Lincoln makes the Daily Mail

[makropulos]

This story has clearly been stoked up by some enraged traditionalists, but it's not often the Mail (of all papers) has a piece about cathedral music:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2040040/Cathedral-choir-takes-woman-singer-900-years--traditionalist-group-brands-betrayal.html

[Chris Newman]

Salisbury did it many years ago. Some former girl choristers are well known professional singers now.

[makropulos]

Salisbury did it many years ago. Some former girl choristers are well known professional singers now.

Absolutely, Chris - nothing new about what Lincoln wants to do (and it sounds like a entirely excellent idea to me).

[Magnificat]

The point is that Lincoln will no longer have an all male choir.

It is a different situation to what happened at Salisbury where despite the first girls front line there is still an all male back row and they have maintained the choir of boys and men.

Whatever the merits of women altos people should not try to say that they are the same as men which is what always happens in any of these gender equality debates.

I have no objection to lady organists. Claire Innes - Hopkins is from a very talented St Albans family of musicians and will do a fine job as Lincoln's assistant organist I am sure.

VCC

[Miles Coverdale]

This story has clearly been stoked up by some enraged traditionalists, but it's not often the Mail (of all papers) has a piece about cathedral music:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-betrayal.html

True, but it does give it the opportunity to portray women in a bad light, which is something it usually excels at. Perhaps it's deliberate that the paper's 'Femail' column, which seems to think that all women are celebrity-obsessed airheads, opens alongside the story.

Note how the CTCC puts up a female spokesperson for this story. Mind you, for an organisation that spouts so much misogynist nonsense, it has a surprising number of female members. Odd.

And to call it a 'betrayal' of composers' intentions is ridiculous. A fair amount of what we now consider to be 'standard' cathedral choir repertoire (e.g., Byrd's Mass for four voices) would almost certainly have been sung by a mixture of male and female, young and old - whoever was on hand. And it is by no means certain that the alto (or, to be more accurate, contratenor) parts written by Tudor and Jacobean composers were conceived for what we now think of as male altos (i.e. falsettists). A number of professional choirs (The Tallis Scholars and The Monteverdi Choir, to name only two) have had mixed alto lines very successfully for some time. At least the CTCC can rest assured that this monstrous regiment of women won't go down any further than the alto line (as it were).

[AscribeUntoTheLad]

I did enjoy this comment at the bottom:

'I don't care for cathedral choirs because whatever they sing the words are totally un-intelligible. They all seem to have gob-stoppers in their mouths & the musical variations are cringe-making cacophinies of discordance. Give me a good choir that actually sing the tunes in harmony, with words that can be understood.'

although not as much as I liked this one:
'I am sick of the politically correct, the femenists and all the other nutters wanting to take our traditions away. No wonder England is losing its identity.'

It's PC gorn mad!

[Miles Coverdale]

I see the piece has now been slightly re-written, and gives rather more information. As a side-note, I would point out that Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden's daughter has been seen bumping the alto line at Tölz for a while now, but that seems to have crept under the 'traditionalist' radar.

[Simon]

The idea that it makes no difference to the sound is simply wrong.

The "more flexibility" argument is flannel and irrelevant: no really good male choir needs "more flexibility" to do what it does. I've recently heard three, and they managed quite well, thank you, without female altos.

The idea that for the past 500 odd years, composers have ben writing English church music for mixed choirs is plain silly - as ridiculous, in fact, as Miles claims the previously mentioned "betrayal" to be. Evidence, Mr Coverdale? List me, for example, the many females mentioned in the choir lists from a few cathedrals in, say, C17.

Having said that, maybe best not to dwell too much on Lincoln: they've had enough problems.

[Miles Coverdale]

I did not say that 17th-century cathedral choirs had women in them - I know well enough that they did not. I did, however, question the idea that a piece such as Byrd's Mass for four voices was written for a cathedral choir, and that Byrd would therefore have had male altos in mind. Leaving aside the question of whether cathedral choirs had male (falsettist) altos in them at that time (as I've said, that is far from certain), no English cathedral choir would have been singing Latin Masses or motets from the Gradualia in the late 16th or early 17th centuries. The only venue for performance of such music was the home, where it would have been sung by singers both male and female, young and old(er). In that sense, Byrd's Masses are not 'church' music (for they would not have been sung in churches), they are religious music - not the same thing.

[AscribeUntoTheLad]

The idea that it makes no difference to the sound is simply wrong.

But some male altos sound very much like women. Some female altos sound like men. There isn't a 'male alto' sound and nor is there a 'female alto' sound. Obviously you wouldn't want a woman in your choir who sounded like a Rhinemaiden, but there are plenty of female altos who blend very nicely with countertenors.

[Simon]

But some male altos sound very much like women. Some female altos sound like men. There isn't a 'male alto' sound and nor is there a 'female alto' sound. Obviously you wouldn't want a woman in your choir who sounded like a Rhinemaiden, but there are plenty of female altos who blend very nicely with countertenors.

a Rhinemaiden... no...

I agree that there are some women altos who would blend in with a male choir most of the time. I'm less sure that there are many men who sound like women altos.

Addendum: this story featured on Radio 4 6 o'clock news too.

[Simon]

I did not say that 17th-century cathedral choirs had women in them - I know well enough that they did not. I did, however, question the idea that a piece such as Byrd's Mass for four voices was written for a cathedral choir, and that Byrd would therefore have had male altos in mind. Leaving aside the question of whether cathedral choirs had male (falsettist) altos in them at that time (as I've said, that is far from certain), no English cathedral choir would have been singing Latin Masses or motets from the Gradualia in the late 16th or early 17th centuries. The only venue for performance of such music was the home, where it would have been sung by singers both male and female, young and old(er). In that sense, Byrd's Masses are not 'church' music (for they would not have been sung in churches), they are religious music - not the same thing.

OK, well, we're largely in agreement with this then. Although we can't know for sure. But modt would accept, I think, thast it is logical that the particular circumstances in relation to Catholic composers at various periods, and to the prescribed and preferred forms of "official" worship, would have precluded some music being performed in the all-male choirs of our cathedrals. And therefore it would have been sung, as you said, by any who were there and capable, in discreet venues.

But that of course doesn't mean that the composers hadn't the ideal of a male choir in mind - we can't know for sure. The Mass you mention - and Byrd's other Latin anthem texts - are little different in style, to my ears, from the more familiar canticles and anthems that we all know. But it's not a work we did in choir, so I'm happy to be convinced if there's a valid argument.

[Miles Coverdale]

OK, well, we're largely in agreement with this then. Although we can't know for sure. But most would accept, I think, that it is logical that the particular circumstances in relation to Catholic composers at various periods, and to the prescribed and preferred forms of "official" worship, would have precluded some music being performed in the all-male choirs of our cathedrals. And therefore it would have been sung, as you said, by any who were there and capable, in discreet venues.

You say we can't know for sure. In certain cases I think we can be pretty certain. Let's take a piece that many would consider the embodiment of what we now think of as English church music, Byrd's Ave verum - probably in the repertoire of every cathedral choir in this country. The idea that an English church or cathedral choir would have been singing a piece in Latin about the sacrament in post-Reformation England is, I think, a complete non-starter - I simply cannot imagine it happening. It is no coincidence that the music contained in such cathedral partbooks as survive from the period (e.g. the great collection at Durham) is, virtually without exception, in English. The great Latin works of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries survive in sources compiled either for private, recreational use (the Paston sources, for example) or by collectors (Robert Dow, John Baldwin and others). Virtually no music in Latin which we would now consider 'church' music from the period 1550 to 1650 has come down to us via the church route. It is true that Elizabeth I was not entirely averse to music in Latin per se, but I think her tolerance only extended to settings of 'non-controversial' texts, such as ones from the Psalms.

But that of course doesn't mean that the composers hadn't the ideal of a male choir in mind - we can't know for sure. The Mass you mention - and Byrd's other Latin anthem texts - are little different in style, to my ears, from the more familiar canticles and anthems that we all know. But it's not a work we did in choir, so I'm happy to be convinced if there's a valid argument.

To suggest that Byrd might nevertheless have had the ideal of an all-male choir in mind for his Latin music is, I think, projecting a modern view (which has a particular agenda) onto both him and his music.

[Simon]

But you talk only of Byrd. A special case, I might argue.
What about Shepherd? Writing at and for Magdalen he very assuredly had trebles in mind!

(Excuse brevity & haste - got to shoot off out.)

[Miles Coverdale]

True enough, but Sheppard (c 1515-1558) was mainly a pre-Reformation composer, while Byrd (1539/40-1623) was a post-Reformation one, and so the question of who would have performed their Latin works is very different.

In any case (and to get back to the original point), the idea that it is a 'betrayal' to perform any composer's music using forces that are different from those s/he either experienced or envisaged is, in my view, just a flag of convenience that suits the desire of some to exclude women/girls from the performance of church music. I don't suppose that Mozart envisaged any of his piano works being performed on a Steinway grand, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't hear them that way.