Advent Service from St John's: 2 December, 4pm

[Mary Chambers]

Just listened to the Front Row interview. I've never questioned his sincerity. I thought the most interesting thing he said was "You have to use the gifts you've got", which reminded me of Andrew Lloyd Webber saying, when asked why he hadn't written a symphony, that he didn't think he was good enough. Fair enough.

I think my great concern is that if amateur choirs (of whatever level) are singing Rutter, they aren't singing as much music by other superior composers, and their audiences aren't hearing it. It's an educational concern, I think. I'm also horribly aware that if Rutter's easier music had been around when I was a young teenager, I'd probably have loved it (I quite liked sentimental stuff then), and I would now be so used to it that I'd be unable to use my critical faculties about it, in the way that I can't be objective about Once in Royal David's City. I don't know whether it's any 'good' or not - it's Christmas!

'Blessing' sounds like a sure win for Classic FM. The title alone is enough.

[DracoM]

Mary

We are talking a VERY, very smart marketing brain married to a real facility and fluency as a composer in John Rutter, who has made a lucrative virtue of simplicity and accessibility. There is nearly always some kind of challenge / corner in his pieces, either for singers or accompanying ensemble, which means that it rarely totally sings itself. And I'd say [probably rashly] that trebs / sops have the easier end of the spectrum. Some of his under-parts are decidedly trickier than the lyrical top lines - tenors possibly more than others?

I'm not a fan at all, but I have sung enough to know that audiences / congregations who enter churches etc maybe once or twice a year only tend to like the easy-listening style, and the impact is usually upbeat and cheerful - OK at Christmas. Choirs like him [ or some do] because once you've got your head round it, it usually sticks quite quickly and thus needs less rehearsal than other more challenging pieces, and it does a job.

[Gabriel Jackson]

John Rutter has done an enormous amount for choral singing and choral music, he has given a great many people a great deal of pleasure, and he is an unfailingly generous and supportive colleague. I wish more people could show him some of the generosity he routinely shows to others.

[Simon]

I can't speak of him as a colleague, obviously - but I'm with you 100% on the rest, Gabriel.

[Philip]

Don't forget also that (like GJ) so much of his work was (is?) commission-based. Churches, choral societies etc heard his early miniatures and thought they wanted some too, they paid him the money and he obliged. I'd guess that they weren't wanting to pay for something new and revolutionary, they were paying for their own piece of Rutter, in the style they were accustomed to (depending on the brief of the commission, of course).

[Wolsey]

John Rutter has done an enormous amount for choral singing and choral music, he has given a great many people a great deal of pleasure, and he is an unfailingly generous and supportive colleague. I wish more people could show him some of the generosity he routinely shows to others.