St Thomas Fifth Avenue NYC

[ardcarp]

NCO do it rather well too...pity not today.

[DracoM]

Ah, but do they do it slowly?

[DracoM]

Bad weather must be coming our way in the next week: St Thomas Fifth Ave have this evening [ Feb 13th] cancelled yet another CE because of violent snowstorms in NYC.

[DracoM]

St Thomas's Ash Wednesday Distribution of Ashes and Eucharist are now available on demand from their website.
Farrant, Allegri Miserere, Missa Bell'Amfriti'altera / Josquin Des Pres.

http://www.saintthomaschurch.org/calendar/events/worship-services/9010/the-solemn-liturgy-of-ash-wednesday

[DracoM]

Gabrieli, Wesley [Wash me etc], Farrant, Pelham Humfrey over the next few days from St T, conducted by the new Asst Organist, Ben Sheen while john Scott is in London at RFH etc.

Note that live relays of 5.30 services will start in UK at 9.30 p.m. until we change to BST.

[Wolsey]

How lucky Saint Thomas Church is to have Carl Turner (Precentor, Exeter Cathedral) as their new Rector!

[Miles Coverdale]

Or, to look at it another way, how lucky Carl Turner is to be getting what I imagine is a hefty pay rise. I couldn't help noticing that St Thomas's web site has corrected the grammar in Mr Turner's press release. Oh the irony...

[ardcarp]

...but Carl will sing the offices very well, which, er.......I'll say no more!

[Oldcrofter]

Yes, Miles, "the right time for my wife and I to move" - a cathedral press release and a basic grammatical error which used to be corrected by your English teacher in the first year of secondary school with the simple instruction "follow it through with both words - right time for my wife, right time for me - would you say "right time for I" ??

Well, maybe here in Gloucestershire, or down there in Devon, the cathedral staff might possibly say "it's the roight toim for moi woif 'n' oi" !

[Vox Humana]

Well, maybe here in Gloucestershire, or down there in Devon, the cathedral staff might possibly say "it's the roight toim for moi woif 'n' oi" !

Or maybe something like, "'Tez time vur me an my missis tü be agwaine."

https://archive.org/details/cu31924026612808

[Oldcrofter]

Vox !

[DracoM]

Vox

[ardcarp]

Returning to musical matters, I have just listened to St Thomas's Festal Evemsong from Sunday 18th May (inc. Howells' St Paul's Service). I haven't heard them for a while due to internet 'connectivity issues'...yuk....and I have to say their singing is absolutely superb at the moment. This is probably a cruel and slightly provocative comment, but it is hard to think of a UK men-and-boys choir that can do the Anglican stuff with such aplomb at the moment.

http://www.saintthomaschurch.org/calendar/events/worship-services/8868/festal-evensong

One sadness is how painful hymns are to listen to because of the awful acoustical lag as it comes over on the webcasts. The congregation is always half-a-second behind. Can't anything be done about this? It's been like it for always.

[decantor]

Returning to musical matters, I have just listened to St Thomas's Festal Evemsong from Sunday 18th May (inc. Howells' St Paul's Service). I haven't heard them for a while due to internet 'connectivity issues'...yuk....and I have to say their singing is absolutely superb at the moment. This is probably a cruel and slightly provocative comment, but it is hard to think of a UK men-and-boys choir that can do the Anglican stuff with such aplomb at the moment.

http://www.saintthomaschurch.org/calendar/events/worship-services/8868/festal-evensong

One sadness is how painful hymns are to listen to because of the awful acoustical lag as it comes over on the webcasts. The congregation is always half-a-second behind. Can't anything be done about this? It's been like it for always.

Is your final comment a deliberate irony, ardcarp? After all, English congregations are often a full second behind organ and choir. I thought those New Yorkers were doing well at half-a-second, so why blame the webcast?

I have a different problem in listening to STNYC online. The modulation level (or whatever it's called) is so low that, even at full volume, I have to crouch over the speakers to hear how the choir are doing. I agree they sound terrific, but it is like listening from outside the building, and distance makes the heart grow fonder. English webcasts are so much more immediate, risking the transmission of every blemish. Is it the 3000 miles of ocean that makes the difference, or does my computer have an anti-American bias?

STNYC under Scott are certainly a wondrous outfit, but do we really have nothing to compare? I won't name names, as a contest would be pointless, undignified, and subjective, but there are a number of English all-male choirs that reach similar levels of accomplishment and that I find equally thrilling to hear - and hear from inside the building! I don't think we need throw in the towel yet.

[ardcarp]

There was a programme on TV last week about laying telephone cables under the Atlantic. Perhaps they haven't got it cracked yet. I agree St T's webcasts are as heard by a fly on the West wall; in other words, they are not manicured or edited.
Maybe I get a bit carried away with my eulogies depending on whom I'm listening to at the moment. Indeed there are some good choirs around, Decs, one not too far away from our West Country retreats; but what I was trying to say is that some of the places where you'd think excellence might abound...well, 'nuff said.

I wouldn't choose St T's as my preferred performers of Furchte Dich Nicht. They made a brave stab at this 8-part motet...maybe stab is the word. The legato lines soared beautifully but where the light detached style JS was aiming for was needed, it was not quite within his trebles' [or any other trebles'?] capabilities at that brisk tempo. But the Howells.......