CE Wells Cathedral 23rd May 2012

[DracoM]

CE Wells Cathedral
New Music Wells Festival



Order of Service:


Introit: Sincerity (Michael Finnissy - Choirbook for the Queen) (first broadcast)
Responses: Gabriel Jackson
Psalms: 114, 115 (Tonus Peregrinus, South)
First Lesson: Deuteronomy 31: 30-32:14
Office Hymn: Hail the day that sees him rise (Llanfair)
Canticles: The Wells Service (Howard Skempton) (first broadcast)
Second Lesson: 1 John 3: 11-24
Anthem: Love divine (Howard Goodall)
Final Hymn: O for a thousand tongues to sing (Richmond)



Organ Voluntary: Dance-Rondo (Philip Moore)



Jonathan Vaughn (Assistant Organist)
Matthew Owens (Organist and Master of the Choristers)

[Simon Biazeck]

I know we're in a double-dip recession, but really?! They must be beginning to think they are jinxed!

[Wolsey]

... and yet another live relay is hit by a break in transmission.

[DracoM]

Maybe, but at least we did not quite manage to hear the end of the Finnissy introit. Repeat will be revealing. Cathedrals / parish churches falling over themselves to learn it? Hmm.

The best news from that service were the Responses and the voluntary.

Stern, grave [ erm...... appropriate for seasons of Easter / Ascension / Pentecost?], oddly syllabic canticles. Followed by a sub-Dibley anthem you expected to have choreography, multi-coloured TV lights on 'Cor, Ain't This Choir Got Talent'. I shudder to think what gets composed sitting on the loo if this is what emerges from the shower - what a self-parodying hostage to fortune intro that was. Oh dear - why do clergy do this?

Crack choir, and yes, you have to try things out, and yes, they sometimes need to be given air time, and there are some fantastic modern settings around, but, for me, these just weren't. Matthew Owens has a fine reputation for championing modern music and long may that remain, but I fear that on this occasion, the mix was not quite right to my ears. But, of course, quot homines etc.

Moore voluntary was excellent and delightfully played, an uplifting antidote to the somewhat laboured stuff we heard before.

[ardcarp]

You beat me to it, Draco. I was a bit underwhelmed, I have to say. The Skempton canticles sounded lacklustre. Is this because they are lacklustre or is it the way Wells sang them? The choir sounded as if it were treading through a field of rather ordinary chords in the hope of not disturbing any. And they sounded bored. Dear old Howard G. rode to the rescue, and whatever one might think about his unashamedly populist tendency, the choir warmed up a bit. Enjoyed the voluntary.

Is anyone's head going to roll about these breaks in transmission? It's becoming scandalous.

[Gabriel Jackson]

You beat me to it, Draco. I was a bit underwhelmed, I have to say. The Skempton canticles sounded lacklustre. Is this because they are lacklustre or is it the way Wells sang them? The choir sounded as if it were treading through a field of rather ordinary chords in the hope of not disturbing any. And they sounded bored.

I don't think either the music, or the performance of Howard Skempton's canticles were lacklustre. A certain "matter-of-factness" in delivery is part of the aesthetic (his scores are very sparse with markings for example)..notice also the way his pieces don't "end", they just stop. Whether the chords themselves are ordinary or not is debatable, but the way they succeed each other, and the way the melody at the top is shaped by the words is not ordinary. (Like Arvo Part, though using different means and with different results, the music is totally governed by the words, without "expressing" them in a conventional sense.) Howard Skempton comes from English Experimentalism, and in its quiet way, his music is still radical.

[ardcarp]

I did wonder if the composer's intention was a deliberate avoidance of any sort of emotion or word painting (to put it crudely) in the same way as in some of Stavinsky's sacred pieces. I was just commenting as a radio listener hearing the canticles for the first time. Responses were OK though! Bit of a bummer about the shilling in the meter running out. I'll try and get the whole shebang on i-player when time permits.

[Simon Biazeck]

I was really enjoying the Finnissy introit and look forward to a second hearing of that and the service entire and uninterrupted! I very much liked Finnissy's harmony here (reminded me a little of late Stravinsky) and tectonic-like counterpoint with voices moving in similar motion, creating diatonic dissonance - very skillful! Great to hear such a diverse array of styles, well chosen and paced, from the euphonious and highly liturgical responses to the unchained melody of the anthem - all delivered so forthrightly and with assurance and commitment.

I wonder what befell the poor folk in the van this time?! Just in case, let's all turn off our hand-held devices (iPhones, Blacberries, Ninkeberries or whatever)
upon entering the place of worship and not stress out local internet services! I know it doesn't quite work that way, but ... Thank goodness for Listen Again!

[DracoM]

< tectonic-like counterpoint >

Please explain.

[ardcarp]

Thank goodness for Listen Again!

Ye-e-e-es, but I've just tried LA-ing and the Introit cuts off as in the live broadcast. Oh Gawd, can't the Beeb get its act together???

[Simon Biazeck]

Ye-e-e-es, but I've just tried LA-ing and the Introit cuts off as in the live broadcast. Oh Gawd, can't the Beeb get its act together???

And Miss Derham assured us to the contrary! I was looking forward to hearing the introit complete with those tectonic plates grating against one another! The gremlins certainly seem to have moved in!

[DracoM]

But to be fair, after the break some weeks ago, the immediate day's LA did not work either. It took them a little time to get the whole recording up.
But, ahem....of course, they should have had a bit more practice since then.......?

[Gabriel Jackson]

But to be fair, after the break some weeks ago, the immediate day's LA did not work either. It took them a little time to get the whole recording up.
But, ahem....of course, they should have had a bit more practice since then.......?

The recording as made in Wells may still be in Wells right now...

[ardcarp]

...but a team of stage coaches might get it to the phonograph in London within the next few days.

[DracoM]

Think cleft stick and a relay of bearers.............?