Zadok - a treble favourite?

[Guest]

What a find! In an old MS book from 30 odd years ago, I've found a list of the top 10 pieces that we voted for as trebles! More on this perhaps on another day, but I noticed that Zadok was on our list: 6th, in fact.

I was only thinking a while ago of the sort of buzz that happened when we knew it was coming up. Not sure how most other places did it, but we didn't have a published termly music list - we trebles found out what we were due to sing when the copies appeared on our music desks. Usually, they were for the week ahead, maybe a couple of weeks if something tricky/big/extra was due. New pieces appeared well in hand, too, obviously - though I remember us once having to learn some weird handwritten thing in very short order - interesting to sing, it was, too.

Anyway, I can't recall on what day of the week the next batch used to turn up - possibly Monday morning - it doesn't matter, anyway. What I do recall was the rush to look through all the pieces, accompanied by either gleeful shouts or groans, depending on what we saw. The boss used to watch, amused... we did a regular Mattins so we knew a lot of Te Deums, some of which IIRC we weren't over-impressed with.

The biggest cheer, of course, went up for Insane and Vain - we all absolutely delighted in it and would have sung it every month. But Zadok also generated a buzz. I wonder, now, why. It's a great sing, to be sure, and a famous piece, but it's hardly a treble showpiece is it? Nor is it difficult. Yet ClassicFm started their broadcasts with it, and I have to confess that everytime it comes along on the radio, I will if possible stop what I'm doing and listen avidly. The impact, for me at least, is still there. It must have a certain something that is timeless and maybe indefinable.

Anybody else any thoughts to share about it?

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By the way, in case anybody doesn't know it, here is SJC doing an excellent job with Insane a few years ago..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSYK5JHgRnA

[BasilHarwood]

We used to look forward to cricket and football...

[MrGongGong]

We used to look forward to the clergy talking about "our souls and bodies"

[Flosshilde]

I didn't sing it - I used to be in the school choir, but not in a choir school - but it is one of my favourite pieces too.


" though I remember us once having to learn some weird handwritten thing in very short order "

No doubt how most church choirs had to do it in the past - just think of Bach producing a new canatata each week for the choir to sing (although of course they would have been well-schooled in his style)

[Simon]

" though I remember us once having to learn some weird handwritten thing in very short order "

No doubt how most church choirs had to do it in the past - just think of Bach producing a new cantata each week for the choir to sing (although of course they would have been well-schooled in his style)

Very true Flossie. Some going, indeed! I've often wondered what the standard was, in, say, the early-mid 1700s. I've always suspected that, at least for JSB and those like him, they would have had to have been very good indeed. Imagine if tape-recording had been invented earlier... What a treasure trove!

[Simon]

We used to look forward to cricket and football...

If "instead of" the forthcoming music, it's an experience that I'm sorry you missed.

If "as well as" the forthcoming music, snap! (Except it was rugby and cricket.)

[DracoM]

Hear my Prayer a fave.
And actually, I remember a wonderful choir tour. We returned about 2.a.m. having been on the road for some six hours. We were returning stuff the the choir vestry etc and in the almost complete dark I saw people gravitating to the east end where it really was pitch black. We stood in a vague circle not quite knowing what was going on when the Head Chorister suddenly hummed the first note of the Parsons Ave Maria, the tenors took it up. We stood in the stygian black and sang it from memory. Nobody moved at the end. And suddenly we were all hugging each other very quietly and wandering back to the north west door in silence. Magical.

[decantor]

Simon, I hope you'll post that Top Ten Chart before the thread withers. What Insanae and Zadok have in common is a tempestuous instrumental intro followed by much Sturm und Drang. Could that be the key - the choral explosion on entry? It is almost irresistible, isn't it?

When I ran a chapel choir, my taste and the boys' very rarely overlapped. Their especial favourite was EW Naylor's setting of the Benedicite, which we sang as a canticle at Harvest: it's good, if rather campfire singalong stuff, and has a climax at Ananias & Co that could thrill me yet. They also liked RVW's Antiphon (another with a big intro) and Wood's Central Orb; Parry in D had its champions, as did Mathias's Lift up your heads; a little arm-twisting could get them to admit the value of Byrd's Ave Verum and Iustorum Animae; Fauré's Cantique was a perennial favourite of both men and boys - another long intro, but the very opposite of tempestuous. We sang a Mass only once a term, but I don't recall the kids being keen on any of the settings - they did best with a short a cappella version by Viadana.

Kids are unpredictable in their tastes - I remember one year-group taking to a strange anthem by Wills, yet they never liked Britten's Te Deum in C, despite doing it perfectly well and gladdening my heart in the process. Do tell about your favourites 30 years ago, Simon.

[terratogen]

Simon, I hope you'll post that Top Ten Chart before the thread withers. What Insanae and Zadok have in common is a tempestuous instrumental intro followed by much Sturm und Drang. Could that be the key - the choral explosion on entry? It is almost irresistible, isn't it?

Decantor, you may be onto something re: the Sturm und Drang— or simple bombast, at the very least. I was never a church chorister, but our (secondary) school choir did Zadok when I was maybe fifteen and took it around to a few local churches near Christmastime. Everyone absolutely delighted in seeing the parishioners and parents very nearly jump out of their pews in surprise when the admittedly pitiful squeaking away of the strings gave way to the explosive entrance of the choir. I was singing alto by then, but I don't know that it was any less fun for having been no longer a treble.

Looking back, we seem to like the big stuff, anyway: Messiah choruses, lung-busting American Negro Spirituals. We did a slightly Insanae-esque Nisi Dominus and a piece called Daemon Irrepit Callidus , both of which became big favourites.

But then there were Bruckner and Lauridsen Ave Marias that were very well-loved, so perhaps you never know.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes; the orchestral introduction, building up (with that teasing little anti-climax in bar 8) to the D major choral "explosion". It's a great effect - and a favourite for singers perhaps because it's such a wonderful "lung-emptier": you can feel your diaphragm resonating AND contributing to the glorious sound - individual and group cooperation. It's not too difficult whilst also providing just enough of a challenge to prevent its being boring to sing. The audience picks up the enjoyment and revels in the resulting sonority - the D major, the joy of the 3/4 metre, so perfectly illustrating the words And all the people rejoiced: practically creating the rejoicing, in fact!

And seeing how Simon has mentioned JSB, there are such telling comparisons and differences between the openings of Zadok and that of the St John Passion: re-iterated arpeggiated chords in the violins; sustained chords and suspensions in the oboes; pedal bass; sudden choral entry in block chords. All drawing the listener into the world of the work - but so completely different in effect!

Never heard the Haydn before: I am indebted!

[Nick Armstrong]

Never heard the Haydn before: I am indebted!

Insane and Vain Curates is a great piece

Parsons' Ave Maria caused me to disgrace myself in King's Chapel once I went to Evensong still hung over from a very heavy night the previous night/morning, and the piece lulled me into deep sleep in the substalls. I had to receive a powerful nudge to wake me and stop me snoring...

[Nick Armstrong]

Never heard the Haydn before: I am indebted!

Insane and Vain Curates is a great piece

Parsons' Ave Maria caused me to disgrace myself in King's Chapel once I went to Evensong still hung over from a very heavy night the previous night/morning, and the piece lulled me into deep sleep in the substalls. I had to receive a powerful nudge to wake me and stop me snoring...

[LeMartinPecheur]

The thread title!!

Thought we were going to be forced to listen to it three times

I'm interested by fact that in my few years in a boys'-school choir (non-ecclesiastical) we sang many of the favourites mentioned here, including Zadok and Insanae et vanae curae. I'm glad to hear that the latter is still apparently such, as I can't recall hearing it since then, except on an HMV Kings College/ Willcocks LP - ASD 2303 - purchased soon afterwards with the useful 'filler' of the Paukenmesse

[Simon]

And what a filler!

I suppose the good pieces will tend to be sung wherever there's the opportunity, ecclesiastical venues or no, if there are musicians around who know what they are on about.

There's also a fairly recent KCC version of Insanae on youtube, if you want to look. It's the one with the MS in the picture. I didn't link to it as I thought that the SJC rendering was somewhat better.

Best

S-S!

[Triforium]

No, sorry, it may be fun for the trebles, but Insanae doesn't do it for me. It was on the list just last week, and several others from the back row felt the same way. I find it leaves me asking what that was all about, along with a dash of twee.

..hey, pass that popcorn over here, would you?