CE King's College, Cambridge 29th Feb 2012

[DracoM]

CE King's College, Cambridge



Order of Service:



Organ Prelude on Selna (Robin Orr)


Introit: Cities and Thrones and Powers (Alexander Goehr) (first performance)
Responses: Radcliffe
Psalms: 142, 143 (Camidge, Pring)
First Lesson: Jeremiah 5: 20-end
Office Hymn: Audi Benigne Conditor (Plainsong)
Magnificat quarti toni (Palestrina)
Second Lesson: John 5: 30-end
Nunc Dimittis tertii toni (Victoria)
Anthems: The Fayrfax Carol (Thomas Adès)
To Keep a True Lent (Richard Baker)
Final Hymn: Lord Jesu, think on me (Southwell)


Organ Voluntary: Postlude in D Minor Op. 105 no. 6 (Stanford)



Ben-San Lau, Parker Ramsay (Organ Scholars)
Stephen Cleobury (Director of Music)

[Double Diapason]

[DracoM]

Why ?

[Double Diapason]

Why ?

Not the choice of music (it is Lent after all!) but I just find the KCC choir so boring these days. Bland even! In the mid 90's they sang with real excitement and even the organ playing was much livelier. It's like a different DoM is in front of them now even though it is the same man.

Check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOvG-...source=message

[bach736]

Despite the RT billing and CE website, the KCC service is NOT repeated on Sunday as it's Music Nation Day.
Can't wait.

[DracoM]

I've just posted a tiny sketch of what R3 is offering from 5 p.m. on Sunday, March 4th.
Interestingly, the considerable part cathedrals etc and their music have to offer is not deemed important enough or central enough to R3's view of what constitutes 'a music nation; to be included.


Hmm.

[ardcarp]

I just find the KCC choir so boring these days. Bland even! In the mid 90's they sang with real excitement and even the organ playing was much livelier.

...but I 'spect you'll listen anyway, if only to have your expectations un-dashed.

[DracoM]

Gentle reminder today @ 3.30 p.m. and NO repeat on Sunday.

[Anna]

Has anyone analysed which Choirs are featured the most on CE. It seems KCC are always there when a Choir is needed, how many broadcasts, compared to them do Worcester feature (for example)

[DracoM]

Quite a strange CE in a number of ways. Pretty modern stuff - in itself, slightly unusual for KCC - sandwiched round European Renaissance repertoire, nay, two different composers for the canticles. Thread of Cambridge trained / educated musicians in Orr / Goehr / Ades / Baker. Hmm.

Have to say I was pretty underwhelmed by the [to my ears] somewhat formless Orr and Goehr pieces, while the Ades seemed to me to be an exercise in deployment of very consciously, almost diagrammatically taxing vocal elements - just for the sake of it, and all of it over a gently rocking rhythm. Choir admirable, but the question is not so much what did they sing nor even how did they sing that kind of material, so much as why?

This may be my faulty hearing, but did something go awry for a few bars in the Mag? And why that huge break in the middle of the plainchant cantoring? Very weird and mannered.

Have to say. it felt more like the BBC Singers but with boys on the top line rather than women. Perfectly professional, disciplined, and utterly unmoving or engaging.

Again, with so little organ alongside the singing, it was a real delight to get the choir in pretty close perspective - many thanks to engineers.

[Magnificat]

Quite a strange CE in a number of ways. Pretty modern stuff - in itself, slightly unusual for KCC - sandwiched round European Renaissance repertoire, nay, two different composers for the canticles. Thread of Cambridge trained / educated musicians in Orr / Goehr / Ades / Baker. Hmm.

Have to say I was pretty underwhelmed by the [to my ears] somewhat formless Orr and Goehr pieces, while the Ades seemed to me to be an exercise in deployment of very consciously, almost diagrammatically taxing vocal elements - just for the sake of it, and all of it over a gently rocking rhythm. Choir admirable, but the question is not so much what did they sing nor even how did they sing that kind of material, so much as why?

This may be my faulty hearing, but did something go awry for a few bars in the Mag? And why that huge break in the middle of the plainchant cantoring? Very weird and mannered.

Have to say. it felt more like the BBC Singers but with boys on the top line rather than women. Perfectly professional, disciplined, and utterly unmoving or engaging.

Again, with so little organ alongside the singing, it was a real delight to get the choir in pretty close perspective - many thanks to engineers.

Draco,

You don't mention the psalm singing which I thought an absolute delight. Polished, refined, expressive, lovely tone and excellent diction. An object lesson in Anglican chanting. Beautiful chants too. For me this part of the service certainly was most moving. Similarly the lovely Radcliffe responses. Good to hear a Precentor who could sing for a change as well.

I enjoyed the Psalms Responses and Canticles and the anthems ( very well sung I thought ) more than the introit pieces.

The sound engineering was first rate as you say.

VCC

[ardcarp]

And why that huge break in the middle of the plainchant cantoring? Very weird and mannered.

That is a tradition in the Anglican practice of plainchant...IMO grossly overdone.

I think Kings do so-called 'modern' repertory rather well, and I thought the trebles (solo and en masse) were obviously very competent musically; to navigate through the Ades was no mean feat. I kept asking myself what The Fayrfax Carol (a King's Christmas commission?) had to do with Lent. No doubt someone with a theological bent will tell me! I have no squabble whatever with the repertory they chose. If anything I think Cleobury makes his mark more in the so-called contemporary area than elsewhere.

The biggest surprise was the voluntary at the start being flagged up as part of the proceedings (must say didn't warm to it that much) and then the piano coming in. Nothing wrong with that, just a surprise....for me anyway.

As Draco suggests, all very competent. Strange that one should find oneself comparing this slightly mixed bag from King's with the wondefully atmospheric offering from Hereford last week.

[DracoM]

I just felt that a number of the pieces we heard were concert pieces, show pieces, and somewhat 'me, me, me' in terms of calling cards i.e. I felt a bit unhappy that they did not really do much to illuminate the texts they used. I felt this particularly with the oddly sited Fayrfax Carol / Ades. In Lent?? The Baker I felt was rather a lightweight and I'm not sure why it was included - seemed to underline the sense of this leaning towards being a concert rather than a service? Two organ pieces, a first perf, modern pieces, plus Palestrina and Victoria? Hmm.

Maybe I am taking this too far, but I just wonder if psychologically, in trying to break out of the public perception straitjacket, KCC are ever more likely to be driven in the direction of such repertoire under this DoM i.e. they feel the need and want to show themselves particularly in nationally transmitted radio broadcasts to be more at the cutting edge than basking in the glory of theirs or anyone's past.

And as ardcarp so rightly says, Cleobury shows himself in his work with other ensembles that he has a forensic, almost exegetical way with music, which sees him at his best with a group of major pros like the BBC Singers doing esoteric music.

[Double Diapason]

...but I 'spect you'll listen anyway, if only to have your expectations un-dashed.

Not yet and not rushing to do so! Draco's remark probably covers KCC choir at the moment: "Perfectly professional, disciplined, and utterly unmoving or engaging."

[Gabriel Jackson]

Draco,

You don't mention the psalm singing which I thought an absolute delight. Polished, refined, expressive, lovely tone and excellent diction. An object lesson in Anglican chanting. Beautiful chants too. For me this part of the service certainly was most moving. Similarly the lovely Radcliffe responses. Good to hear a Precentor who could sing for a change as well.

I enjoyed the Psalms Responses and Canticles and the anthems ( very well sung I thought ) more than the introit pieces.

The sound engineering was first rate as you say.

VCC

We don't often agree, VCC(!), but this time we do, except about the Goehr, which I thought worked very well - I alwys think choir + piano sounds like a rehearsal, but in this piece it didn't.

I don't understand the complaints that this was more like a concert than a service - the choice of repertoire made conceptual and musical sense, and was beautifully sung (and that Richard Baker piece is very hard!).