Brian Judge

[decantor]

Rolmill, I'm most grateful for those further pieces for my jigsaw, though it begins to look like we will never see a complete picture. At least your tentative 'thumbs-up' to the man's music matches my impression of fifty years ago.

[french frank]

Isn't life like that! I found what I hoped was a 'living' link to BJ (by googling: Ambrosian Prayer "Brian Judge") who might have been able to contribute some further information, but the website appears not to be functioning. Here's the google reference anyway, in case it is of help:

[decantor]

Isn't life like that! I found what I hoped was a 'living' link to BJ (by googling: Ambrosian Prayer "Brian Judge") who might have been able to contribute some further information, but the website appears not to be functioning. Here's the google reference anyway, in case it is of help.

Yes, life is like that! My clever old browser tells me that I've previously visited the page you refer to, FF, but I have no recollection of it. But the page is not so much malfunctioning as deliberately blocked: the archive (in this case Oct 2009, apparently) is available only to registered subscribers of the Church Times.

You set me off on an amusing trail, however: I've been to America, where the Ambrosian Prayer CD is still on sale (used), I've viewed the complete piano recordings of Stephen Coombs, I've been redirected back to this FoR3 Forum, and at one stage I was invited to visit the Facebook page of a Mr Brian Jude! I also noticed that the Ambrosian Prayer never found a publisher, so I suppose the chances of my lighting upon a score of the Responses that triggered this quest are tending towards zero.

I'm most grateful for your continued interest and effort.

[french frank]

I've just had another notice about Brian Judge, from Bryan Robson (to whom many thanks):

He was a choral scholar of St John's Cambridge in the late 1950s. I met him
on an Ashwell Festival summer course. Subsequently it was the Wellington
(Som.) Festival. I was a choral scholar at Magdalen Oxford, under Bernard
Rose. In January 1960 Brian invited me to sing as a bass with his
Shoreham-based 'Tudor Singers' during their brief concert season. We sang
fascinating, varied and adventurous programmes in such venues as Brighton
and Petworth, including a Third Programme broadcast recorded in the Brighton
Pavilion.

Brian was a dynamic, eclectic musician and choral conductor, a life-force.
He gathered good singers about him (Oxbridge plus girls), including Mark
Deller. He wrote incidental music for my production of Hamlet at Campbell
College Belfast (unfortunately now lost, both scores and recording).
He was an inspiration. Sadly, we lost touch - although I did meet up with
him again when he was Ass't Director of Music at Sherborne School. I got the
impression life had not gone well with him. I guess he was a depressive.

[decantor]

Many thanks indeed, FF, for forwarding that additional info in #19. After such a eulogy from BR, it seems all the more a pity that Brian Judge has left such a tenuous footprint on both the net and our musical heritage - perhaps the closing sentences (above) are a partial explanation. I curse myself for being so backward in coming forward at the time I heard his work - which, it seems, had a habit of disappearing. My thanks again.