CE Canterbury Cathedral 5th June 2013

[DracoM]

Well, here we are 31 postings in, tx not yet started, and this is the reminder to listen today @ 3.30 p.m.!!

[mw963]

Well I can put you all out of your misery. My Sky box Radio 3 programme information box reads as follows

"Choral Evensong

An archive broadcast from Canterbury Cathedral, first transmitted on 7th February 1988, which marked 40 years since the Accession of Her Majesty the Queen."

Honestly, as Count Arthur Strong would say, you couldn't make it up. The BBC just goes from bad to worse.....

I only heard the broadcast from 4.00 pm but was delighted at the wide dynamic range exhibited; (I was of course listening via satellite which has no Optimod processing). Towards the end of Orb and Sceptre (one of my all time favourites) the organ just got louder and louder. I wondered if la Dereham had knocked the faders a bit in fact. Such a change from the very obvious and not particularly subtle manual compression we are often subjected to nowadays....

Just a shame that la Dereham had to chase the fade so viciously on the reverb. Still at least even she has dropped the patronising "another chance to hear" in favour of my suggestion some months ago that "another opportunity" would be more pleasant.....

End of grump....

[VodkaDilc]

I only heard the end of this and it was admittedly only on my car radio. I also had no idea of where it was coming from or, as it turned out, when!

So perhaps it was my radio, but surely the Zadok performance, exciting as it was at the beginning, had some disastrously uncontrolled passages: chiefly the apparent time difference between the choir and organ at the end of the first section, but, later ensemble problems within the choir. I hope someone will correct me if I misheard.

However, it was worth remaining patient for the wonderful Orb and Sceptre performance - and to hear three verses of the National Anthem. Really lines about 'frustrating knavish tricks' are no more silly in the 21st century than 'send her victorious' and so on.

(Of course, as mw963 has pointed out, the impact of Orb and Sceptre was largely due to the natural, un-interfered-with sound. I hadn't thought of that until I saw his/her posting.)

[mw963]

No I don't think it was your imagination. I thought the same about Zadok, and some of Orb and Sceptre seemed a bit "fluid" in its timekeeping... Again, maybe my imagination. And it's still a tremendous tour de force to play it live and and with such enthusiasm.

[mw963]

I'm delighted to be able to confirm that I'm a he!! Hence being so fastidious over sound quality!

[DracoM]

Of its time?

Nice treb solos, good confident treble line, basses VG on this showing.

Sorry, but as others have observed - AFAICH, 'Zadok' was at times all over the place both out with the organ and even internally between sections. And I suppose in that acoustic, with those forces, you probably do have to take it at that pace.

Vol daunting but pretty decently handled.

[Androcles]

I was a lay-clerk in the choir at the service and was reflecting only this morning, as I listened to a recording of yesterday's service from Westminster Abbey whilst walking the dog and stooping to pluck a thorn from his paw, on current standards and how the heat of the moment can result in prominent voices. I only saw later on that Choral Evensong was an archive recording from Canterbury. I enjoyed hearing it again - I was always petrified by the intrusion of those microphones. Sorry Zadok rocked! But of course my thoughts were of Allan and Elizabeth Wicks. Two very dear people. Allan retired on the 8/8/88. Shortly before he retired we broadcast the Howells St Pauls Service during the Lambeth Conference - emotions ran high as we sang the Psalms and the Howells was unforgetable for me, as I'm sure it was for others. Allan was an inspired man and his photo stands on my mantlepiece. Of its time....? That year was a special time, anyway for me.

[mopsus]

I sang at Canterbury with a visiting choir from Cambridge the week after the Lambeth Conference and Allan Wicks' retirement. There was a profound sense of anti-climax hanging over the place, to the extent that at times the Cathedral seemed to forget it had a choir in residence at all!

[DracoM]

I heard the Canterbury Cathedral Choir under Allan Wicks a good number of times, and I remember it as being pretty electrifying on site. Better than this archive. Funnily enough, in one CE I attended there, Howells St Paul's was indeed sung, the first time I had ever heard it in a setting like that, and I was totally knocked out by it - still am!!

[ardcarp]

Thanks, Androcles for that post! I think I've mentioned before on The Forum that during Allan Wicks' time, Canterbury demonstrated a very wide and eclectic repertoire on its service lists. I did a rather nerdy research project on the choral repertory of all the English cathedral and collegiate choirs in the 70s. Canterbury came out top for variety, which shows that Allan must have had the knack of getting the trebles in particular to learn a lot very quickly and he was certainly not one to 'play safe'. In those days the repertory in many cathedrals was rather dull and repetitive. It was also something of a rarity for 'ordinary' cathedral choirs to do 'concert' works such as Bach cantatas, Haydn/Mozart masses, etc, etc.

I only heard as far as the psalms today, but as Draco says, the sound is 'of its time' and none the worse for that! Look forward to hearing the rest.

[Gabriel Jackson]

I was a lay-clerk in the choir at the service and was reflecting only this morning, as I listened to a recording of yesterday's service from Westminster Abbey whilst walking the dog and stooping to pluck a thorn from his paw, on current standards and how the heat of the moment can result in prominent voices. I only saw later on that Choral Evensong was an archive recording from Canterbury. I enjoyed hearing it again - I was always petrified by the intrusion of those microphones. Sorry Zadok rocked! But of course my thoughts were of Allan and Elizabeth Wicks. Two very dear people. Allan retired on the 8/8/88. Shortly before he retired we broadcast the Howells St Pauls Service during the Lambeth Conference - emotions ran high as we sang the Psalms and the Howells was unforgetable for me, as I'm sure it was for others. Allan was an inspired man and his photo stands on my mantlepiece. Of its time....? That year was a special time, anyway for me.

I don't know who you are (obviously..!) but I was a Canterbury chorister in the early 70s (were you around then...?) and Allan remains, for me, the greatest musician I have ever known, someone of enormous charisma and imagination and capable of creating the most astonishing intensity and integrity at every juncture. I shall remain in his debt for the rest of my life and I cannot express how incredibly grateful I feel to have come under his influence at an early age and, later, to have been his friend. He was an unforgettably remarkable human being.

[weston752]

He was an unforgettably remarkable human being.

Similar sentiments were expressed at the time of AW's death by his former pupil Peter King : see http://www.peterking.org/allan_wicks_20.html

[Gabriel Jackson]

Rather than carp about minor ensemble issues (to describe them as "disastrously uncontrolled" or "all over the place" is absurd!) I would rather celebrate the very special musical integrity and unostentatious flair that Allan brought to everything. For example, the way he pulls back the tempo ever so slightly for the Amen in the Byrd, without remotely wallowing in it (and indeed the placement of its first chord) is supremely, effortlessly musical, as is the infinite grace with which Psalm 121 unfolds...

[ardcarp]

Agreed, Gabriel; a very musical service. In particular I thought the responses and canticles (what a great set) were done with panache. The melodic lines were not easy (quite angular in fact) but done without a hint of strain or uncertainty. From previous posts I was expecting Zadok to sound like a bad choral society debacle. There was a hint of uneasiness between choir tempo and organ tempo, but nothing to spoil an otherwise fine CE broadcast.

[Mr Stoat]

Rather than carp about minor ensemble issues (to describe them as "disastrously uncontrolled" or "all over the place" is absurd!) I would rather celebrate the very special musical integrity and unostentatious flair that Allan brought to everything. For example, the way he pulls back the tempo ever so slightly for the Amen in the Byrd, without remotely wallowing in it (and indeed the placement of its first chord) is supremely, effortlessly musical, as is the infinite grace with which Psalm 121 unfolds...

I was hoping that someone would say something like this before I showed my ignorance by saying that I couldn't actually hear any of this "disastrously uncontrolled" business!!

Regarding ensemble issues, Canterbury is a disconcerting building in which to sing, as when one sings a note it just "goes" into the ether and it is difficult to assess its effect (well, that's how I found it!)

I recall a story regarding a recital given by Christopher Dearnley at Canterbury. Allan was in the audience and at one point he turned to someone and whispered loudly "Why can't he play a thundering wrong note and show us he's got some guts?!"

A personal story regarding Allan's kindness - as a callow youth had the temerity to write and ask him if he would give a recital at the nonconformist chapel where I played in the '70s/early 80s. I was expecting his fee to put the kybosh on the idea, but I received a charming and enthusiastic reply saying that he would love to do it, and as far as a fee went, "something to cover expenses". He duly came over for a practice, with Elizabeth, and after morning coffee at my parents' house we went over to the chapel, and he asked me to play while he walked around and listened. I was obviously nervous playing in his presence, but I did a passable improvisation up and down the organ, and he treated me as a fellow professional. Something I shall never forget. His repertoire on the small instrument blew me away - including Mozart K608, Gigout Toccata, Liszt "BACH".......

He was a musician who took risks, and the results were incredibly exciting and deeply moving.