CE St Davids Cathedral on St David’s Day Wed, March 1st 2023 [L]

[DracoM]

CE St Davids Cathedral on St David’s Day Wed, March 1st 2023 [L]

Order of Service:

Introit: O Ddewi sanctaidd (Meirion Wynn Jones)
Responses: Alan Llewelyn Thomas
Office hymn: We praise thy name, all-holy Lord (Llangoffan)
Psalm 92 (Stanford)
First Lesson: Ezekiel 2: 1-7
Antiphon: A Responsory for St David (Plainsong, arr. Timothy Noon)
Canticles: Watson in E
Second Lesson: 1 Timothy 4: 1-8
Anthem: Give us the wings of faith (Oliver Tarney)
Hymn: Arglwydd, trefni mewn doethineb (Blaenwern)

Voluntary: Paean (Howells)

Laurence John (Assistant Director of Music)
Simon Pearce (Organist and Master of the Choristers)

[jonfan]

There can be no other place for a live CE when 1 March falls on a Wednesday. Plenty of Welsh input as well.
Congratulations DracoM on negotiating the use, or not, of apostrophes!

[DracoM]

'Twas a bit confusing given my distant education, but I erm...'took advice....'................!!

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 4 p.m.

[NHTL]

Disappointing mono sound.

[mw963]

Did they say anything at the start about a technical problem?

I tuned in a few minutes ago to find it's in mono. Is this another BBC cock-up?

(you beat me to it NHTL - does that stand for North Hessary Tor Listener?)

[mopsus]

I think I got a brief blast of stereo, now it's mono again.

[mw963]

Oh dear, some amusing technical fiddling going on, with the difference signal (Left minus Right) peaking 12 dB above the sum. Oh, and back to mono now.

Let's hope someone amidst the chaos remembered to start a local recording for the repeat.

[NHTL]

Yes North Hessary Tor listener. There was no word at the beginning to say they were having technical issues.

[mw963]

Good old NHT, fabulous place and fabulous structure. I'd still be listening to it on my Revox B160 if Radio 3 FM was unprocessed, but I migrated to DSat in 1999 to avoid the compression.

Lovely responses incidentally, even in mono.

[mw963]

I have to say that this live CE from a cathedral - ticking my two main boxes and now a rarity - has been absolutely ruined by the BBC's technical efforts.

Apart from being in mono, there was very audible manual gain riding (last hymn amongst others), and appalling quality of the mics on the speakers. Some of the balance on the choir was pretty strange. One gets the impression that something major went wrong, but why they needed to fiddle with levels so clumsily is less obvious.

It'll be interesting to hear the repeat, if there were problems with the sound desk one suspects that the recording may be as bad. I had assumed early on that it was merely a links-back-to-London problem, but I'm guessing now that it was something local to the OB.

Ah - we have an apology.

[NHTL]

mw963, agree about the responses. I think that they must be using soft clippers on the output now (https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publication...mission-chains) as the sound on FM has recently improved, in my opinion, with the compression less obvious. I used to listen via DAB, but find that often on FM the instruments, etc. sound more realistic. I still mainly use DAB in the car.

[DracoM]

Glad they made apologies for the technical 'issues'. Agree with MW963.
And one 'treble's' domination NOT helpful.

Sorry, but that was a mess.

[jonfan]

Well some listeners like it live and the dangers thereof, so enjoy the moment St Davids is remote from places that think they’re at the centre of things.
The small miracle that is this choir deserve the best sound and I do hope the Sunday repeat does justice to the splendid singing we just heard. Many highlights for me, in particular the Responsory with a lovely treble solo, and also the Responses, Canticles and Anthem. Good to have plenty of Welsh also; I think Blaenwern had one of Marlow’s double descants in the last verse? Splendid organ playing from Laurence John with a suitably lugubrious Lenten Mathias piece to start and ending with a triumphant Howells.
Again, I do hope for better experience on Sunday because this CE deserves it.

[DracoM]