Sumptuous in G from Hereford

[Gabriel Jackson]

I wonder about the appropriateness of the settings of the Maginificat and Nunc Dimittis, which are essentially gentle texts, whether by cathedral organists or modern composers.

In both cases there are many settings that for me are just too big and fierce. In this respect for example, I prefer Sumsion in G, which as Keraulophone said way back, is a well crafted, tuneful, lilting, pastoral setting of both texts, to Tippet's St John's, Cambridge, which, although I can admire it as a piece of music, just doesn't seem, in the Magnificat, to be an appropriate setting of the gentleness of Mary's Song. The setting of the Nunc Dimittis is better.

Is the Magnificat that gentle though? Some of it is really quite macho...! Tippett was very interesting about this. In his Magnificat he wanted to capture not just the joy, but the shock, fear, awe and sheer sense of strangeness that a young girl must surely experience when she learns she is to give birth to the son of God, and that she has conceived him whilst still being a virgin. His inspiration for the Nunc Dimittis was equally interesting. A good example of the (musical) illumination that a composer from outside the tradition can bring to these familiar texts, a fresh response with no preconditions about what would be "appropriate" to do with the words.

The composers from the Golden Age did seem to have this appreciation of the texts amongst all their great gifts.

Yes, but the parameters were different then (if we're talking about the 15th/16th centuries). Music was not expected to express/interpret the words to the same extent - the musical charaacter and manner of a Gibbons Nunc Dimittis is essentially the same as a Magnificat or a Te Deum.[/QUOTE]

Also, the settings have to be well sung to really satisfy.

A piece of first rate music badly sung is just as hard on the ear as a piece of second rate music.

Some cathedral DoMs, because of their talents as choir trainers, also have the ability to make some of the Victorian/Edwardian settings that are not so much to Gabriel's taste seem much better musically than they actually are. St Barry was well known in his day for turning base metal into gold making the most ordinary piece sound like the best thing ever written.

VCC.

True (a bit like Beecham's performances of third-rate orchestral music) but why go to all the trouble of turning base metal into gold when you can start with gold in the first place?!

[Magnificat]

Is the Magnificat that gentle though? Some of it is really quite macho...! Tippett was very interesting about this. In his Magnificat he wanted to capture not just the joy, but the shock, fear, awe and sheer sense of strangeness that a young girl must surely experience when she learns she is to give birth to the son of God, and that she has conceived him whilst still being a virgin. His inspiration for the Nunc Dimittis was equally interesting. A good example of the (musical) illumination that a composer from outside the tradition can bring to these familiar texts, a fresh response with no preconditions about what would be "appropriate" to do with the words.


Yes, but the parameters were different then (if we're talking about the 15th/16th centuries). Music was not expected to express/interpret the words to the same extent - the musical charaacter and manner of a Gibbons Nunc Dimittis is essentially the same as a Magnificat or a Te Deum.

True (a bit like Beecham's performances of third-rate orchestral music) but why go to all the trouble of turning base metal into gold when you can start with gold in the first place?![/QUOTE]

Gabriel,

Very interesting thanks.

VCC

[Op. XXXIX]

True (a bit like Beecham's performances of third-rate orchestral music) but why go to all the trouble of turning base metal into gold when you can start with gold in the first place?

Though presumably you wouldn't agree with Karajan who refused to conduct Elgar because, 'why conduct second-rate Brahms when I can have the real thing?'

[Gabriel Jackson]

Though presumably you wouldn't agree with Karajan who refused to conduct Elgar because, 'why conduct second-rate Brahms when I can have the real thing?'

What an odd thing for him to say! I don't like Elgar but it's not second-rate Brahms. Parry on the other had...

[ahinton]

Very droll, Alistair!

Thank you! I'm just a complete outsider in this rarefied world, I fear - and as no doubt my remarks made abundantly clear. It is obvious from some of the posts that few composers choose to write for the church these days and I suspect that I'm far from alone in my assumption (a Sumsion?!) that, as another member observed, they simply don't feel any kind of engagement with it. Even composers who write a lot of choral music (and even they're few and far between) don't necessarily feel that engagement either - and let's not forget that Vaughan Williams felt that a composer should be able to write liturgical music for the Christian church without necessarily being a Christian.

And a pleasant and (IMO) justified compliment to Hereford, to boot.

Though I suspect your avowed ignorance of church music is not quite as you state...

Hereford Cathedral has quite a decent acoustic and its organ would be one of the country's finest examples of the English Romantic instrument were it not for the ongoing short-sightednesses that have conspired to leave it, even today, with short compass manuals and pedals (manuals only up to A and pedals only up to F - compare, for example, Westminster Cathedral or St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol).

[Wolsey]

Hereford Cathedral has quite a decent acoustic and its organ would be one of the country's finest examples of the English Romantic instrument were it not for the ongoing short-sightednesses that have conspired to leave it, even today, with short compass manuals and pedals (manuals only up to A and pedals only up to F - compare, for example, Westminster Cathedral or St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol).

I don't think it can be attributed to short-sightedness. There can be rapid change over time in such matters, and the twenty-year gap between the 1892 Father Willis organ at Hereford and the Arthur Harrison instrument at St Mary Redcliffe - not to mention the thirty-year interval before the inauguration of Willis's grandson's instrument at Westminster Cathedral, only attest this.

[Simon]

What an odd thing for him [Karajan] to say! I don't like Elgar but it's not second-rate Brahms. Parry on the other had...

It's not really odd if you know some detail about von K's background. He was a vicious Nazi and he hated the English: for him to appreciate Elgar would have been unthinkable.

~~~~~

As for your own tastes, they begin to seem quite worrying to me. Elgar was indeed of his time, but was also a rounded musician and craftsman of the calibre that only Britten and RVW came close to in the 20th Century. The greatest symphonist of the 20th Century, a certain D. Shostakovitch, agreed... Difficult to hear what there is not to like about Elgar's music.

Regarding Parry, the longevity and popularity with a wide audience of his greatest pieces speak for themselves. And if any of us here ever write a piece as thrilling, singable, memorable and universally loved as IWG, we will have reason to be very proud of ourselves!

[heliocentric]

It's not really odd if you know some detail about von K's background. He was a vicious Nazi and he hated the English: for him to appreciate Elgar would have been unthinkable.

I suppose his hatred for the English was the reason why he spent so many years nurturing the Philharmonia Orchestra, why he conducted music by Vaughan Williams, Walton and Holst (to my certain knowledge; maybe he conducted other British composers too), and why he recorded so frequently for EMI.

Personally I can't find much to like in Elgar's music either.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I love Elgar's Music.

Towards the end of his life, at around the time he recorded Nielsen and Saint-Saens for the first time, Karajan ordered scores of Elgar's orchestral Music so that he could study them. He sent all of them back, except the Second Symphony, which he kept in his "reserve" desk. He died before he got round to either performing or ultimately rejecting it.

But Op XXXIX's comments don't "sound" like Karajan, who was never as "sharp" as this - even when commenting on HIPP enthusiasts! Where is the quotation taken from?

(And Helio is right: Karajan recorded Holst (twice), RVW and Britten, and performed Walton and Tippett in concert - to neither composer's satisfaction!)

[Gabriel Jackson]

As for your own tastes, they begin to seem quite worrying to me. Elgar was indeed of his time, but was also a rounded musician and craftsman of the calibre that only Britten and RVW came close to in the 20th Century. The greatest symphonist of the 20th Century, a certain D. Shostakovitch, agreed... Difficult to hear what there is not to like about Elgar's music.

I don't see what is remotely worrying about not liking Elgar! I don't think he is a bad composer - far from it - I just don't like it.

Regarding Parry, the longevity and popularity with a wide audience of his greatest pieces speak for themselves. And if any of us here ever write a piece as thrilling, singable, memorable and universally loved as IWG, we will have reason to be very proud of ourselves!

What longevity and popularity? "I was glad" (a good piece) and one or two other choral pieces are regularly performed, and enjoyed. When was the last time anyone played a Parry symphony, or sang a Parry oratorio, or programmed a Parry violin sonata.
Even if one could demonstrate widespread popularity across Parry's output, that doesn't preclude it being second-hand Brahms. You know, popularity doesn't necessarily mean something is good, nor unpopularity mean it is bad.

[Simon]

... he conducted music by Vaughan Williams, Walton and Holst (to my certain knowledge; maybe he conducted other British composers too) ... he recorded so frequently for EMI.

For sure. Post-1945, many ex-Nazis began to do things that they hadn't done pre-1939. And to say things. And to forget things...

Personally I can't find much to like in Elgar's music either.

Each to his own.

[Simon]

Even if one could demonstrate widespread popularity across Parry's output, that doesn't preclude it being second-hand Brahms. You know, popularity doesn't necessarily mean something is good, nor unpopularity mean it is bad.

Not quite sure what "second-hand Brahms" means, to be honest. That Brahms was the greater composer I'm sure Parry wouldn't have doubted, but I don't see that Parry was trying to imitate him, or why there is any need to compare the two.

Nobody with any sense would disagree with your popularity comment. But nonetheless, if a piece has been played, sung and/or enjoyed by a wide range of competent and experienced musicians and by many in the "general public" for getting on for a century, I'd suggest that this could fairly be taken to indicate some merit...

[Philip]

Is the Magnificat that gentle though? Some of it is really quite macho...! Tippett was very interesting about this. In his Magnificat he wanted to capture not just the joy, but the shock, fear, awe and sheer sense of strangeness that a young girl must surely experience when she learns she is to give birth to the son of God, and that she has conceived him whilst still being a virgin. His inspiration for the Nunc Dimittis was equally interesting. A good example of the (musical) illumination that a composer from outside the tradition can bring to these familiar texts, a fresh response with no preconditions about what would be "appropriate" to do with the words.

Yes, but the parameters were different then (if we're talking about the 15th/16th centuries). Music was not expected to express/interpret the words to the same extent - the musical charaacter and manner of a Gibbons Nunc Dimittis is essentially the same as a Magnificat or a Te Deum.

Surely herein lies the great thing with having so many settings - each composer will bring their own interpretation; some composers interpret in different ways in their own settings. For example, Stanford in G is the classic with Mary at her spinning wheel, very different from the grandiose Stanford in C. Dyson produced two settings - that in D (Magnificat, anyway) is loud and full of big moments, but Dyson in F is far more restrained. Taking it to further extremes, what about Kelly in C, with its Latin-American influences? Then you look at Howells, who set the text many times but mostly with different buildings in mind, hence how St Pauls and Gloucester are very different to his New College setting.

When you consider the Cathedral repertoire, they need to provide services for a range of settings, from a quiet Lenten midweek Evensong to a Festal occasion such as Easter Day. Hence you have something like Dyson in F or one of the Tudor 'short' services which will suit the mood of the former, and then a big romantic setting which will suit the latter. Likewise, if you're singing a Gibbons verse anthem you probably don't want to pair it with Kelly or Tippett!

[ahinton]

I don't think it can be attributed to short-sightedness. There can be rapid change over time in such matters, and the twenty-year gap between the 1892 Father Willis organ at Hereford and the Arthur Harrison instrument at St Mary Redcliffe - not to mention the thirty-year interval before the inauguration of Willis's grandson's instrument at Westminster Cathedral, only attest this.

Whilst I take you point insofar as it goes, I did not write of short-sightness per se and tout court but "ongoing" shortsightedness, by which I mean the short-sightedness that has continued to ensure that this shortcoming has never been addressed in any subsequent refurbishment of the instrument; substantial works have been undertaken at various times on all three (Hereford, Redcliffe and Westminster), yet no one has thought to extend the console and ranks.

[Philip]

What an odd thing for him to say! I don't like Elgar but it's not second-rate Brahms. Parry on the other had...

I'd grant that Elgar wrote some less interesting music (I've sat through 'The Kingdom', and probably wouldn't again...), but I doubt I could be without Gerontius, which I think is wonderful from beginning to end. 'The Spirit of the Lord' and 'Give unto the Lord' are both good anthems as well. I don't really know his orchestral music though.

As for Parry, his choral pieces seem to have outlasted his orchestral works (although Prince Charles did a TV programme championing him, so I don't whether they were mentioned there?). However, I was glad, Blest pair and The Songs of Farewell are all excellent and deserve their place in the choral repertoire.