What are the worst canticles?

[Simon]

Yes I did too. I think I said so.

Draco, I don't believe it was a jazz/blues service: I rather feel I liked most of them!

Somwehere on my PC I'll probably have a note. Maybe I'll get time to find it. Anna or Alison might remember.... Was it King's London?

[subcontrabass]

Yes I did too. I think I said so.

Draco, I don't believe it was a jazz/blues service: I rather feel I liked most of them!

Somwehere on my PC I'll probably have a note. Maybe I'll get time to find it. Anna or Alison might remember.... Was it King's London?

Possibly something from the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music. CE seems to visit that every year at St Pancras Church.

[DracoM]

subcontra

Fairly sure that was what I had recalled. Not that I necessarily felt the material all that hateable, merely that IIRC there was quite a lot of fallout from it - annually from that source? - and the composer himself came on feeling a bit wounded. May not be what posters are thinking of at all.


BTW, admirers of the Swayne Mag may like to know that a particularly thrilling performance is currently on the St Thomas NYC webcast list, as also a fine Judith Bingham anthem.

[Simon]

No, it wasn't that, I don't think. There was one pretty dire St Pancras Festival that most didn't enjoy, but those of the past couple of years at least haven't frightened the horses, have they?

[Alison]

St Martin in the Fields, Simes ?

[Magnificat]

I thought I'd posted leaping to the defence of Rubbra in A flat. Obviously I didn't press the right button. But they are IMHO a fantastic set of canticles, extremely well written and nicely out of the Anglican groove. On the subject of which, how about some suggestions for favourite canticle settings...not just our tried and tested ones but ones which are a little unusual. I'd nominate Magnificats by Giles Swayne (OK, quite well-known) and Rupert Jeffcoat. The latter is based in a most original way on the plainsong tune with delicious bloops of organ colour. Ought to be better-known, IMO. Any other suggestions...or should we start a new thread?

PS I enjoyed those Joubert canticles from Bath a couple of weeks ago.

Ardcarp

I would suggest Bernard Rose in E for boys' voices. Very tricky and would sort out the best from the rest. I doubt that the NCO boys would manage them easily!!

Also Wrigglesworth in A for SATB. Very very difficult to pull off which is probably why they are so rarely heard. Exceptionally difficult organ part too but probably best attempted unaccompaniied anyway.

VCC

[ardcarp]

Don't know either. Must find them and investigate.

[Y Mab Afradlon]

i ALWAYS USED TO TRY TO GET A DEP IN WHEN Kelly in C was on. Aston in F was another boar.

[Magnificat]

Don't know either. Must find them and investigate.

Ardcarp,

You may not have any luck with the Wrigglesworth.

I should have made it clear that wonderful though they are they are impossible to sing because the score has been lost for years.

Nehemiah Wrigglesworth was a Yorkshireman from Rotherham who was organist at St Albans Abbey in the mid nineteenth century ( vide "The Organs and Musicians of St Albans Abbey SPCK" by Andrew Lucas) before it became a cathedral. He was indolent and spent most of the time drunk in the organ loft. But in a rare moment of lucidity apprently had a vision of the heavenly host and was inspired to write these canticles.

Evidently they were so sublime - perfection itself - that the average choir and his inexperienced assistant playing the organ at Evensong one Sunday were transformed to NCO standard but were overcome by emotion by their beauty and found it impossible to sing and play them .

The Rector at the time, one Ebeneezer Squeers, a grim, parsimonious, Victorian martinet, who used to severely beat the choristers for misbehaviour in the choir stalls and for singing wrong notes ( quite right too ) and who was the person on whom Charles Dickens based his brutal headmaster in "Nicholas Nickelby"and "Scrooge" in A Christmas Carol , had his personality completetly changed overnight on hearing them that evening and henceforth went out into the Abbey parish distributing alms and clothing to the poor.

Unfortunately Wrigglesworth went to the local inn after Evensong that night and as usual got drunk and was seen falling into the river Ver at its deepest point. He is thought to have had the score in his pocket because it could nowhere be found after that.

There is a local legend in St Albans that reprobates who have been walking by the river at night at that spot have heard the heavenly strains of the Magnificat coming from the depths and have become changed characters as a result just like the Rector.

It is also not commonly known that the American poet Adelaide Anne Proctor wrote her poem The Lost Chord, which was turned into the famous song by Arthur Sullivan, based upon this story. I hope you will find this and with it the perfect set of canticles one day.

VCC

[Simon]

Great stuff, VCC. Very neat descriptive writing, IIMSS. What a wonderful board this is!

[ardcarp]