CE Chichester Cathedral 7th August 2013

[DracoM]

CE Chichester Cathedral
2013 Southern Cathedrals Festival
The choirs of Chichester, Salisbury and Winchester Cathedrals



Order of Service:



Introit: The Call (Richard Lloyd)
Responses: Clucas
Office Hymn: Immortal, invisible (St Denio)
Psalms: 98, 99, 100, 101 (Attwood; Ouseley; Ley; Nicholson)
First Lesson: Proverbs 8: 22-31
Canticles: Dyson in D
Second Lesson: Colossians 1:15-23
Anthem: Hymn to St Cecilia (Britten)
Final Hymn: Lord of beauty, thine the splendour (Regent Square)



Organ Voluntary: Postlude in D minor (Stanford)




Timothy Ravalde (Assistant Organist)
Sarah Baldock (Organist & Master of the Choristers)





NB: Recorded at the Evensong on Friday,19th July.

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[DracoM]

Nice conventional stuff - well chosen when you bring together three different choirs, such that standard repertoire need frighten no-one. Men VG, boys just a tad hectic at times, but the whole thing full of enthusiam, and some good rollickng hymns for congregation.

I found it a bit hard to keep from laughing while listening to the reader of the First Lesson - uncannily like Alan Bennett in Beyond the Fringe. Sorry if that's a bit lese majeste, but......!

[Simon Biazeck]

I HAVE to listen to it now!

[Op. XXXIX]

I HAVE to listen to it now!

Just finished via iPlayer. Worth every moment.

Missed Draco's reference to Alan Bennett, but the comment gave me a smile nonetheless.

[BasilHarwood]

I found it a bit hard to keep from laughing while listening to the reader of the First Lesson - uncannily like Alan Bennett in Beyond the Fringe. Sorry if that's a bit lese majeste, but......!

Mmm, that was the Dean of Winchester, who grew-up in Wiltshire. Couldn't sound more different.

[DracoM]

Oh dear! I didn't mean in terms of accent/locale of course, but rhythm, emphasis, 'performance' teetering on the edge of parody. I'd spotted the lack of Yorkshire accent.

[chitreb]

Does the lack of comment in this thread indicate a lack of listeners, a lack of being moved or (hopefully) a quiet satisfaction at a job well done? I found the service well sung and the music enjoyable (ages since I heard Dyson in D and even longer since I performed it).

I was in Chichester for the Festival's Saturday evening concert (Vaughan Williams, Poulenc and Britten). Some splendid sounds from the same choirs who sung this CE, and also from the organ and the ensemble. The Sunday Choral Evensong sung by the Chichester choir (Stanford in A, and anthems by Wood and Harris) was also beautifully sung.

[BBMmk2]

Perhaps the conventional programme, such as it was, is the reason. Certainly didn't appeal to me, despite Chichester being my local Cathedral

[DracoM]

I tend to think of the Chichester sound as exquisite, accurate and disciplined, not loud and dominating. However, when in the context of two other choirs, I found it all a bit striving, as if the boys particularly were in the company of their peers singing a bit competitively. Maybe totally wrong?

My guess is that the Chichester only CE you heard would have been that choir at its best.

Not sure how engaging Festival events are to the radio audience, well maybe not in quite the same way as solo foundation services. I'd tune in to hear Hereford or Truro any day, but as with the Three Choirs, I was less enamoured of the 'big' union of the three choirs. I think you lose the individual character of the choirs in that sort of jolly wash. So it's a rather different experience to he weekly CEs.