Gramophone "The 20 Greatest Choirs"

[Y Mab Afradlon]

In the January 2011 edition of Gramophone the Cover Story lists THE 20 GREATEST CHOIRS as chosen by a panel of esteemed critics.
For those non subscribers here they are -
1. The Monteverdi Choir of London (Very few can argue against that)
2. Polyphony
3. The Cardinall's Musick
4. The Sixteen
5. The Choir of Trinity College Cambridgw
6. Wells Cathedral Choir
7. Collegioum Vocale Ghent
8. Accentus
9. RIAS Chamber Choir
10. Swedish Radio Choir
11. The Dunedin Consort
12. King's College Cambrisge
13. Tallis Scholars
14. New College Oxford
15. Les Arts Florissants
16. Westminster Abbey Choir
17. The Balthasar Neumann Choir
18. Stile Antico
19. Arnold Schoenberg Choir
20. I Fagiolini

Starter for 10 - Which choirs are glaring omissions?

[Y Mab Afradlon]

Surely Collegium Sancti Johannis Cantabrigiense deserve a place after the legacy of recordings made by George, Christopher Robinson, and latterly David Hill and Andrew Nethsinger. They have also been influential in the development of webcast services in recent years.
What has John Scott done to be omitted from this list with the work at St Paul's and again (those who listen to the daily webcasts) from St Thomas Fifth Avenue?

[Simon]

Well, all this of course is ridiculous rubbish, it means nothing and is simply to fill pages.

Even if one were scientifically to "test" every choir with the same rep at the same time in the same acoustic, and then repreat the process the next day, the results would be different. The variables from month to month, day to day and week to week are enormous. Last winter I dropped in at Lichfield two weeks running on my way back from north Birmingham. The make up of the choir was, as far as I could tell, the same, but I could have been listening to two different ensembles.

Apart from that, there's the usual situation: it seems that the only parts of the UK that exist for some people, apart from a token city around the western end of the M4, are London, Oxford and Cambridge.

The "esteemed critics" (whoever they were) should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to take part in such an unhelpful, unrealistic and fundamentally useless exercise. Talk about dumb!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's quite pathetic the way Gramophone tries to emulate Channel 4 in its habit of turning everyone and anything into league tables. Do they really believe that readers are taken in by such tabloidism?

[gradus]

It is as though the truly great choirs, namely the choral societies of the UK didn't exist.
High time we listed the top twenty most un-informed music critics.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It is as though the truly great choirs, namely the choral societies of the UK didn't exist.
High time we listed the top twenty most un-informed music critics.

Don't they all work for Gramophone? Sorry, I'm being as bad as the people I criticise.

[rauschwerk]

Well, all this of course is ridiculous rubbish, it means nothing and is simply to fill pages.

Hear, hear! All league tables, championships and (I am increasingly inclined to think, having heard that Blekacz chap the other day) competitions are inimical to the cause of art.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've just picked up my copy from the newsagent. 9 out of the 13 critics who made the choices really are Gramophone reviewers. Nevertheless, I do generally support the view that the best British choirs are indeed very good (though the jury was also predominantly British - like to think they were not partisan, like the Eurovision Song Contest judges).

[Rolmill]

A pointless and blatantly anglo-centric exercise, in my view - I quite agree that

the best British choirs are indeed very good

but then so are the best Scandinavian choirs (for example).

A shame really - with a little more imagination this could have been a good article celebrating the excellence and variety of the choral tradition in UK, or the different traditions across Europe, or contrasting the qualities of the top choirs from different countries, or......without turning it into yet another meaningless chart.

[Magnificat]

The glaring error with this list is that they are not even comparing like with like.

A league table of cathedral/college choirs, however undesirable, would at least have some credibility as would a league table of adult professional choirs of the same type.

Even here you have an English cathedral choir, Wells, whose recordings are with mixed boys and girls voices being included with choirs of boys and men only and, as has been stated above, with some obvious omissions in this category.

[decantor]

It's invariably lamentable when the mentality of X-Factor and The Apprentice invades the arts.

Presumably The Gramophone made it clear that this was a bit of seasonal fun, and that only choirs with a recorded output available in the UK were eligible. Even so, a worthier and more interesting exercise might have been to list (in alphabetical order) those choirs which, in these esteemed critics' view, merited the description 'great'. If this resulted in a list of thirteen or forty-three, no matter. It's surely "The Top 20", in order, that grates the most.

[Oldcrofter]

It's more like a pub discussion - "Best ever football team" or "Greatest world cricketers team of the past 50 years" etc.

Choral competitions provide clear winners - and they are usually adjudicated by a panel of eminent choral directors. But the result refers only to that competition on that particular day. Choirs from the Baltic states, Scandinavia, central Europe, Germany, Bulgaria etc frequently do well and are much admired for their choral technique and repertoire. Further afield, Malaysia, South Africa, the USA etc all compete at the highest level.

Very few British choirs enter competitions abroad. The only one that I know of that has consistently won international competitions (well over twenty first places, I believe) over the past forty years is the girls' choir Cantamus (from unfashionable Mansfield, Notts.) I'd say they have achieved great renown in European choral circles - but they'd never appear on any of these lists.

[Oldcrofter]

Yes, Cantamus have won 24 first prizes in international competition since 1971 and this year.

http://www.cantamus.com/achievements.htm

And no, I'm certainly not saying that competition is essential for excellence, or that choirs that don't enter competitions can't achieve the nebulous concept of "greatness".

[jean]

Very few British choirs enter competitions abroad.

I think Clare College, Cambridge won some sections in the Concorso Polyfonico Guido d'Arezzo in Arezzo several times in the 1980s.

I know this because when they decided they didn't want to do it again, they persuaded a choir I was in to take part. I think the Italian organisers wanted to co-opt an English choir because they got so few applications (if any) from choirs here.

(We didn't win anything.)

[Oldcrofter]

Cantate Youth Choir under Michael Kibblewhite have flown the flag for GB in international competitions inc. World Choir Olympics Graz (Austria) 2008 gold medal, 2nd in Sacred Music