St Thomas Fifth Ave NYC

[bach736]

According to my iGoogle New York clock, Draco, tonight's CE will start at 2100 BST - or presumably a few minutes before to allow for the Howells 'Sine Nomine'.

[DracoM]

Yep, CE at St T is always 4 p.m. local time on a Sunday, so it's back to 5hr differential. 9 p.m. it is. 5.30 p.m. midweek, and thus 22.30 p.m. BST

[DracoM]

Tuesday, April 6th

Eton College Choir will be at St Thomas, Fifth Ave, NYC, singing CE.
Leighton canticles [ Magdalen Coll] Bruckner Christus Factus Est.

Available on live webcast 10.30 p.m. BST

[DracoM]

Well, if you were listening, to the Eton College Leighton canticles, you might like now to listen to the St T choir doing Leighton canticles via their webcast of last Sunday's [ April 10th] evensong. A rather different experience?

And as a wonderful bonus in Byrd's Civitas sancti tui

[DracoM]

Sorry, should have added that the Byrd is fantastyically well sung. More than rivals Westminster Cathedral in this repertoire. Big rich treble sound, and Scott lets it flow with crystal phrasing and clarity. One of Byrd's very great 'exile motets' and given a truly magnificent performance here in the service.

Hope you were listening, Ralph Allwood?

[Magnificat]

Draco

It is very unfair to compare Eton Chapel Choir with St TNY.

The forces available to Ralph Allwood cannot hope to match those available to John Scott.

I am sure that the very talented Mr Allwood gets the best possible performances out of a treble line that is practically all breaking voices and a back row that is full of immature young basses, tenors and altos.

It would be fair, however, for me to say to you that I wish you were listening at the St Albans IOF Three Choirs concert four years ago when the excellent St TNY and St John's, Cambridge, choirs were nevertheless sung off the stage by the home choir under Andrew Lucas who had far fewer resources at his disposal than did John Scott or David Hill, as, I would suggest, anyone listening to the broadcast CE on 6th April could easily imagine.

VCC.

[Triforium]

sung off the stage
VCC.

Hmm, that’s a bit strong VCC. I was present at that event and thought all three choirs performed admirably. STJCC’s Take Him Earth is particularly memorable for me.

IMHO, a hopeless bias ultimately does a disservice to the object of that bias – the reader is in danger of eventually discounting otherwise well deserved praise.

[DracoM]

Hey, Magnificat, just a bleeping minute: I actually wrote ' A rather different experience?' - which is a statement of simple and indisputable fact. One is a prestigious school choir with implicit strengths and limitations therein already discussed by a number of posters on the CE Eton College thread, the other is a crack cathedral choir doing much the same repertoire but on a professional basis. Why is that 'unfair'? It is indeed a 'rather different experience', isn't it? As said

Now, if you decide to interpret it to mean that I am making disparaging comparisons, that is down to you......!

[Magnificat]

Hmm, that’s a bit strong VCC. I was present at that event and thought all three choirs performed admirably. STJCC’s Take Him Earth is particularly memorable for me.

IMHO, a hopeless bias ultimately does a disservice to the object of that bias – the reader is in danger of eventually discounting otherwise well deserved praise.

Actually Triforium the overwhelming opinion from other concert goers on the night that I spoke to was that St TNY were better than St JCC.

Of course St TNY and St JCC are super choirs but it was the smoothness of St Albans singing that did it for me and others as it always does. They are a limousine compared to the jerky jallopy of most other top choirs and just so much more musical - those men last week absolutely brilliant . New College Oxford and Winchester will have to be on top form and better if they are to make any impression on the very musically aware audience of the IOF when they come this year.

You should have heard ST A's 'Take Him Earth' when they sang a concert in the Abbey with CC Oxford last year St JCC's Three Choirs performance got nowhere near it.

Draco,

Sorry if I misinterpreted what you said. I thought that to say 'were you listening Ralph Allwood' was a bit sneering I must say. I see , however, that you were quite complimentary about them as well as being critical on the Eton thread.

VCC

[Wolsey]

Draco
... and a back row that is full of immature young basses, tenors and altos. VCC.

A little too quick with the 'reply' button? I think that an alternative adjective would have conveyed what you meant to say without giving unintentional offence, or else qualify the adjective with the noun 'voices'.

[DracoM]

All choirs nod, VCC, even St T. And maybe even - I promise to wash my mouth out - St A?? I just happen to like St T's way with much repertoire.

Heard an RSCM course choir last night locally and to my surprise, they were rather uncertain about some of the music - some real faltering. And the difference between mature-ish girls and the alto / tenor and bass lads was extreme: the one line sung with power and commitment, the other sung by lads still trying to find which way is up, and sandwiched in between, some small boy trebs rather shouldered aside by the bully girl sops! Some thrilling moments, but some of the material sung was........well, less than uplifting.

[Wolsey]

Heard an RSCM course choir last night locally...

Were the participants auditioned or not? Standards can be impressive - so much so that the annual summer RSCM Bath Course broadcast a fine BBC Radio 4 Sunday Worship from the Abbey in August 2009.

[DracoM]

Not a clue. Just rocked up to listen.
Unfortunately a sermon intervened that sounded like a reading from Noddy. How DO they get away with it?

[DracoM]

Don't ge me wrong about the singers - they really tried, there WERE some good voices and there WERE thriling moments, but I just felt that there wwere some uncertain moments too that took me a little by surprise, but I know nothing about the total repertoire in any one course - presumably they do other things than just prepare for two or three services? - or the way it is prepared, so ignore me.

[Magnificat]

All choirs nod, VCC, even St T. And maybe even - I promise to wash my mouth out - St A?? I just happen to like St T's way with much repertoire.

.

Draco,

I am told that the SA boys (as is the nature of boys) are very competitive about this occasion and have to be reminded that it is a concert and not a competition.

I suppose this applies to me as much as them but all choirs have their supporters and we all like to think that our team is the best as mine is by the way!!

Regular attenders of this concert can often be heard asking each other who won!

The standard of singing at SA is phenomenally good and it is a great credit to Andrew Lucas and his predecessors that the organisers have always invited the very best choirs around to sing this concert.

To think that unlike StTNY and StJCC and similar top choirs Andrew has to organise boys from up to a dozen different schools at any one time both primary and secondary ( and with Easter late this year and school holidays all over the place making an added complication too ); and as I said on the SA thread the boys being also hit hard recently by illness, he can still produce a top class broadcast such as we heard last week speaks volumes for his abilities as a choirtrainer and illustrates why I am such an admirer.

BR got a regular set of very good men together and Andrew has maintained and added to it with fine singers who he insists are all excellent sight readers and has produced several from his own front rows. Some of these boys have left to become Oxbridge choral scholars but generally turnover amongst the men is very low. Many of them also sing together regularly in excellent local choral groups. and run their own choirs but none are professional singers except for Rogers Covey - Crump who is a member of the Hilliard Ensemble and concert singer who nevertheless sings regularly with the choir he sang in for 11 years before his professional career took off when he is between engagements.

SA is lucky being a parish church as well as a cathedral as this generates a family atmosphere. This is nowhere better illustrated than in the booklet for the
Cathedral Choir's and the Abbey Girls Choir's recently released and outstandingly good CD for Naxos of John Rutter's Gloria,Magnificat and Te Deum ( Rutter at his best ) where the list of members in the choir pictures show fathers and sons,fathers and daughters, brothers, sisters and cousins and brothers-in-law.

For anyone who loves the Anglican choral tradition there is no doubt that St Albans is a great place to be and long may it continue this way as I am sure it will.

VCC