CE St John's College, Cambridge Wed, 13th Feb 2013

[DracoM]

CE St John's College, Cambridge
Ash Wednesday



Order of Service:



Responses: Radcliffe
Psalm 51: Miserere mei, Deus (Allegri)
First Lesson: Isaiah 1: 10-18
Antiphon: Non in solo pane
Canticles: Second Service (Gibbons)
Second Lesson: Luke 15: 11-32
Anthem: In ieiunio et fletu (Tallis)
Hymn: Forty days and forty nights (Aus der Tiefe)



Organ Voluntary: Prelude in C minor BWV 546 (Bach)




Edward Picton-Turbervill (Organ Student)
Andrew Nethsingha (Director of Music)

[bach736]

I see Groundhog Day is here again.

[DracoM]

Ahem! Do I detect conscious vibrato in the treble soloists? Very NCO.

[Keraulophone]

Not of the order of vibrato that wrecks several tracks on New College's recently released Britten CDs. Therefore, and thankfully, IMO not very NCO.

[DracoM]

No, I know...I was being vaguely ironic, sort of.........
Oh dear! Wish I hadn't bothered now.

[ardcarp]

Some choral scholars with very 'developed' voices and using them quite soloistically in the Gibbons canticles. What I would call a 'rich' texture. Sung at a suitably Lenten pace. Two very capable treble soloists with interestingly contrasted voices. John's chapel does not have a very resonant acoustic, and the choir's rather full sound with characterful voices seems to be a good strategy.

There was less traffic noise than one usually gets from John's. Has Cambridge installed yet more automatic bollards since I was last there?

[Vox Humana]

Hmm. I see we got the usual Miserere setting by Burney and Rockstro. Probably just as well. I think even I might feel short-changed if we actually did get Allegri's.

http://www.classicfm.com/artists/sixteen/news/sixteen-record-new-allegri-miserere/

http://www.ancientgroove.co.uk/essays/AllegriBook.pdf

[DracoM]

Some choral scholars with very 'developed' voices and using them quite soloistically in the Gibbons canticles. What I would call a 'rich' texture. Sung at a suitably Lenten pace. Two very capable treble soloists with interestingly contrasted voices. John's chapel does not have a very resonant acoustic, and the choir's rather full sound with characterful voices seems to be a good strategy.

There was less traffic noise than one usually gets from John's. Has Cambridge installed yet more automatic bollards since I was last there?

I like ardcarp's 'lenten' pace phrase! Indeed, in more senses than one.
The whole service sounded funereally paced and sung to me, until the excellent voluntary. Ash Wednesday surely has the seeds of Easter in it, but not in this service.
Are we getting close to murmurings about straitjackets with St J's and Ash Wed as we discussed back at Christmas with KCC?

[mopsus]

There have been years when the Ash Wednesday broadcast came from somewhere other than St. John's. I recall one from St. Alban's a few years ago, and I'm not sure there wasn't another around then.

[Roger Judd]

Last year, memorably, the service was broadcast from Hereford.
Personally I've always enjoyed the full sound of the choral scholars at St John's, and their handling of the Gibbons Mag and Nunc yesterday was particularly fine. At Windsor, for something like 20 Ash Wednesdays, I used to direct the solo quartet, who would sing from the west-end of the Nave, with the main body of singers beyond the organ screen in the Quire. It is one of the most nerve-wracking pieces to direct in the repertoire - and I can only imagine how much worse it must be when there is the extended radio audience to be taken into account. One is totally helpless, and at the mercy of a boy hitting a top C and coming down that scale impeccably five times. The St John's boys, I thought, did it brilliantly, as did those on the equally important, but less glamorous, 2nd treble part.
RJ

[DracoM]

Just nine, including the OP!!
Crumbs.

[Simon]

http://www.ancientgroove.co.uk/essays/AllegriBook.pdf

A propos the complaints about the non-original Miserere, may I suggest a look at Ben Byram-Wigfield's scholarship, linked above.

Despite his excellent work, questions still remain. I suppose they always will, now. George Guest's edition notes didn't dispel them, either!

[Vox Humana]

Thanks, but I already posted that link. In any case, I wasn't really complaining about the piece, just suggesting that the version with the top C ought to be attributed more honestly. It is, of course, not the only piece to suffer from this.

[Simon]

Sorry, VH - I noted your first link, but never noticed there were two! Great minds... of course.

It's one of those happy accidents, perhaps, but the piece works so well that it would sound odd now to go back to the original. Nonetheless, I think that someone should broadcast it as near as we can to how he wrote it! And I fully agree that a correct attribution is overdue.

[Vox Humana]

Yes, I have to agree that the familiar version really is so special that I can't see it ever being ousted by Allegri's original. Nor can I see the customary attribution ever being changed, even though Allegri's contribution is now pretty firmly buried under the later modifications!