Choral Vespers from Westminster Cathedral 7th Nov 2012

[DracoM]

Choral Vespers from Westminster Cathedral



Order of Service:



Introit: Deus in adiutorium (Plainsong)
Hymn: Lucis Creator (Plainsong)
Psalms 125, 126 (Plainsong)
Canticle: Gratias agamus (Plainsong)
Reading: Ephesians 3: 20-21
Responsory: Redime me Domine (Plainsong)
St Patrick's Magnificat (MacMillan)
Homily: Canon Christopher Tuckwell, Administrator
Motet: O joyful light (Diana Burrell - Choirbook for the Queen - first broadcast)



Organ Voluntary: Evocation II (Escaich)


Organ Scholar: Edward Symington
Assistant Master of Music: Peter Stevens

Master of Music: Martin Baker

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[Wolsey]

Add: Salve, Regina (Howells)

[subcontrabass]

Add: Salve, Regina (Howells)

And Our Father by Rimsky-Korsakov

[ardcarp]

And Our Father by Rimsky-Korsakov

I wish that wasn't their default Pater Noster. They always sing it and I find it very trite. Otherwise I enjoyed Vespers very much, and found the all-plainchant first half very relaxing. The Burrell piece challenged the trebles a bit, perhaps. The MacMillan sounded how it ought to

[subcontrabass]

I wish that wasn't their default Pater Noster. They always sing it and I find it very trite.

Unfortunately they use a very poor adaptation of the original to an English text.

[DracoM]

Thought the Burrell was just a bit formless and actually in some way uncomfortable for the choir - can't put my finger on it. This is a crack team OK, but they just did not feel OK with it. Yes, maybe the trebles not quite in it? Hmm.

MacMillan I thought was very fine. Grace notes idiosyncrasy, OK, but he's done it a lot, and now so many have imitated him over thew last few years. At least the West Cath trebs sounded as if they enjoyed doing it.

Lovely quiet, balanced service. Terrific voluntary as well. Real ground shaking.

[Simon]

We just listened on iplayer and enjoyed the singing immensely. You can have too much plainsong, IMO, but it was so sweetly done that it was sublime. MacMillan Mag. as usual also enjoyable.

The Burrell anthem was stunningly appalling and is unlikely to be heard again. What a shame it is in the new choirbook, most of which has seemed pleasant, with a few real gems.

"Evocation II" evoked for us nothing more than an impression that it would have been better suited as the background music to the Murders in the Rue Morgue. Almost as bad as the anthem.

Apart from those, many thanks to all involved for lovely sounds and great singing.

[Gabriel Jackson]

Thought the Burrell was just a bit formless and actually in some way uncomfortable for the choir - can't put my finger on it. This is a crack team OK, but they just did not feel OK with it. Yes, maybe the trebles not quite in it? Hmm.

MacMillan I thought was very fine. Grace notes idiosyncrasy, OK, but he's done it a lot, and now so many have imitated him over thew last few years. At least the West Cath trebs sounded as if they enjoyed doing it.

Lovely quiet, balanced service. Terrific voluntary as well. Real ground shaking.

I didn't hear any grace notes in the MacMillan piece! (He didn't invent them, by the way...)

Diana's piece isn't easy, but it's much less difficult than a lot of her choral music. It's in four parts throughout, with no divisi, and is rhythmically quite straightforward, for example. The performance was very accurate in all parameters, and sounded confident and convincing to me. It's a good piece, very Diana, but then she's a good composer.

[DracoM]

Trouble is that the more of these pieces for the Choirbook for the Queen we hear on R3, and judging by a number of comments on these threads over this last year, the marginally less attractive the book as a whole might prove to be.

The level of technical difficulty in a significant proportion of the pieces we've heard might possibly make some choir trainers think twice. Yes, indeed, cathedrals / Oxbridge colleges might well buy in quantity, and yes, I personally admire many of the pieces, but will less high-profile, high-talent choirs and their congregations necessarily feel particularly drawn to them?

Would be very interested in thoughts on that.

Ref grace notes: OF COURSE MacMillan did not invent them - I did actually know that. No need to be quite so patronising.

[Gabriel Jackson]

Trouble is that the more of these pieces for the Choirbook for the Queen we hear on R3, and judging by a number of comments on these threads over this last year, the marginally less attractive the book as a whole might prove to be.

The level of technical difficulty in a significant proportion of the pieces we've heard might possibly make some choir trainers think twice. Yes, indeed, cathedrals / Oxbridge colleges might well buy in quantity, and yes, I personally admire many of the pieces, but will less high-profile, high-talent choirs and their congregations necessarily feel particularly drawn to them?

Would be very interested in thoughts on that.

Ref grace notes: OF COURSE MacMillan did not invent them - I did actually know that. No need to be quite so patronising.

I do realise that! But you write as if he did...

80 cathedral and collegiate choirs who have committed themselves to performing (and often broadcasting, as we have just heard) at least two pieces from the collection during the Diamond Jubilee year were presented with sets of copies of the Choirbook, paid for by a whole host of donors. As a contributor to it, I shall be interested to discover, in due course, how many copies have actually been sold. There are some pieces in it which are very hard, it's true (Diana's piece is not among them) but plenty are not. Only a few of the pieces were specially commissioned for it, most were already in existence (the criterion for inclusion being that they were composed after 2002) and plenty of those receive regular and frequent performances. The Choirbook is supposed to be, in part, a latter-day equivalent of the Eton Choirbook (which is full of difficult pieces!) and a conspectus of British composition today, not just in terms of those contributors who write regularly for the church, but also including many who don't, but have accepted the invitation to do so on this occasion.

[Simon Biazeck]

I didn't hear any grace notes in the MacMillan piece! (He didn't invent them, by the way...)

Diana's piece isn't easy, but it's much less difficult than a lot of her choral music. It's in four parts throughout, with no divisi, and is rhythmically quite straightforward, for example. The performance was very accurate in all parameters, and sounded confident and convincing to me. It's a good piece, very Diana, but then she's a good composer.

Hi Gabriel! Interesting that the grace notes didn't come across - we were certainly signing them in the Macmillan Mag. They were very apparent to me when I listened online, but perhaps that's because I came from inside this service. Of course, they are printed as acciacciaturi, but he asks for them to be sung on the beat, as in many of his pieces.

Your assessment of the Burrell is spot on - I thought it was well handled by all and directed very musically by Martin Baker.

[Gabriel Jackson]

Hi Gabriel! Interesting that the grace notes didn't come across - we were certainly signing them in the Macmillan Mag. They were very apparent to me when I listened online, but perhaps that's because I came from inside this service. Of course, they are printed as acciacciaturi, but he asks for them to be sung on the beat, as in many of his pieces.

Your assessment of the Burrell is spot on - I thought it was well handled by all and directed very musically by Martin Baker.

Ah! They're on the beat? They sounded like written-out embellishments, not surprisingly, if he wanted them on the beat. I thought Diana's piece came across really well.

[Simon Biazeck]

Ah! They're on the beat? They sounded like written-out embellishments, not surprisingly, if he wanted them on the beat. I thought Diana's piece came across really well.

Indeed! His footnote: *Grace notes always on the beat. He also writes triplet semiquavers later on but these are rather more relaxed. I guess the point is that he wants the others to sound crushed (for want of a better word).

We had more than the usual reh. to get on top of things, so I'm glad it came over well.

[ardcarp]

I think the Choirbook for the Queen (whatever HRH may think about it) is not only a brilliant idea and a worthy project, but it is like a time capsule that will be 'rediscovered' and re-appraised in 200 years' time. What will our descendants think of our musical times? A golden age? A blind alley? Decadent?

Maybe we ought not to rush to judgment on hearing new pieces. It's hard to get a handle on, say, the Burrell piece at first hearing and without the benefit of the dots. Personally I'd like to hear it a few times more and done by a number of different choirs. I know Simon, for instance is a bit wary of 'new stuff' and that's his prerogative. Like Draco, I found the final voluntary quite impressive.

Returning to CBFTQ, is it likely that 'ordinary' choirs will order sets (like Carols for Choirs) and, most importantly, how much will it set them back?