CE Hereford Cathedral 22nd Feb 2012

[DracoM]

CE Hereford Cathedral
Ash Wednesday


Order of Service:



Introit: Memento homo (Byrd)
Responses: Plainsong
Psalm: 51 Miserere mei (Allegri)
First Lesson: Isaiah 1:10-18
Canticles: In Fauxbourdon (Tallis)
Second Lesson: Luke 15: 11-end
Anthem: Da mihi auxilium (Byrd)
Hymn: Now is the healing time decreed (Jena)


Organ Voluntary: Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist BWV 671 (Bach)



Peter Dyke (Assistant organist)
Geraint Bowen (Organist & Director of Music)



Please forgive early posting. I thought members might like to absorb the info as to where the service is coming from this year.

[Magnificat]

[QUOTE=DracoM;131691]CE Hereford Cathedral
Ash Wednesday



Geraint Bowen (Organist & Director of Music)

Draco,

Geraint Bowen is the only cathedral DoM I ever see mentioned in ' Today's Birthdays' next to the ' Court Circular' in The Daily Telegraph!

Perhaps the others all feature in The Times?

VCC.

[bach736]

You surprise me, VCC.
Wouldn't have had you down as a Telegraph reader.

[Simon]

VCC - just go into edit post mode, type [/QUOTE] after (Organist & Director of Music) in your last post and it will become much better laid out!

[DracoM]

Simon

Just a tiny bit patronising, don't you think? Or have I misunderstood the purpose of that last posting?

[Simon]

Simon

Just a tiny bit patronising, don't you think? Or have I misunderstood the purpose of that last posting?

You misunderstood, though maybe I should have PMd him. I just did it quickly to be helpful, and I trust VCC won't think it patronising - that wasn't the intention. He clearly omitted said coding, which is easily done, and which I've done myself on odd occasions.

If he has a problem with it and let's you/me know, I'm more than happy for you to remove the posting Draco.

[Magnificat]

You surprise me, VCC.
Wouldn't have had you down as a Telegraph reader.

bach736

Doesn't really mean anything. I find as I have got older that I have become very right wing in my views on some things but just as left wing on others! I just like the lay - out of the paper really.

Simon,

No offence taken. Thanks for the advice. My skills with all this stuff are pretty limited anyway. I pick things up and then just as quickly forget them.

I am thinking of buying the new Stenna stair lift model 'The Rapide'. It's so fast that it gets you to the top of the stairs before you've forgotten why you've gone up there!!

VCC

[DracoM]

Reminder: Ash Wednesday service @ 3.30 p.m. tomorrow.

[DracoM]

T'day @ 3.30

[DracoM]

A service of considerable dignity, sombre in tone and style, and measured in pace, exactly fitting the season. I liked the fact for example that we did not hear the organ except in hymns and the voluntary - added to the penitential solemnity

Choir finely balanced and directed, with a big, rich sound - very dark basses in this sort of repertoire actually reminded me a bit of GG at St J's! Altos and Tenors too carried important material and it was a joy to hear them.

The trebles have that sound I now associate with Hereford / Geraint Bowen - even through the range, authoritative and with confident musicianship, a finely blended tone too. Today they had to show this in a number of exposed lines, and that was instructive. The Ps 51 was movingly sung: a thought: did anyone else think that the top treble line solo was sung by two different lads alternately? How it came over to me, but I might be wrong. Either way, the 2nd treble line was well sung too.

From distant memory, that Byrd anthem 'Da mihi auxilium' is quite a hard sing particularly for the middle voices, but not for Hereford.

One of those CEs that make you realise what exemplary music and worship an English Cathedral can produce.

Many thanks to all.

[gainasbass]

It wouldn't be appropriate for me to add to what Draco has put so eloquently, and I agree with every word written. Suffice to say that this was a first class cathedral evensong in every way (and especially for Ash Wednesday), both spoken and sung, so congratulations to everyone concerned at Hereford (and of course to the BBC engineers who, at least from my perspective, had got the 'fly on the wall' sound just right).

It was a welcome change to hear the Allegri in a religious broadcast away from Cambridge, however well sung in the past, and I, too, thought that the solo first treble part was alternated between two boys. Perhaps we will hear from someone who was present at the service in confirmation, or otherwise?(!)

[Alison]

No St John's this year then ?

[DracoM]

You will probably be able to get it on their website via a webcast. May be a few days to wait.

[Finzi4ever]

Just so right, in every respect, Hereford! Their Dean (MT) has been a liturgical boon in all his placements; it helps that he's very musical - what a rarity!

[ardcarp]

A very, very pleasing CE indeed. The treble line is just wonderful. Oh that more choirs could produce homogeneity and phrasing like that. They even brought musicality and phrasing to the simple Tallis canticles which were, for me, the most perfect part of the service. In fact they took the Allegri quite fast, but it worked well. (Guest's very last one was incredibly slow... sustained singing almost beyond belief with appropriately long spaces between the verses). In the final Byrd, maybe the inner parts were a little over-prominent at times. But, hey, I'm nit-picking here! It was singing of a high order from a cathedral well away from the centre of the musical universe. Congrats to all.