CE Bath Abbey 10th Oct 2012

[DracoM]

CE Bath Abbey


Order of Service:


Introit: O hearken Thou (Elgar)
Responses: Gabriel Jackson
Psalms: 53, 54, 55 (Flintoft, Stewart, Barnby, Goss)
First Lesson: Hosea 14
Canticles: St Paul's Service (Howells)
Second Lesson: James 2:14-26
Anthem: Laudibus in sanctis (Byrd)
Hymn: Abide with me (Eventide)


Organ Voluntary: Presto (comodo) from Organ Sonata in G (Elgar)


Marcus Sealy - Sub Organist
Peter King - Director of Music

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.
Looking forward to those magnificent soaring Howells canticles.

[Nick Armstrong]

Looking forward to those magnificent soaring Howells canticles.

[weston752]

For those to whom such things matter, it's the girls and men. The boys were on R4 Sunday Worship a month ago.

[Keraulophone]

O hearken Thou doesn't seem to appear very often on music lists these days, and I have had to twist the arms of two of our recent DoMs (who should have known better!) to get it revived. It has a glowing intimacy, perfectly suited to the beginning of Evensong. Looking forward to a feast of great music today.

[DracoM]

Well, whatever gender, they've got a serious test piece for their skills!!

[Anna]

Phew! Thought the Curse of Choral Evensong had Struck Again!! Only just switched on and - Sorry, but we've lost it, here's some Bach. Missed the Howells anyway, was it good?

[DracoM]

Here we go again! New season, but same breakdowns?
Actually, there were blips and blops all the way through, and was it just me, but a distinctly buzzy something on the left hand channel? An overly forward tenor voice or two maybe too close to a mike?? Not sure. I tried two completely different appliances and had the same prob. Then it blew up! Then came back! Hey ho!

Quite Elgar introit boded well. Steady enough psalms, strong antiphonal sense. Seemed to be the odd odd thing happening with the microphone balance at times.
Canticles: well, OK. Felt slowish to me, particularly the Nunc which was extra slow. Must say I like the St Paul's Service a bit brisker than that, and with a fuller-voiced top line. Altos worked their socks off throughout, but basses tended to be drowned from time to time in the texture, unsurprisingly given the repertoire.

Perfectly competent all round: girls shaped the Nunc particularly well. Very sweet toned legato.

A real feature made of 'Abide with Me' - sounded like a huge congregation who participated nobly.

Not a fan of Elgar, but thought the voluntary was admirably muscular.

[jean]

The Byrd was lovely - the dancing tempo at laeta chorea pede very well handled, and the top note at alti sacra... perfectly pitched.

[mopsus]

The road and pavement outside the north side of Bath Abbey were being dug up today, part of one of the Council's regular attempts at rearranging traffic flow in the city centre. I expect they stopped work when the broadcast was going on (unlike a recent London University one) but it may have had something to do with the interference you noticed.

[Op. XXXIX]

The Byrd was lovely - the dancing tempo at laeta chorea pede very well handled, and the top note at alti sacra... perfectly pitched.

Wasn't the Byrd wonderful?

I didn't feel that the Howells was too slow, or maybe I was just in a mood for that tempo, who knows.

Excellent reading from Hosea, but -full disclosure- he is a Facebook friend.

Loved both the opening and closing Elgar...

[BasilHarwood]

Speed of Howells spot on... Any quicker and you'd loose all sense of the build-up.

Girls made a very sweet sound; gents seemed a little less 'present' - might be balance? Byrd a little too wallpaper like, I just wanted more dynamics!

[ardcarp]

I thought it a lovely CE. The top line was excellent and the whole thing very well directed...and accompanied. There was an over-prominent male voice (the one I heard was a bass, Draco) though whether this was a miking problem or not, I couldn't say. Yes, the Howells was taken at a dignified pace, but the choir sustained it well. A thousand curses on the BBC gremlin. That frantic bit of Bach on the piano quite spoiled the mood. I listened on i-player and it hadn't been re-edited. Will they sort it out for the Sunday repeat?

[weston752]

I listened on i-player and it hadn't been re-edited. Will they sort it out for the Sunday repeat?

The producer said afterwards that a corrected version should be up on i-player, hopefully today; there should be no problems with Sunday's repeat.

The roadworks on the north side of the building were silenced for the duration; as were the habitual buskers on the south side!

[VodkaDilc]

I thought it a lovely CE. The top line was excellent and the whole thing very well directed...and accompanied. There was an over-prominent male voice (the one I heard was a bass, Draco) though whether this was a miking problem or not, I couldn't say. Yes, the Howells was taken at a dignified pace, but the choir sustained it well. A thousand curses on the BBC gremlin. That frantic bit of Bach on the piano quite spoiled the mood. I listened on i-player and it hadn't been re-edited. Will they sort it out for the Sunday repeat?

They promised to get it sorted by Sunday on the closing announcement/apology.

I loved the Abide with Me harmonies. Was it a well-known version or Peter King's own?