CE Exeter Cathedral October 5th 2011

[DracoM]

CE Exeter Cathedral



Order of Service:


Introit: A Celtic Psalm (Stephen Tanner)
Responses: Shephard
Psalms: 27, 28, 29 (Monk, Clark, Hylton-Stewart, Atkins)
Hymn: O blest creator of the light (Lucis Creator)
First Lesson: Proverbs 2:1-15
Canticles: Gloucester Service (Richard Shephard)
Second Lesson: Colossians 1: 9-20
Anthem: Laudate Dominum (Ronald Corp) (first broadcast)
Hymn: Word of God, come down on earth (Liebster Jesu)



Organ Voluntary: Dance Rondo (Philip Moore)



David Davies (Organist)
Stephen Tanner (Director of the Choir)

[ardcarp]

Did anyone listen, then?

[DracoM]

Very decent, safe navigation of a service with some real traps for the unwary.

Very much liked the plainchant Lucis Creator. The young - or so it sounded - male back row really came into their own here. Nice natural rhythms, and good forward motion without haste. Men’s diction a lot better than the girls! The Shephard canticles felt just a bit hurried?

The Corp anthem sounded a bit of a fiend to sing? I wonder if the choir had to work very hard to get their heads round it? My guess is that they can and have done it more justice in other circs than a live broadcast. Liked the rhythms, ostinato-like, the overlapping rhythms were interesting, maybe just a tad repetitive, but that's a matter of taste.

Actually, for me much the most ear-catching item was the Tanner introit. Lovely Northumbrian pipes-like filigree from the organ across a drone, and the girls coped particularly well here with the high passages. Young voices on the back row –– and it would be interesting to hear the piece with rather more gravelly basses perhaps? But a fine piece.

[decantor]

I found this a perfectly reverent, engaging service. But within it I found little of the music to be engaging - and I refer to the composition, not the performance.

The introit delivered what it said on the tin - Psalm 23 in Celtic mode - and it served its purpose well enough. The canticles belonged to the 'modern unchallenging' genus (species: utility 'short service'), and I thought the Nunc to be much superior to the Mag. The anthem, as a setting of Ps.150 left me bewildered. It began with percussive chords in the lower voices, and I pricked my ears in anticipation of what was to come, but by the time we arrived at tympano and cymbalis the piece was in the grip of a lilting compound time and percussion was a thing of the past; by the last line (Omnis spiritus laudet), a rallying call to all humanity and his cat, the piece had dissolved into broken whispers. Now, I'm all for a fresh take on well known words, but the rationale here escaped me as the notes seemed to defy the text. Maybe I should have another go, or rent a new brain.

I thought the choir delivered the music well, especially the psalms - some lovely hushed singing here. Inevitably the satiny smooth marble of the girls' timbre left me wishing for boys' sturdier granite and bronze at times, but equally their honeyed dead-centre tones were very effective at others - no male chauvinist point was proved today. I thank Exeter for an agreeable contribution to CE, despite my reservations above.

[DracoM]

decantor

Like you, in that anthem, I was puzzled, but on second hearing via LA, it occurred to me to wonder if something had gone wrong in the performance. It was almost as if a number had lost confidence on where it was going and sort of wound down to pp or something. Bit odd.

[Finzi4ever]

Sorry to bring up the age-old moan of engineering balance but all the choir's effort made in the feisty psalms was nothing less than ruined by this (IMHO). I accept antiphonal singing is going to prove tricky to capture well especially if the two sides are not equal in strength and balance between parts, but we had one side at a considerable distance and not singing with much ensemble, while the other seemed miked up a young tenor's nose, with barely perceivable bass and a thin and rather desparate-sounding top line. With a fair amount of experience of singing there, I know how dry that quire is acoustically and with the organ on the screen/transept distance is a problem. Two provisos: this is a) how it came over on LA rather than live and b) I'm keen to point out this is no criticism of how much better the choir must surel have sounded in the building. With a lot of psalm verses to get through and the clock ticking it makes sense to crack on with them, but I felt this early in the year some were playing catch up.

[decantor]

Like you, in that anthem, I was puzzled, but on second hearing via LA, it occurred to me to wonder if something had gone wrong in the performance. It was almost as if a number had lost confidence on where it was going and sort of wound down to pp or something. Bit odd.

DracoM, on LA - under headphones this time - I could detect no obvious farming around or abandoning ship at the end of the anthem. I conclude that the choir gave us what Corp wrote. I assume he deliberately avoided the obvious cues for word-painting, and perhaps settled on "dances" as his main conceit. Even so, the coda, as it were, is very long-drawn-out and bitty, and its hushed character possibly invites a re-interpretation of the word Spiritus as something ethereal and mystical: if so, I'd say it was a misinterpretation that didn't work terribly well musically either.

[ardcarp]

Even so, the coda, as it were, is very long-drawn-out and bitty

,

I have to admit that the word 'rambling' was floating around my head towards the end. There were some original ideas and textures in Mr Corp's piece, but I got the impression of a non-minimalist composer trying to do minimalism.

[DracoM]

Well, it's got us talking................!