CE Ely Cathedral 21.vi. 2023 [L]

[DracoM]

CE Ely Cathedral 21.vi. 2023 [L]

Order of Service:

Introit: The Gateway of Heaven (Paul Trepte)
Responses: Rose
Psalms 4, 121, 124 (Turle, Walford Davies, Hunt)
First Lesson: Isaiah 61 v.10 – 62 v.3
Ely Sequence (Anon)
Canticles: Ely Canticles (Janet Wheeler)
Second Lesson: Revelation 21 vv.1-7
Anthem: And when the builders (Shephard)
Hymn: Thanks be to God for his saints (Lobe den Herrn)

Voluntary: Symphony No 6 (Final) (Vierne)

Glen Dempsey (Assistant Director of Music)
Edmund Aldhouse (Director of Music)

[ardcarp]

Ely has a very good girls' choir. I wonder if the boys and girls will be combined for this broadcast? Any inside info welcome.

[ttam.esor]

I wonder if the boys and girls will be combined for this broadcast? Any inside info welcome.

Boys and Girls shown in rehearsal photos.

"I have derived some of the melodic material from the pitches given by the numbers 1350 and 673 - either as degrees of the scale or as intervals above a pivotal pitch, treating the zero as a rest." Janet Wheeler.

[Pulcinella]

Boys and Girls shown in rehearsal photos.

"I have derived some of the melodic material from the pitches given by the numbers 1350 and 673 - either as degrees of the scale or as intervals above a pivotal pitch, treating the zero as a rest." Janet Wheeler.

Suggesting that the canticles were written in/for 2023, but presumably this is not their first performance (first broadcast, perhaps?).

[DracoM]

Reminder: today at usual time.

[subcontrabass]

Suggesting that the canticles were written in/for 2023, but presumably this is not their first performance (first broadcast, perhaps?).

First performance was on June 4th 2023 according to the Cathedral music list ( https://cdn.elycathedral.org/uploads...f?v=1685028809 ) and the composer's website ( https://janetwheeler.co.uk/ely-servi...h-anniversary/ ).

[JasonPalmer]

On soon.....listening in....

[mw963]

Very enjoyable, superb in all respects, including the sound balance (with which I'm not always terribly happy nowadays). The organ pedals really rolled effortlessly out of my speakers.

But why oh why does Skellie have to jump in so soon after the voluntary. It's all so undignified, and makes me hover over the volume control in order to rid myself of the intrusion as quickly as possible.

[DracoM]

Rousing vol.

[Vox Humana]

But why oh why does Skellie have to jump in so soon after the voluntary. It's all so undignified, and makes me hover over the volume control in order to rid myself of the intrusion as quickly as possible.

It's a common infliction. Perhaps they're all frustrated DJs.

[oddoneout]

They can't bear the thought you might not know what the next programme is, and in your ignorance switch off...
But yes the needing to have the mute/volume button under the thumb for immediate deployment is far too frequent a requirement these days. If it isn't a premature presenter it's the rackety, increasingly irrelevant(TV, Cerys Matthews, etc, ie not R3) even) adverts.

[jonfan]

Wonderful singing with floor shaking bass from the organ! I liked the contrast of the unaccompanied central Psalm 121 to Walford Davies' delectable chant. In defence of Ian Skelly he was right up against the clock and maybe the prepared trailer should have been abandoned.

[ardcarp]

Yes a very enjoyable CE.

including the sound balance

.....except the BBC engineers got the wrong mike for the first spoken words. A minor point, but not very professional.

As for the fashion for 'preludising', Mrs A and I now chorus, "Here ends the first lesson" even before the biblical text starts.

Returning to the sensible subject of singing, it really sounded as if the choristers were enjoying the experience, especially the anthem.

[Quilisma]

As it's now 23rd June, may I wish you all a very Happy St Etheldreda's Day from all of us at Ely! In fact we always observe it on the nearest Sunday instead, so this is actually a day off for the choir to recover from the exertions of Wednesday's CE broadcast and also the pre-record as-live broadcast which we for BBC Radio 4 Sunday Worship on Tuesday, also involving everyone, which Sarah MacDonald directed and which will be aired at the beginning of September. (A lot of people seem to think it's always cold in Ely Cathedral, but all of us will vouch for the fact that over the past few days it has been extremely warm and airless in most of the building, just as it has been outside!) Yesterday was a normal Thursday for the boys and lay clerks, so we're a bit tired...

After this brief but welcome Friday hiatus, tomorrow at midday there is a big Celebratory Eucharist officially marking the 1350th anniversary of the foundation of Ely's first monastery (for both monks and nuns) by Etheldreda. This features the Archbishop of York (given the important Northumbrian episode in Etheldreda's life story) and the soon-to-be-leaving Bishop of Ely, and the full Cathedral Choir and the Ely Cathedral Octagon Singers (our voluntary choir) will be singing. Then on Sunday we are marking St Etheldreda's Day in usual style (again with the full Cathedral Choir), and Festal Evensong will be followed by Dec versus Can cricket. All three of the weekend services will be livestreamed as normal on our YouTube channel (assuming there are no insurmountable technological or network-related mishaps!), so do watch those if you are so inclined. Next week is busy too because members of the Cambridgeshire Historic Churches Trust are coming for a special Evensong on Tuesday as well, and then at the end of the week we have the two Ordination services, and then before we know it it will be the end of term and of the school/choir year, and then the boys and lay clerks are immediately off on tour to Germany for a week...

Anyway, we were sorry not to be able to bring you the Etheldreda Sequence as planned, because (like the third verse of the final hymn) it had to be cut on the day to get the service down to the right length. (As it turned out, the length ended up being exactly right, as the clock chimed exactly as the last chord of the Vierne voluntary finished. I daresay this is why some people felt the continuity announcer jumped in too hastily, but frankly I didn't really see the problem there in this instance.) The Etheldreda Sequence will feature in one of the Sunday services, presumably in the Office Hymn slot at Evensong, so you will be able to hear it on the relevant livestream if you wish. This is "traditional Ely use" and "of unknown origin", but it's unlikely to be genuinely medieval; it has been in use at least since the 1950s, so our best guess is that it might have been "discovered" (i.e. ghost-written) by either Sidney Campbell or Michael Howard with assistance from Arthur Wills...

I hope people liked Janet Wheeler's canticles; we have found them enjoyable, and I daresay they could also be suitable for other places and times with no link to Ely or Etheldreda, as the recurring references to the numbers 1350 and 673 don't come at the expense of its coherence as music in its own right.

[vinteuil]

As it's now 23rd June, may I wish you all a very Happy St Etheldreda's Day from all of us at Ely!

... thank you! And thanks to all at Ely.

(My poor ma almost ended up being called Etheldreda. Her mother, a devoted parishioner at St Etheldreda's (not Ely Place but Fulham, Anglo-Catholic in those days) wanted it so - happily the priest persuaded her that Audrey wd be just as good.
So my brothers and I, naturally, referred to her as Etheldreda, Æthelthryth, Æðelþryð, Æþelðryþe... )