CE St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh 15th August 2012

[DracoM]

CE St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh 15th August 2012
The Feast of the Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary



Order of Service:



Introit: Gaudent in coelis (Sally Beamish)
Responses: Lloyd
Psalms: 98, 99 (Garrett, Russell)
First Lesson: Song of Solomon 2: 1-7
Office Hymn: Her Virgin eyes saw God incarnate born (Farley Castle)
Canticles: Short Service (Robin Orr)
Second Lesson: Acts 1: 6-14
Anthem: A Prayer and Two Blessings (Nigel Osborne - Choirbook for the Queen) (first broadcast)
Final Hymn: Sing we of the blessed Mother (Abbot's Leigh)



Organ Voluntary: Toccata alla marcia (Robin Orr)




Nicholas Wearne (Assistant Organist)
Duncan Ferguson (Organist and Master of the Music)

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[DracoM]

I was a bit taken aback at how different this choir sounded today and how it sounds on CD. The somewhat strident tenors came through most textures and for me upset the balance. Went back to a recent CD of theirs and can 't say it sounded anything like that. Still................quot homines etc.

The Sally Beamish introit was for me the best thing about the service both in terms of music and performance. Robin Orr has rarely excited me much, it can be tricky stuff to sing, but as GJ tells us often, this is a choir that revels in the tricky. Well, they sounded just a tad out of sorts in the Mag and Nunc to my ears. Very angular and stabbing phrase music. They made the best of it, I suppose.

Nigel Osborne anthem............erm, ahem, well, oh dear, I thought it a bit dull to be honest. Just did not seem worthy of this excellent choir. They sang it very well to my ears, but..........well.......

[Gabriel Jackson]

I was a bit taken aback at how different this choir sounded today and how it sounds on CD. The somewhat strident tenors came through most textures and for me upset the balance. Went back to a recent CD of theirs and can 't say it sounded anything like that. Still................quot homines etc.

The Sally Beamish introit was for me the best thing about the service both in terms of music and performance. Robin Orr has rarely excited me much, it can be tricky stuff to sing, but as GJ tells us often, this is a choir that revels in the tricky. Well, they sounded just a tad out of sorts in the Mag and Nunc to my ears. Very angular and stabbing phrase music. They made the best of it, I suppose.

Nigel Osborne anthem............erm, ahem, well, oh dear, I thought it a bit dull to be honest. Just did not seem worthy of this excellent choir. They sang it very well to my ears, but..........well.......

In what way different (genuinely interested)? Aside from the recorded sound and balance on a commercial Cd inevitably being much more finessed than that which is possible in a live broadcast of a service, I thought the choir sounded characteristically "St Mary's". Beautiful alto sound in their "solo" lines in the Osborne piece (sadly, rather an uncharacteriscally dull piece from this composer...)

[Pegasus]

What variety there is in psalm singing. For me, it was all a bit ponderous, with some lumpiness on longer reciting phrases and uneasiness negotiating barlines. The introit and anthem are unlikely to find me scrambling for a copy.

[terratogen]

I was a bit taken aback at how different this choir sounded today and how it sounds on CD... Went back to a recent CD of theirs and can 't say it sounded anything like that.

I feel that I'm always taken aback at how this choir sounds, in that whenever I hear it, it sounds different compared to the time before. And I don't by any means use 'different' euphemistically; I'm fond of the choir at St Mary's both for sentimental social reasons and for the often really tremendous choral work it does in Edinburgh. But listening to St Mary's recordings—spanning two DoMs, admittedly—from the past decade or so, I've alternately been floored by the stunning, almost incomparable vitalness of the top line—dare I compare it, in a way, to NCO's?—and the richness of the lower voices; missed the so-called 'typical' cathedral sound; admired the bold, folkish one that sometimes supplants it; and wondered, with a bit of a cringe, how on earth the trebles were allowed to get away with vowels like that.

This broadcast was no different, really. Had I been listening without any context, I might have guessed that there were two different choirs involved in this service (can and dec?) that sometimes alternated within pieces and sometimes between them. (This, admittedly, could have had more to do with the differences between the pieces themselves than it did with the singers.) Even within the psalms, it seemed that there was sometimes a full-throated pursuit and capture of the higher phrases and at other times a stretching but not-quite-hitting.

Nigel Osborne's anthem could have been excerpted from a film score in places, and while it seems that I'm alone in having enjoyed it, it may have been my favourite element of the service apart from the psalms. Nice to hear the choir rumble a bit. Also—though perhaps this sounds odd?—I enjoyed hearing something new (to me) from the Precentor. Nicely festive, I thought... or maybe just novel.

All in all, I enjoyed the service but was, a bit oddly for me, more moved by the hymn- and the psalm-singing than by the introit and anthem. Thanks to everyone at St Mary's for the listen-in to the festival.

I don't feel qualified or informed enough to say much beyond that!

[ardcarp]

(sadly, rather an uncharacteriscally dull piece from this composer...)

Tut, tut, GJ. Isn't there a sort of unwritten rule amongst the creative fraternity? The sort of stuff Osborne and many others write these days isn't necessarily my cup of tea, but it was clearly intended to set us meditating about the plight of Africa...and it was sung with commitment, IMO. Loved the Beamish. I admire Robin Orr very much, but thought the men didn't shine in the Nunc. Good organ piece though.

[Gabriel Jackson]

Tut, tut, GJ. Isn't there a sort of unwritten rule amongst the creative fraternity?

"uncharacteristically dull" is hardly stinging criticism!

The sort of stuff Osborne and many others write these days isn't necessarily my cup of tea, but it was clearly intended to set us meditating about the plight of Africa...and it was sung with commitment, IMO.

What "sort of stuff" is that? Have you ever heard any other pieces by Nigel Osborne?!

[DracoM]

I agree about the men. Either very odd sound balance, or maybe some 'imported' voices not blending, or something was wrong and there were in passing iffy moments in the Osborne.

Heard 'Tracks', plus a very early work Orlando Furioso, a children's piece whose name I forget, and some wind ensemble pieces.