CE Manchester Cathedral 8th Feb 2012

[Magnificat]

Why on earth didn't they let one of the men sing the versicles.

If the Precentor is a woman OK as long as she can sing. This lady could not and she should be appointed a bishop as soon as possible!

Didn't think much of the psalm chants. I prefer Wesley and S Nicholson to psalms 42/43.

It's good to have new and different music for a change on CE but on the whole I thought the choir tried to do more than they were really capable of. The Britten was poorly sung I thought. Shame because it's good to be able to hear one of the morning canticles as an add on to Evensong now that Matins is rarely heard in cathedrals.

VCC.

[DracoM]

Could not disagree with you more, VCC. What a miserably, miserly, unsmiling response to this quite jolly service! I grant St Barry was not on the podium, but, for goodness' sake.....
The canticles had nicely balanced groupings, interesting and distinctive solo voices, and plenty of energy and musicality, and it was refreshing to hear both Gabrieli and Britten.

And no-one has commented on the Judith Bingham? Inventive? Worth getting a first perf? Welcome addition to the repertoire?

[mopsus]

I found the Bingham grew on me as it went on, but I'm not sure how the text works in a liturgical setting. The words are fascinating (I once did some research on them when I sang Britten's setting in a recital, and found that this carol is almost unique in being both attested in mediaeval sources and collected as folk song - in the Appalachians). But they are very obscure. I'm open to being convinced, if someone can tell me what they are supposed to mean!
As a sometime resident of Manchester, I greatly enjoyed the first lesson too.

[DracoM]

He bear her off, he bear her down
He bear her into an orchard ground

Lu li lu lay lu li lu lay
The falcon hath bourne my mate away

- the action of the Divine Falcon, the Divine Predator. The refrain is both lament and decayed hunting refrain. The great image of Christ the Dawn Falcon [ Hopkins? The Windhover?] seizing the Lady for himself - i.e. winning / kidnapping / abducting her away from merely earthly love to lead her to the spiritual joys. Aristocratic image beloved of medieval lyric writers AND religious writers alike. Erotic Allegory is all in both fields. The Knight is bereft.

And in this orchard there was a hold
That was hanged with purple and gold
And in that hold there was a bed
And it was hanged with gold so red

- here lies the Fisher King, abandoned, eternally wounded, in royal but lonely luxury. The orchard is one of the great standard erotic tropes in medieval lit, but beautifully / tragically turned here in that this is not a 'bower of bliss' but the lonely bed of the Knight.

Lu li lu lay lu li lu lay

On this bed there lyeth a knight
His wound is bleeding both day and night
By his bedside kneeleth a maid
And she weepeth both night and day

Lu li lu lay lu li lu lay
- the interjecting refrain weeps for the wounded knight - notice that it comes at slightly irregular intervals?

By his bedside standeth a stone
Corpus christi written thereon


The Lu li lu lay lu li lu lay immediately indicates that this is a lament, but it is also a glance at the Fisher King legend, the Amfortas, and Lancelot. Remember that Lancelot, the finest Knight of all the world, failed to achieve the Saant Graal because he was caught in adultery with Guinevere. One of the worst of all sins to betray a king to whom he had sworn loyalty and was trusted as well: his first punishment took the form of being able only to sleep at the door of the Grail Chapel, to hear the sounds, see the light, but NOT ion any way be part of the revelation of the Grail for which he had quested and dedicated his life for years, and thus not be given the Eucharist from the hands of Christ himself from the Grail. Perceval and Galahad did -in some versions, Galahad is given the Grail to minister to Perceval. Lancelot lies bleeding continually in the grimly ironic 'garden' in this lyric but the Corpus Christi is always there, written, should he choose to be shriven, to be healed, and repent and do penance - repentance which of course Lancelot never did.

A few thoughts.

[Double Diapason]

I don't know Manchester Cathedral at all but this broadcast made it sound like a very small building - is this the case? Sounded really very intimate. The BBC record everything too close now it would seem - even last weeks was too close at St P's. I had to play into some BBC mics this week and they really just don't have a clue.......its actually a disgrace.
Anyway as this bit of the forum is called the choir lets talk about them! I was really very pleasantly surprised and cant criticise this one - I really liked the singing. I cant really get my ears tuned in to boys and girls singing together though in an ecclesiastical setting - maybe its just me but my ears/brain just cant cope with it being neither one thing or the other! I have no objection to girls singing in our cathedrals BTW but I really think it should be separate. I suppose not all have the luxury though.
The first lesson made me smile like a Virtual Cheshire Cat!
Our own cathedral cat didnt like the Precentrix, but she and and all the other highlighted "problems" are just a sideshow to what was an extremely fine and clearly well directed CE. I personally liked the Bingham a lot (she is one of the few moderns I always like!) and the chants were also a welcome change form what one might normally hear to these well known words.

[ardcarp]

Leaving aside the 'chat' (which IMO showed disprespect to the CE liturgy) and the other you-know-what topic, I really enjoyed both the singing and the repertory. Manchester isn't that small (as I recall) but the acoustic isn't generous. Had it been, the choir would have sounded even more spectacular, I think. Maybe the office hymn was a bit solid. A choir has to sing an awful lot of plainsong for it to flow naturally, and here it was a bit studied. But well done Manchester and thanks for giving us assurance that a mixed treble line can work very well. My overall impression was that it was very 'fresh' singing. The Harrison organ (beautifully played) sounded rather less fresh I thought, and rather typical of Harrison voicing from the 20s and 30s. Isn't it tucked into 'boxes' behind the choir? Just a dim memory from years ago.

[subcontrabass]

Leaving aside the 'chat' (which IMO showed disprespect to the CE liturgy) and the other you-know-what topic, I really enjoyed both the singing and the repertory. Manchester isn't that small (as I recall) but the acoustic isn't generous. Had it been, the choir would have sounded even more spectacular, I think. Maybe the office hymn was a bit solid. A choir has to sing an awful lot of plainsong for it to flow naturally, and here it was a bit studied. But well done Manchester and thanks for giving us assurance that a mixed treble line can work very well. My overall impression was that it was very 'fresh' singing. The Harrison organ (beautifully played) sounded rather less fresh I thought, and rather typical of Harrison voicing from the 20s and 30s. Isn't it tucked into 'boxes' behind the choir? Just a dim memory from years ago.

Manchester Cathedral is an odd shape. The medieval choir is very small and narrow. The original collegiate church was expanded when it became a cathedral and it has four side aisles (two each side of the nave) which makes it, I think, wider than it is long. From memory of the last time I sang in there it is quite resonant, but there is not the long echo that you get with a more traditional shaped monastic cathedral (such as Durham, where sound takes about five seconds to get from the choir to the west wall and back again). With the large choir perhaps they were singing from the stalls in the nave (in front of the screen), where the organ would be behind them rather than around them.

[Op. XXXIX]

Manchester Cathedral is an odd shape. The original collegiate church was expanded when it became a cathedral and it has four side aisles (two each side of the nave) which makes it, I think, wider than it is long.

It certainly gives that impression, but actually it is longer than it is wide. (The diagram in David Pepin's book 'Discovering Cathedrals' would confirm this.)

Thanks for all the other interesting comments, and just wanted to add that I particularly enjoyed the Eben. Caught it in recital last Sunday afternoon.

[terratogen]

Though Manchester might make room for 'up to' 20 trebles, I was under the impression that it was more common for the choir to number nearer to fifteen or twenty strong all counted— trebles and adults combined. For most of the Judith Bingham introit—which I haven't quite decided about yet—I was a bit afraid that we were going to be hearing the smallishness of the choir coming through the acoustic and the radio mics in a less-than-desirable way. The Preces proved my assumption quite wrong, though, and I went on to thoroughly enjoy just being able to sit and listen to this service... running commentary, unfamiliar music and all.

The choir themselves sounded just right to me, and the recording balance, apart from a few spots where I found myself with an earbudful of one or two voices, didn't seem as skewed as it perhaps has in a few of the last couple of weeks. Lovely, bold, clear sound from the trebles in what I found to be largely a bright, merry service. 'Jolly', as @DracoM has already put it! I thought the Britten Jubilate Deo terrific, but then again, maybe it's just that sort of piece; I loved it here, certainly, but I don't know that I've ever heard it and disliked it. Quirk of mine this well may be, but hearing such a 'joyful noise' from a foundation where boys and girls are singing together always makes me particularly glad.

In short: a very enjoyable service of unfamiliar music sung wonderfully. Thanks to all involved, and I hope to hear from Manchester in some capacity again soon.

[subcontrabass]

It certainly gives that impression, but actually it is longer than it is wide. (The diagram in David Pepin's book 'Discovering Cathedrals' would confirm this.)

The plan on the cathedral website (http://www.manchestercathedral.org/virtual-tours/) also confirms that.

[Finzi4ever]

Thanks for all the other interesting comments, and just wanted to add that I particularly enjoyed the Eben. Caught it in recital last Sunday afternoon.

The Eben was very well played but, I agree with others, supremely let down not by the instrument but by the the engineered sound. Yes, the building there can never gild the sound or add bloom but the instrument as well as the choir needed to be given as much space as possible and they weren't it seems to me as so often these days. The effect was to make the voicing (admittedly not much tweaked anyway since the 70s) seem particularly tired and thin, when to my memory it isn't, or at least wasn't.

[ardcarp]

...anorak on...isn't there some talk of a new organ at Manchester?

[Double Diapason]

...anorak on...isn't there some talk of a new organ at Manchester?

My anorak is on also and I found this on the website http://www.manchestercathedral.org/d...ject/new-organ

[ardcarp]

My anorak is on also and I found this on the website http://www.manchestercathedral.org/d...ject/new-organ

Looks good! The difficult bit is deciding whether you want it to do French blood-and-guts, Baroque clinical....or the Anglican repertory. Nigh impossible to get something that does everything well, especially if you tune it to Gormenghast VII.

[Lizzie]

Could not disagree with you more, VCC. What a miserably, miserly, unsmiling response to this quite jolly service! I grant St Barry was not on the podium, but, for goodness' sake.....
The canticles had nicely balanced groupings, interesting and distinctive solo voices, and plenty of energy and musicality, and it was refreshing to hear both Gabrieli and Britten.

And no-one has commented on the Judith Bingham? Inventive? Worth getting a first perf? Welcome addition to the repertoire?

Draco, I do so agree with your thoughts there.
I've only just managed to catch up with this CE whilst in the library...
I thoroughly enjoyed it all, apart from the Gabrieli which just rambled on and simply isn't to my personal taste. I particularly enjoyed the Corpus Christi Carol - Judith Bingham's music never fails to delight me.
Speaking of delight, I was absolutely rapt with the first lesson and the reader absolutely brought alive what is often read in a very stilted and rather turgid manner. Thank you so much for bringing new life and meaning to it for me!
I thought the whole choir sounded as if they were thoroughly enjoying their afternoon in the sun and that treble soloist did a cracking job.
I loved the Eben and Mr Makinson's interpretation. Shame it didn't have a bigger acoustic to allow it to resonate.

Thanks to all at Manchester for warming up a very cold morning here in the library! All best wishes for the future. Liz