Evensong won't have had to have put the payment of these musicians through their books, unlike the payment of other Choral Evensong choirs.) Therefore, whilst there is, in theory, a cost for having these performers in this broadcast because it's one less broadcast when they might have, instead, been involved in a broadcast concert or session recording for the likes of Afternoon on 3, the cost is so embedded within the overall annual Radio 3 package that, in effect, it's a free Choral Evensong broadcast as far as the Choral Evensong budget is concerned.

So, far from appearing to be pushing the cost boat out, it's the opposite. And, on top of that, it was even cheaper because it was recorded, saving the cost of live links back to Broadcasting House.

I don't know if a congregation was present but, all in all, it was therefore yet another concocted broadcast for radio and far from what I delight in: eaves-dropping on a live act of worship sung by a choir which sings for its local community, day in day out, whether the mics are there or not. With so few places where our age-old choral tradition is still being supported (ie cathedrals) getting a broadcast slot these days (because of cost), Radio 3 is, in essence, creating a 'premier league' of cheap (if usually good) choirs without supporting the grassroots. (Of course, the question is, is it Radio 3's responsibility to!)

[Peanut]

I don't know if a congregation was present...

Obviously, from the sound of the final hymn, there was.

[DracoM]

<< PS Glad the Ash Wednesday service is coming live from St John's again next week.>>

[Peanut]

The voluntary was one of the most painful things I've heard on R3 in a long time.

[jonfan]

https://twitter.com/BBCSingers/status/1621540645922799619/photo/3

A link to a picture taken after the service, receiving due applause.

'Pieces with bras and organ can be exhilarating!'
Wow yes, I bet they can!
Pros can surely wait many minutes before they play and be in tune. Trombones in Beethoven 5 and Brahms 1 for example.

[Keraulophone]

https://twitter.com/BBCSingers/statu...799619/photo/3
A link to a picture taken after the service, receiving due applause.

…which makes it seem even more like a concert.

A former Dean of ours once asked, from the pulpit, members of the congregation not to applaud the organist after the closing voluntary. Unfortunately, it has become the norm.
.

[jonfan]

…which makes it seem even more like a concert.

A former Dean of ours once asked, from the pulpit, members of the congregation not to applaud the organist after the closing voluntary. Unfortunately, it has become the norm.
.

We’d have to ask the people attending St Paul’s if they thought they were at a concert or a service, an individual’s response to what’s gone before. For me I was able respond to the broadcast as an act of worship and I’m sure that was the intention of the clergy and musicians. I expect an Anglican CE worship to start and end in silence and so it did yesterday. After a triumphal final voluntary it would be a natural reaction to applaud when the red light goes off or under usual conditions after a big finish on the organ, much the same as shouts of ‘Alleluia!’ in freer forms of worship popular amongst the young today. It’s often hard to tell in a Pentecostal style service when worship starts or stops from daily life, or perhaps that’s the intention?
As an organist I play quiet, slow moving music at the start of a service for preparation for worship, usually ruined by loud greetings at the back which initiate general conversation. At the end of the service I play something louder and faster, but then attended by loud chatter over coffee. A no win situation but the only piece that keeps everyone quiet is Nimrod, but I can’t play that every week.

[hmvman]

To be picky (as I often am) one soprano in the BBCS anticipated the starts of phrases on a few occasions. We're talking microseconds here.

I noticed that too. It reminded me of experience in the amateur choirs I've sung with. I didn't expect to hear it in the BBCS!

[cat]

I've heard brass used very effectively for services before*, but it does seem a bit unusual to have the players twiddling their thumbs (or waiting in a nearby pub) until the final hymn and voluntary. Partly for that reason the service didn't feel very cohesive to me, although most of the music wasn't my cup of tea so that's probably my fault.

*(A recorded example for those interested would be The Tudor Choir Book CD on Convivium Records which contains morning and evening canticles plus a number of anthems and psalms, all with period brass, and organ etc)