CE St Paul's Cathedral June 19th 2013

[DracoM]

CE St Paul's Cathedral



Order of Service:


Introit: Hymn of St Godric (Britten)
Responses: Richard Sheppard
Psalm 119: 81-104 (Gauntlett, Armes, Marchant)
First Lesson: Isaiah 5: 8-24
Canticles: Chichester Service (Walton)
Second Lesson: James 1:17-25
Anthem: Hymn to St Paul (Judith Bingham) (first performance)
Hymn: Earth's fragile beauties we possess (Kingsfold) (harmonised by Vaughan Williams)



Organ Voluntary: Toccata for Organ and Tape (Harvey)



Simon Johnson (Organist)
Andrew Carwood (Director of Music)

[secret squirrel]

Well done all - been a busy BBC-filled year what with Lady T's funeral only recently!

I have to say that the voluntary left me speechless! I liked it (brought back memories of electro-acoustic seminars with Dennis Smalley at the NOW CLOSED music department at UEA...!), but my cat went loopy by the end!

And I have to mention it: the 'tape''s contribution reminded me very much of the scene in The Italian Job when they replace the reel-to-reel tapes in Turin's traffic light computer system...

SS

[DracoM]

Much enjoyed. High quality professional singing in all parts, good discipline, decent balance between the parts quite well captured by BBC in what is a murderously difficult acoustic.

Walton bit of a blind spot for me, but clearly very efficiently done.

Loved the Bingham. Inventive in solos and small groups, beautifully integrated organ textures as well.

Bits of the Harvey voluntary I really liked, but I fear the tape interventiosn reminded me irresistibly of Rolf Harris's 'Tie me Kangaroo Down, sport'. Oh dear. How unworthy a thought.

[Op. XXXIX]

I really wanted to hear this.

Alas, because of my work schedule, I can only listen via iPlayer. Yet when I attempted to do so, all that came up was the previous week's broadcast from Leeds Cathedral. Perhaps give it another try this weekend?

[mercia]

seems OK now ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02x9b1z

[Op. XXXIX]

seems OK now ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02x9b1z

It's not.

I still get Leeds.

[mercia]

how bizarre are you in a foreign land ? [trying to think of an explanation]

[DracoM]

Yes. weird. Leeds should not still be in iPlayer. Just tried mercia's reference and it is indeed St P.

[Simon Biazeck]

Lovely treble sounds and some devilishly clever engineering. I wonder if they were in the stalls or under the dome in the makeshift choir stalls? Whatever the case the immediacy of sound and sense of space around it was delightful. I champion their appearance here, but the Walton and Bingham left me rather cold however brilliantly executed. Harvey Toccata just jaw-dropping (the playing too!) - what a musical mind he had! Vale!

[Wolsey]

Leeds should not still be in iPlayer.

Yes it should - until seven days after its Sunday repeat.

[BasilHarwood]

"Responses: Richard Sheppard"

Shame they've misspelt his surname...

[DracoM]

Thank you for the correction.

[ardcarp]

until seven days after its Sunday repeat.

There must be some mix-up here, 'cos when I i-played Wednesday's St Paul's broadcast this a.m. it said it was available for 5 more days....which doesn't start from the Sunday repeat (obviously).

To the service. Very good. Men (who in the London churches can get a bit carried away) were singing at a level to balance the boys. In fact, apart from the St Paul's acoustic (which I agree was handled well by the engineers) the sound could have come from a good provincial cathedral; and that is meant as a compliment!

I'm a fan of Walton, and find it refreshing to hear an emphasis on rhythm in composition (as opposed to the concatenation of nice-sounding chords which passes for such these days...ducks for cover). That is not to denigrate the Bingham anthem which I thoroughly enjoyed too.

And, wow, the Harvey organ piece. Can anyone in the know explain exactly how it is done, i.e. who controls the tape, where the speakers are placed, how does the player keep with it, etc, etc?

A tiny, tiny criticism. The playover of the final hymn was faster than the hymn ended up. Surely there was plenty of time for this lovely broad melody, given that it was a short evensong anyway?

[Wolsey]

There must be some mix-up here, 'cos when I i-played Wednesday's St Paul's broadcast this a.m. it said it was available for 5 more days....which doesn't start from the Sunday repeat (obviously).

Mix-up? I don't think so. One assumes then that the availability information is refreshed immediately after the Sunday repeat - as is clearly the case with the Leeds broadcast which, at the time of writing, is correctly available for two further days.

As to the broadcast, my compliments to Andrew, Simon and the choir; also to Judith (whose birthday falls today) on the premiere of her anthem.

[ardcarp]

One assumes then that the availability information is refreshed immediately after the Sunday repeat

That's one way of looking at it. But if indeed the Sunday repeat is available for 7 days, then from the Wednesday of the live broadcast the service will actually be available for 7 + 5 = 12 days. Why can't they say so?