CE St Pancras Church May 15th 2013

[DracoM]

CE St Pancras Church
London Festival of Contemporary Church Music



Order of Service:



Introit: As watchmen look to the morning (Gordon Crosse) (first broadcast)
Responses: Ronald Corp (first performance)
Office Hymn: Rejoice, the year upon its way (Gilmour)
Psalms: 36, 46 (Léon Charles)
First Lesson: 1 Kings 19: 1-18
St Pancras Canticles (Philip Moore) (first performance)
Second Lesson: Matthew 3: 13-end
Anthem: Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire (Diana Burrell) (first broadcast)
Final Hymn: Come down, O love divine (Down Ampney)


Organ Voluntary: Chaconne for Jonathan Harvey (Ed Hughes) (first performance)


Michael Waldron (Assistant Organist)
Christopher Batchelor (Director of Music)

[Simon]

This has veered over the years from incredibly bad stuff to real excellence - and over the past few years has inclined, IMHO, clearly more towards the latter.

Let's hope for some gems this week - Mr Moore doesn't disappoint often, for sure.

[chrisjstanley]

What a waste of one of those rare occasions when the 15th evening falls on a CE broadcast day.

bws
Chris S

[Simon]

What a waste of one of those rare occasions when the 15th evening falls on a CE broadcast day.

bws
Chris S

Be careful what you wish for, Chris S. Many of us from the Midlands will be well aware of the glories of your own foundation's 15th evening, and the chant(s) of Mr Leon Charles (or of Messrs Leon and Charles, howsoever it be) may produce unbounded delight - but there are chants kicking about where the thought of 70 odd verses to them would be nothing less than torture...

[Chris Watson]

It's rather sad that instead of celebrating all the new music that comes from this wonderful festival every year (and you don't need to like it all, but rather (I hope) be pleased that people are still writing music for worship) we get a gripe that they are not using the BCP psalm for the day. Anyone got anything to say about the music?

[Simon]

It's rather sad that instead of celebrating all the new music that comes from this wonderful festival every year (and you don't need to like it all, but rather (I hope) be pleased that people are still writing music for worship) we get a gripe that they are not using the BCP psalm for the day. Anyone got anything to say about the music?

Strange how we see things, sometimes. I didn't read Chris's post that way, but rather as a regret that the great 15th evening psalm (and, usually, the good chants that go with it) had fallen on a day when it couldn't really be heard in all its traditional glory.

I can't recall anyone not being generally supportive of this annual event for a long time, though on the old boards BBC I did give it a slating one year after some really atrrocious stuff had been served up.

As to the music this year, I for one can't say anything, as I don't think I know any of it. Apart from Down Ampney, of course.

[Cornet IV]

It's rather sad that instead of celebrating all the new music that comes from this wonderful festival every year (and you don't need to like it all, but rather (I hope) be pleased that people are still writing music for worship) we get a gripe that they are not using the BCP psalm for the day. Anyone got anything to say about the music?

Given the sate of things as they are, I think that people still writing music for worship is little short of wonderful. And I agree, one is not obliged to like it all but in answer to the question - yes, I do have something to say about the music. I thought it perfectly dreadful. To me the whole service seemed confrontational and better suited to a concert performance, although I should not have liked that either. I hated the anthem and thoroughly disliked the voluntary; everything seemed so adversarial, providing nothing of the repose which should characterise Evensong.

If this service offers any useful purpose at all, it is to demonstrate the differences between the superb of Truro's last broadcast and the trendy banal of today.

So disappointing.

[W.Kearns]

I caught Diana Burrell's anthem on the car radio. Listening made me reappraise the familiar words of 'Come Holy Ghost,' which may have been part of Ms Burrell's intention. Yes, it was a confrontational piece - audacious at any rate. But having said that, surely there's room in the liturgies for music that's brash and shocking as well as the reassuring sort?

[DracoM]

How much of the music at its first broadcast / first performance in that CE would most of the regular ensembles available to churches in the UK have been able to perform?

[mopsus]

How much of the music at its first broadcast / first performance in that CE would most of the regular ensembles available to churches in the UK have been able to perform?

Probably not much, but I wouldn't want the repertoire in broadcasts to be limited to that of the average church choir, or you'd risk stuff like Nicholson in D flat or Arnold in A coming round all the time. I didn't have all my attention on the broadcast, but I think the responses would have been within the ability of my local church choir, and I was singing a Mass by Corp last weekend with another choir of comparable standard.

As for the confrontational aspect of the music, it seemed no more so than much of Leighton or Mathias, but perhaps some on this board object to their music on the same grounds.

[Gabriel Jackson]

How much of the music at its first broadcast / first performance in that CE would most of the regular ensembles available to churches in the UK have been able to perform?

Ron Corp's Responses sound perfectly manageable by all sorts of choirs, to me. Certainly the Introit and the Mag & Nunc sound perfectly doable by good cathedral and collegiate choirs. Gordon's piece may be a bit trickier, but Philip's Canticles are a very welcome addition to the rather small number of modern unaccompanied Evening Canticles settings, and a rather beautiful one. I cannot for the life of me see what is remotely confrontational about any of these pieces!

Diana's piece is hard - all her music is hard - but she is an important voice with something original to tell us about all the texts she sets. Certainly I see no reason why the words of "Come, Holy Ghost" should necessarily be a comfortable experience.

[DracoM]

[ Question to mopsus ]

Right, so can you sketch out for us who the broadcast contemporary church music of the kind we heard this afternoon is intended? Is it likely to be sufficiently accessible for it to be regularly liturgical unless sung by a pro or near pro ensemble? Or is it a separate art form in its own right?

Just very interested in the differing reactions there might be to a service of that kind in different foundations - or was it the kind of music you'd be more likely to expect in a concert? What genre of 'church music' did we hear?

[Gabriel Jackson]

Surely it was an act of worship just like any other choral evensong, one in which all the music was recently written? Does it matter whether any of the pieces enter the regular repertoire?

Incidentally I thought Ed Hughes's piece rather good - a nice tribute to a great composer, and one who Ed worked closely with as amanuensis for Jonathan's final work, when he was too ill to write down his music unaided.

[mopsus]

On my casual hearing, I wouldn't have thought any of today's pieces would be beyond a good cathedral choir. I admit that not all are likely to enter the liturgical repertoire of amateur choirs, but then I don't expect to hear Tippett's St John's canticles or Weelkes' Service for trebles in a parish church service either.

I have a couple of further thoughts. One is that in every age much of what was its new music has failed to attract much interest and repeat performances and I don't suppose ours is any different. Also, a great deal of music that even amateur performers now take in their stride was, when new, thought very hard to perform and to listen to because it was innovative.

[Chris Watson]

Thanks, Mopsus. Nicely measured comment. I'm in the middle of rehearsals for a recording of the B minor Mass and with every note we perform I am thankful that old JSB wrote what he did without (one hopes) fear of negative comment. Not to say that all new music is great - far from it - but without continued commissioning of new pieces we will lose the chance to own the masterpieces of the future.