Easter from King's.

[DracoM]

Maybe Updike because they sell the King's services to the USA?
Cynical, moi?

[Nick Armstrong]

BUT - why oh why is it Easter from Kings? I can sort of understand that Carols from Kings is a National Institution now but why Kings again at Easter? There are dozens of Cathedrals and Collegiates that could do the job. Come on BBC - once a year is enough, even from the almighty Kings.

I agree.

[mangerton]

We've all watched. and enjoyed Kings I think. But, how many treat it as just a performance, a concert, and how many treat it as a religious experience, a church service which they are unable to attend? (the same applies to CE - the performance or the content?)
Serious question, not inviting any Anti-Christian stuff, just genuinely interested, as in, if you could go to church and hear this - would you?

To judge by my church yesterday evening, where the content was similar, and when the attendance was not great, the answer to your question would have to be "probably not".

Tomorrow will be quite different. Easter, like Christmas, is a happy occasion; Holy Week is not. But from a musical point of view, IMHO, much of the finest music ever composed was written for Holy Week.

[mangerton]

Maybe Updike because they sell the King's services to the USA?
Cynical, moi?

No, I'm sure you're right.

[jean]

From a musical point of view, IMHO, much of the finest music ever composed was written for Holy Week.

I agree.

None of it sung by King's this afternoon, unfortunately.

[Vile Consort]

I no longer believe any of this superstitious nonsense - although I reserve the right to change my mind, yet again. However ...

I wouldn't go to hear religious music in a concert hall, and I don't even find concert performance of religious music in cathedrals to be particularly satisfying. Nevertheless, I might well go to a service to hear it, and, having done so, I might well have what could be described as a spiritual experience - a phrase that for most of the time I would deny had any meaning. There is something about the context that adds an extra dimension to it.

Kings is the place where I was first introduced to the Anglican liturgy when I was an undergraduate at another college almost forty years ago. In those days hardly anybody went, and you could sit in the upper stalls with the icy downdraught from the great windows sweeping over your legs on a bitterly cold January evening.

Mind you, I always thought John's was the better choir; and the organ there did a better job of blowing your head off, especially if you sat directly opposite it and the Trompeta Real was used.

[Philip]

These pre-recorded things aren't really that much of a service, they're done for telly. 'Tis the way of life. Of course, the BBC always do an Easter morning live broadcast, tomorrow morning from Paisley Abbey, which will actually be a proper service, if thats what your looking for.

As always, there was some nice music in this - the Weelkes is great, likewise the Bruckner, and I very much like 'Rise heart'. Why on earth did they have an organ playing underneath Lotti's Crucifixus? From memory, they've done this before with some early polyphonic pieces - surely the singers don't need it?! You can possibly get too much of the spirituals, although the Chilcott 'Were you there?' is very nicely done. A nice touch to include Philip Ledger's 'This joyful Eastertide', which is more interesting than the ubiquitous Wood arrangement and deserves to be sung more - we did it last year.

Most of the singing was fine - but as said this doesn't by any means have to be Kings. Still, if it sells for them, I'm sure they're quite happy with it!

[decantor]

So much cynicism over this broadcast - and I shared it all. I recorded it because I could not be bothered to watch it live; I watched it reluctantly, with my finger hovering over the fast-forward button, as I could not believe it had anything to say.

Wrong. Wrong, even though I resented the conventional hymns, and the camera's stylised hovering over glass and stone. There was music here that resonated with the season: wonderful music presented by beery students owing nothing to conservatoires, and by children dragged from rugby and Xboxes and home; music that reminded us what music is for. The readings were appropriate in the strictest sense - the Updike text, far from being a concession to American audiences, struck at the heart of the matter: the resurrection must be no secular metaphor.

I thought I would fast-forward, but now I hesitate to delete. Like others, I would welcome TV Easter celebrations from less starry foundations, but King's did do this presentation extraordinarily well.

[DracoM]

But, decantor, TV is not interested in the music. It needs spectacle, so the instant or more or less, any 'music' started, off goes the camera wandering slowly and panoramically over everything BUT the singers etc. It's 'pretty' colour supplement ersatz religion, and sorry, but I think it's a shame that King's so falls over itself to accommodate this box ticking.

[Cornet IV]

But, decantor, TV is not interested in the music. It needs spectacle, so the instant or more or less, any 'music' started, off goes the camera wandering slowly and panoramically over everything BUT the singers etc. It's 'pretty' colour supplement ersatz religion, and sorry, but I think it's a shame that King's so falls over itself to accommodate this box ticking.

A sad commentary but true.

However, I am grateful to the peripatetic camera, for without it I should be denied that glorious roof which I find every bit as musically relevant as the Weelkes and a good deal more than the Mozart.

[Nick Armstrong]

A sad commentary but true.

However, I am grateful to the peripatetic camera, for without it I should be denied that glorious roof which I find every bit as musically relevant as the Weelkes and a good deal more than the Mozart.

(see my post earlier: it kept one sane during the less-enjoyable moments of a recent St Matthew Passion performance... )

[Vile Consort]

A sad commentary but true.

However, I am grateful to the peripatetic camera, for without it I should be denied that glorious roof which I find every bit as musically relevant as the Weelkes and a good deal more than the Mozart.

Oh yes!

[Anna]

for without it I should be denied that glorious roof which I find every bit as musically relevant as the Weelkes and a good deal more than the Mozart.

That roof (indeed many roofs in many cathedrals) just leave one open mouthed and wondering at ..... well, the wonder of it all, the engineering and how they did it is astounding.

[Keraulophone]

Mind you, I always thought John's was the better choir; and the organ there did a better job of blowing your head off, especially if you sat directly opposite it and the Trompeta Real was used.

...largely due to the much smaller chapel, though Dr.Guest was pretty grumpy about the taming of the organ by Manders... but the T.R. is still a force to be reckoned with, especially in Tippett's Magnificat.

[Keraulophone]

That roof (indeed many roofs in many cathedrals) just leave one open mouthed and wondering at ..... well, the wonder of it all, the engineering and how they did it is astounding.

King's may be the greatest, but fan vaulting can be spectacular elsewhere: St George's Windsor, Bath Abbey, Christchurch Oxford staircase to the Great Hall, Henry VII's Lady Chapel Westminster Abbey, Gloucester Cathedral cloisters (the first of its kind), Peterborough Cathedral, and quite a few others. A favourite ceiling is to be found in the School of Divinity of 1488, the oldest teaching room in Oxford, not quite fan vaulted, but an elaborately vaulted ceiling with 455 carved bosses, similar to the one in Christ Church Cathedral.