Cathedral Music: Autumn 2004

Makin Organsstill setting the tone at Peterborough Cathedral

In November 2001, Peterborough Cathedral suffered a devastating blow when fire rendered their famous Hill/Harrison pipe organ unplayable. Makin Organs quickly answered the emergency call to supply an organ capable of accompanying Cathedral services. Christopher Gower, former Organist and Master of the Choristors said, “Immediately following the fire we were very quickly supplied with an organ which proved to be a very effective accompanimental instrument for all the Christmas services. Its larger replacement, which we will retain for at least two years, has a wide variety of distinctive registers and is more than capable of supporting the singing of a large congregation in the nave.”

For details about Makin Church Organs and a FREE demonstration CD call 01706 888100

MAKIN ORGANS CHURCH ORGAN BUILDERS

Peterborough Cathedral

Cathedral Music

Cathedral Music is produced twice a year in May and November

ISSN 1363-6960 NOVEMBER 2004

Editor Andrew Palmer

21 Belle Vue Terrace Ripon North Yorkshire HG4 2QS ajpalmer@lineone.net

Assistant Editor Roger Tucker

Editorial Advisers David Flood & Roger Overend

Production Manager Graham Hermon

FCM e-mail address FCM@netcomuk.co.uk

Website Address www.fcm.org.uk

The views expressed in articles are those of the contributor and do not necessarily represent any official policy of the Friends of Cathedral Music. Likewise, advertisements are printed in good faith. Their inclusion does not imply endorsement by the FCM. All communications regarding advertising should be addressed to:-

Roger Tucker 16 Rodenhurst Road LONDON SW4 8AR Tel:0208 674 4916 roger@cathedralmusic.supanet.com

inQuire Editor: Richard Osmond 10 Hazel Grove, Badger Farm, Winchester, Hants SO22 4PQ Tel/Fax:01962 850818

Every effort has been made to determine copyright on illustrations used. We apologise to any individuals we have inadvertently missed. The Editor would be glad to correct any omissions.

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Cover Photographs:

Front Cover: Worcester Cathedral. Photograph copyright of Worcestershire County Council

Cathedral MUSIC Cathedral MUSIC

The

of the Friends of Cathedral

‘

CM Comment Andrew Palmer

more open sound with excellent diction and increased confidence. It is really heartening to find a parish church bucking the trend in which so many large churches have closed their choir schools.

Dumbing down?

The future

Concern for the future of the tradition of cathedral music is under the spotlight. More and more cathedrals are looking at the financial implications of running choirs. It is imperative that standards are not compromised in the interest of keeping the tradition alive.

The cathedral choir’s raison d’etre is its participation in the opus Dei, the singing of the daily offices. Each generation holds the continuation of cathedral music in its hands, that is why it is important that cathedrals do not dilute the tradition through economising but find ways of keeping it alive. Perhaps more creative ways of funding should be sought. However, the scene is not all one of gloom. St James’s Church, Great Grimsby, dates from 1114 and is now the only parish church in the country left with its own choir school, which has provided choristers since 1880. They sing evensong four days a week. Little over a year ago it emerged that there could be difficulties in retaining sufficient boys to sing the top line. Fortunately the enlightened appointment of Adrian Roberts as Organist and Master of the Choristers has proved most beneficial. The quality of the voice-training and behaviour of the boys has improved significantly. They are now producing a

Our new President, Dr Christopher Robinson, until recently Director of Music at St John’s College, Cambridge, considers the greatest threat to the future of cathedral music to be sheer ignorance. “Though cathedral music, like many other precious areas of our national heritage needs constant protection, the greatest threat to its future prosperity is, to my mind, sheer ignorance. Not only members of the public but many clergy, I find, seem very unaware of the glories of cathedral music, to say nothing of its educational benefits.” Well in today’s politically correct world nothing surprises me. The concern is that as custodians of a unique tradition we are seen as elitist and that the trend towards inclusivity in the Church is a threat to this. It is also sad that a group in the Church feels it necessary to contemplate the divine through the uplifting traditional music and replace this with clapping, jumping up and down and other noisy rituals. Standards are brought down to the lowest common denominator in an attempt to be all things to all people. The cathedral experience involves poetry, art and music. In a world of musak and secularism, what we have in cathedral music is mystery, something that each of us can discover and appreciate in our own way.

BBC website

Is it progress? I am sorry to report that

BBC Radio 3’s website has been revised so it no longer gives the advance schedule for Choral Evensong. In the past we were able to find out what the service music was going to be up to a month in advance of each broadcast. Now we can only find a week at a time in advance when the site has been updated. Why has this been done? Let’s by all means revise websites to improve the amount of information it gives but not reduce it. Please retain the advance information as a lot of our members plan their listening around it and in some cases attend the service.

PC too far

Hardly a day goes by when the politically correct squad are not looking for something to criticise or bemoan. In 1995 the Rt Revd David Konstant, Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds, said he thought that All things bright and beautiful was a wicked hymn. Now the Rt Revd Stephen Lowe, the Bishop of Hulme, has called on churches in Manchester to ban the singing of I vow to thee my country. He believes that this popular hymn is heretical and racist. What a load of piffle. Let’s look at the first verse: it’s a celebration of patriotism and self-sacrifice, of the willingness to die for one’s country, given more poignancy by the fact its origins are steeped in the period of the First World War. The second verse gives the context, which unambiguously extols the virtues of another country, a country which is the Kingdom of Heaven and the path of peace. This clearly is not racist nor heretical. All the Bishop of Hulme has succeeded in doing, is to bring the Church firmly into the media spotlight over trivial

matters. This surely is counter-productive.

Founder – The Revd Ronald Ellwood Sibthorp (1911-1990). Patron – The Rt Hon & Most Revd Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury.

President – Dr Christopher Robinson KVO MBE. Vice-Presidents – Sir David Calcutt QC, Dr Francis Jackson OBE, Anthony Harvey, Alan Thurlow.

Chairman – Professor Peter Toyne DL, Cloudeslee, Croft Drive, Caldy, Wirral, Cheshire CH48 2JW. peter.toyne@tiscali.co.uk

Council – Ann Bridges, Derek Bryan, Colin Clark, Canon Brendon Glover, Joy Cooke, John Craddock, Philip Emerson, Donald Kerr, David Leeke, Jonathan Milton, Richard Osmond, Andrew Palmer, Paul Rose, Geoffrey Shaw, Peter Smith, Julian Thomas, Roger Tucker.

Registered as Charity No. 285121 – Founded in 1956. SAFEGUARDING A PRICELESS HERITAGE

‘Each

generation holds the continuation of cathedral music in its hands.’

CATHEDRAL MUSIC Editor, Andrew Palmer, talked to Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams who has recently agreed to become Patron of FCM.

Acrucial role

For a moment I thought I was with St Francis of Assisi, one of whose sermons was given to a flock of birds. We are sitting by the lake in front of the Central Hall of York University, a noisy flock interrupts us. Not rowdy demonstrators, not even bishops, deans, or members of the laity wanting a minute of the Primate’s valuable time. No, this was a gaggle of some ten or so Canadian Geese, which after espying the Archbishop, decided they too wanted to have a chat with the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

It might seem an unlikely setting in which to be interviewing the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. We are not in the surroundings of an ancient cathedral but amid the covered walkways of a 1960s university campus. Our new patron is presiding over Synod, the Church of England’s parliament and he is busy debating finance, so I have just twenty minutes to hear his views on some of the issues that concern FCM members before he goes back to the debating chamber.

Cathedral music is at a crossroads, many choirs are facing a difficult period of cost cutting and dilution of resources. Some cathedral chapters are launching appeals for their music foundations and this is obviously worrying for all of us in FCM and immediately brings up the question about the future of cathedral music.

According to Dr Williams: ‘Cathedral music is traditionally, one of those things that Anglicans have been known to do very well and still have confidence in doing well. It is a tradition which reaches, as the advertisement says, areas which other parts of the tradition don’t reach and it is something which speaks to people across boundaries. I think that cathedral ➤

‘Cathedral music is traditionally, one of those things that Anglicans have been known to do very well and still have confidence in doing well. It is a tradition which reaches, as the advertisement says, areas which other parts of the tradition don’t reach.’

music remains one of those rather surprising areas of mission or outreach.’

Drawing on his experience as a canon at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, he sees cathedral music as a great pastoral opportunity and that for him is its significance.

Some would argue that the tradition is not, in fact, reaching those parts that it did decades earlier. Take the office of matins, for instance, there are now only a handful of cathedrals which still sing matins on Sunday morning. Dr Williams feels that although the daily round of offices is important, he regrets that a whole tranche of the repertoire associated with matins, such as the settings of the Te Deum, has largely fallen out of people’s awareness in recent years. He takes a pragmatic view: ‘This is because of the shift of worship patterns and a lot of that shift is irreversible. There is no point fantasizing about it, as I don’t think people are going to rush back in their thousands to matins. The question then, is how do you use the repertoire in another context, so the great treasures are not simply lost.’

He develops this by pointing out that many cathedrals have found creative ways of retaining the matins repertoire. With the increase in special services for instance, he suggests ‘there is scope for the repertoire to be used creatively’.

Encouraged by his constructive think-

ing I move on, conscious of how much I want to fit in to the time I am allowed.

There has been some discussion recently about the Church of England’s covenant with the Methodist Church, so I wonder if he thinks this could lead to a dilution of the Anglican choral tradition? The Archbishop gives a forthright answer: “Methodists have their own formidable musical tradition, of course of a very different nature from ours and already there is overlap. Everyone asks the same questions about excellence of music in worship. So no, it is not a threat – more an opportunity.”

According to his press officer, Dr Williams has been interviewed extensively on his musical tastes. So I asked him about his views on the use of jazz in worship. He then answered: “For some people jazz does have a religious dimension but not for me. My question is about quality. If you are going to have non-traditional music in the context of church worship, we have to be sure that it is of a quality and standard that is worthy and therefore not a stand-off between traditional and contemporary styles. It is about making sure you have excellent music.”

This pleases me because I feel strongly that jazz does not fit into a liturgical context, it is essentially improvised instrumental music which lacks a choral dimension.

FCM members will be pleased to hear Dr Williams’s views about excellence and standards in church music. So what about that other bone of contention, the Book of Common Prayer?

What is the Archbishop’s view?

“I think I would be deeply saddened if the Prayer Book’s profile became even less than it is at present. I grew up with it and it is in my blood. For preference, I use it for my own personal devotion when I am on my own. It gives a particular repertoire of words for the classical settings which we must not lose. I think cathedrals have a hugely important role still in maintaining that element in the tradition but it seems to me perfectly possible that classical words and contemporary music go together in worship and classical and contemporary forms can sit side by side. I am not a purist.

“As always with new liturgical texts we look for composers to come forward and produce the really interesting music to go with them.”

People sometimes complain that in our cathedrals and parish churches the pace of a service, the precenting and reading, is hurried and poorly delivered by some priests. I ask Dr Williams if is he has any influence over the training of clergy? “Directly, not a lot. But there are ways that an Archbishop can be involved in the liturgy in which he participates.

Editor AndrewPalmer interviewing

The Archbishop of Canterbury.

Photo: Graham Hermon

I certainly think learning how to sing well ought to be something the clergy take very seriously. I was brought up in a tradition where the chanting of the parts of the service were taken for granted, especially in the Eucharist. I am always rather sorry to attend a church where everything is sung except the traditional bits, for example there can be loads and loads of hymns and then the Gloria is said.”

Archbishop Williams concludes with the statement: “And I am quite happy to make known my views on that subject.”

I mention that in 2002 there was a lot of press comment on the status of organists within their cathedrals. Should it be raised, should cathedral organists have a place on chapters as in America? It’s not something the Archbishop is inclined to say much about because as he rightly points out: “It’s horses for courses and there are very different models in cathedrals.”

As I near the end of the interview, I discuss the role of organisations like FCM. Does it have a real purpose and if so what should it be?

“In a context where some of the his-

toric resources are dwindling or are not there anymore, I think the role of voluntary bodies becomes ever more crucial. A lot of what choral foundations and others could formerly rely on safely, is being eroded in various ways. Some do need outside help in this context and it becomes increasingly significant.”

In thanking the Archbishop for sparing time to talk to me, I have one more question. Who is his favourite composer? His answer doesn’t surprise me: “Bach. In the English tradition, I have huge enthusiasm for Tallis and Purcell, among more contemporary composers would be Howells and Vaughan Williams. RVW wrote some of the best liturgical music of the 20th century in the English tradition.”

With these thoughts about RVW ringing in my ears, I took my leave of the Archbishop who then had to return to Synod. It is wonderful to have the Archbishop of Canterbury’s support as patron of the Friends of Cathedral Music: let us hope he will continue to proclaim the values of the music we were founded to promote.

HARRISON & HARRISON are FRIENDSOF CATHEDRALMUSIC

Our recent work has included:

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EXETER CATHEDRAL

Minstrel organ of eight stops and new 32ft reed.

ST GEORGE’S CHAPEL, WINDSOR CASTLE

Clean and overhaul.

PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL

Restoration of Hill organ following the fire.

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Major renovation with console restored to original style.

HEREFORD CATHEDRAL

Overhaul of Willis organ with new console mechanism.

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St John’s College: Helle Christiansen

‘If you are going to have non-traditional music in the context of church worship, we have to be sure that it is of a quality and standard that is worthy and therefore not a stand-off.’

Photograph by C.R.A. Davies

Hereford Cathedral Willis Organ

Some years ago when I took up the appointment of Organist and Choirmaster at Leeds Parish Church I discovered in the library copies of Elgar’s Great is the Lord, an anthem that had not been sung by the choir there for some considerable time. I found this surprising since my predecessor, Dr Melville Cook, had been brought up in Elgar country and was a noted interpreter of the composer’s choral works. In addition, this was just the sort of anthem that the choir and congregation would relish; I was always being reminded by senior members of the choir that ‘we’re right good at t’big stuff’!’ So after a couple of months of becoming acclimatised I put Great is the Lord onto the music list for an Evensong, a grand affair in those days that attracted a huge congregation. It went extremely well, but I was brought to earth at the end of the Service when the Professor of Music of the University regaled me by suggesting that my reputation would not be enhanced by promoting such vulgarities into the repertoire.

“Elgar”, he told me, “wrote poor, insensitive music for the church, and anyway he

A choral suite

was a Roman Catholic”! I was so taken aback by this criticism that I have to admit, to my shame that I did not have the courage of my convictions, abandoning any thought of extending the Elgar repertoire until much later in my Leeds career. As I became more worldly-wise I understood more how such a distinguished musician could have been so critical of this aspect of Britain’s greatest composer, for much of his lesser repertoire was viewed with suspicion by a new breed of ‘forward-looking’ musicians. How wrong they were, yet I suppose it has to be faced that this sort of ill-informed judgement is the lot of most composers for a period after their death. It is also a significant fact that neither Erik Routley in Twentieth Century Church Music (Jenkins 1964), nor Arthur Hutchings in Church Music in the 19th Century (Jenkins 1967), make mention of a single piece of church music by Elgar. He also receives scant attention from Kenneth Long in his tome The Music of the English Church, published in 1972. Only in comparatively recent years has this important aspect of Elgar’s oeuvre received the accolade that it

deserves, mainly as a result of attention from the record industry. Although fairly familiar with the major works of Elgar as a result of countless hours spent at the feet of my mentor, Herbert Sumsion, I was not aware of the wealth of church music that the great composer had left us for, as a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral and later as assistant organist, the only works that occasionally appeared on the repertoire list were the Prologue to The Apostles and the English versions of Ave verum corpus and Ave maris stella, the latter anthems usually reserved for Monday Evensongs when only the somnolent clergy and the angels would have been the uncritical congregation. It was only on my subsequent translation to the organ seat of Worcester Cathedral that I began to experience the full range of Elgar’s writing for the church, and to begin to understand not only the reasons for the earlier suspicion, but also a finer appreciation of the beauty and subtlety of these wonderful miniatures. Of course Worcester and Elgar are synonymous, so it follows that I would find most, but not all, of the church music

Dr Donald Hunt OBE former Organist of Worcester Cathedral on Elgar’s choral legacy 75 years after his death.

Photo: Malcolm Warburton

‘Although fairly familiar with the major works of Elgar as a result of countless hours spent at the feet of my mentor, Herbert Sumsion, I was not aware of the wealth of church music that the great composer had left us for.’

Photo: Adrian Lucas

in the repertoire; and how well the choir sang it!

Elgar’s church music was firmly rooted in Roman Catholicism, for it was at St George’s Catholic Church in Worcester that his father was organist, a post that the young musician himself would ultimately occupy for a few years. Historical documents, as well as the music performed, would indicate to us that the music at St George’s was enterprising with very respectable standards; indeed, on ceremonial occasions it was common practice to involve orchestral accompaniment as well as enlisting the services of professional singers in Masses by Classical composers such as Haydn, Hummel and Mozart. We should also remember that Elgar had strong links with the Anglican cathedral of his home city, and it was here that he experienced the daily offerings of canticles and anthems; it was also here that he heard and played in the orchestra of the Three Choirs Festival.

The combinations of these experiences are important in assessing his corpus of music for the church for, as Michael Kennedy has reminded us, ‘He was ecumenical long before the word was fashionable, at home both in the Anglican and Roman Catholic worlds, but not at ease.’ Not at ease because of the religious tensions caused by his father’s detestation of any organised religion, tensions that are frequently reflected in Elgar’s copious compositions, whether on a broad canvas or in the many miniatures that he wrote for the church. Whatever family anxieties existed over religious matters the association with St George’s Church afforded the young Elgar abundant opportunities to ‘try his hand’ at composition, and numerous works for the liturgy flowed from his enthusiastic pen during this period, many of them conceived in the organ loft during interminable sermons! Most of them are short, some incomplete, and generally are inevitably derivative of the styles of the time; yet even in these numerous experimental works, (some of them probably more correctly classified as arrangements), there is ample evidence of sensitivity to the text and an innate understanding of formal structure.

In an article of this length it is impossible to discuss these early works in detail; there were settings of the Kyrie, Gloria and Credo, but no complete setting of a Mass has ever been traced, although a contemporary writer (F.G. Edwards) referred to the composition of ‘several Masses and other church music...’ There were several hymn tunes, and settings of Latin texts such as Tantum ergo, Salve Regina, Domine salvum fac, Regina coeli and no less than six versions of O salutaris hostia, two of which are among his first published works, containing much attractive vocal writing with an independent organ part. Interestingly there are also single and double chants, some of which are refreshingly different from the mundane offerings prevalent at that time. From this early period of Elgar’s life come a group of little motets that are well worth our attention and that now appear to be happily settled into the repertoire of most selfrespecting choirs: the three Aves. The best-known of the three,

Ave verum corpus, actually began life as a Pie Jesu, written in memory of his boyhood employer, the Worcester solicitor William Allen, in 1887. Fifteen years elapsed before the motet was eventually dispatched to the publisher in its new apparel with a note adding that the music ‘is too sugary I think, but it is nice and harmless and quite easy.’ Elgar also hinted that more pieces of this type would follow, and five years later there appeared the Ave Maria and Ave maris stella, both re-workings of pieces written in the 1880s – Elgar referred to ‘two little things from the old sketches and Church things...’ The three motets were published as Opus 2. All are unpretentious, but no less effective for that, and all contain fingerprints of his distinctive style, especially in the melodic outline and unexpected twists of harmony, most evident in the Ave Maria. By the time of their publication

Elgar was the idol of the English musical public as major works flowed from his pen, but he clearly had great affection for these early miniatures for he told the publisher that ‘they are tender little plants, so treat them kindly whatever is their fate.’

Even in our materialistic contemporary world it is a hard heart that is not moved by a sincere and carefully-paced performance of these miniatures – and they are not as easy to perform well as might appear from their appearance on the printed page.

There is another short work from this early period that commands our attention: Ecce sacerdos magnus was written for a visit of the Archbishop of Birmingham to St George’s Church in 1888. It is the first of Elgar’s ceremonial pieces; in its 53 bars it signifies the dignity of the occasion, combining this with a subtlety of expression and an amazing feeling of breadth, considering the economy of thematic material. The piece is bound together by a striding bass that, on closer inspection, resembles the bass of the Benedictus from Haydn’s Harmoniemesse, and it comes as no surprise to find that the principal tune is almost identical with the tune from that same source. This may well have been a deliberate ‘borrowing’ for there is a suggestion that the Haydn Mass might have been sung at that same occasion. This is a splendid piece, and prospective performers may be interested to know that Elgar provided an orchestration for a later performance. This anthem was the last that Elgar produced for St George’s Church, for he relinquished his post there after his marriage in 1889; thereafter church music was not an important factor in his creative activity, although several significant pieces were to emerge in the years immediately prior to the First World War.

In the twenty years that separated his St George’s period with the end of his Edwardian triumphs no church music of any consequence was produced. Of course we discount those wonderful oratorios in this context, although movements from The Light of Life (Doubt not thy Father’s Care for S.A and the full chorus Light of the world) and the Prologue to The Apostles have found their way into the church music repertoire, but I always feel that these are less convincing when taken away from their original surroundings.

‘The association with St George’s Church afforded the young Elgar abundant opportunities to ‘try his hand’ at composition.’

Photo: Adrian Lucas

The same is true of the Te Deum and Benedictus written for the 1897 Hereford Festival. These are concert pieces, their length and complexity making them unsuitable for liturgical use. However, these settings are interesting in that they show the first signs of a transition from the Roman Catholic tradition towards the more flamboyant approach to the Anglican liturgy, although church-goers would not have anticipated the ‘modern’ approach to these revered texts.

The year 1909 produced some works that can be loosely classified as church music. One was composed when the Elgar family were on holiday in Italy, an event that was overshadowed by the death of his close friend Jaeger (‘Nimrod’). A Choral Suite was planned, inspired by the Tuscan countryside, but only one movement was written: Angelus. This is a little jewel of two simple verses evoking a pastoral scene with Angelus bells cleverly imitated by repetitive ostinatos from the middle voices, while the outer parts convey the text claimed to be translated from the Tuscan dialect – but probably Elgar’s own! The combination of the Latin ostinato with the English words of the melody is another interesting feature. A further unaccompanied work from this time is the complex and impressive Choral Song, Go, song of mine, a memorial tribute to his friend. Again this work is better in the context of a concert than in any liturgical setting. Later in the same year Elgar wrote the motet They are at rest at the request of Sir Walter Parratt, Master of the Kings’ Music, to be performed on the 10th anniversary of the death of Queen Victoria. Inspired by Cardinal Newman’s text Elgar creates a beautiful elegy, with subtle wordpainting and rich choral colouring, from its two verses for unaccompanied four-part choir. Written at the time of the Violin Concerto this motet and the choral song have similar melodic characteristics, even sharing the same tonality.

Elgar was now the laureate composer in all but name and it was inevitable that he would be asked to compose for the coronation of King George V in 1911, but the terms of the commission were a disappointment to him for he was only asked to write a motet, O hearken thou, to be sung at the Offertory, and a recessional march. There is very little doubt that he had hoped for a ceremonial piece similar to Parry’s I was glad, finding the short reflective setting of a verse from Psalm 5 rather demeaning. Although receiving the great honour of Order of Merit just prior to the Coronation, Elgar refused to attend at the last moment, much to his wife’s chagrin!

The falling phrases from the Second Symphony were clearly in his mind when he wrote this gentle motet that rises above any apprehension or disillusionment that he undoubtedly experienced, for every bar is a thing of exceptional beauty. The version we now know has another verse of the same psalm added to identical music to make the motet more acceptable for general use, and there is also a Latin version available, Intende vocis orationis meae. If taken at the correct speed, and if there is careful observance of all the copious markings, including those important Elgarian tenutos, this motet can be a most rewarding experience, and should be in the repertoire of all self-respecting choirs.

At around the same time Elgar was engaged in writing his first major contribution for the Anglican Church in the form of the extended anthem, Great is the Lord. He worked at this sporadically over a period of two years, and it was first heard at Westminster Abbey in 1912 to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Society. Sensing the dramatic potential of Psalm 48, Elgar adapted the text from both the Prayer Book and Authorised version of the Bible. The work has no distinct form, being constructed rather on the lines of the anthems of S.S. Wesley that he admired so much. It is another of his works that has echoes of the Violin Concerto but, sur-

rounded by ceremonial utterances, a brief moment of drama and a short ‘sacred dance’, the magical moment of the work is the short reflective aria for bass solo, We have thought on thy loving kindness, that draws from the composer one of the best of his lyrical utterances.

Three years later Elgar was moved again to write a ‘big’ anthem, this time for Sons of the Clergy Festival in St Paul’s Cathedral. Give unto the Lord, a setting of a paraphrased version of Psalm 29, resembles the earlier anthem in its lack of formality and changing moods, although there are some recurring themes and the outer sections share the same tonality. There is no solo here, but the middle section has some beautiful choral sonorities to support a haunting melody, and clearly the ending with its message of

‘peace’ had special significance at that troubled time. Among Elgar’s vast corpus of choral music I have to admit to this anthem being one of my favourites; it needs affection and care, but the rewards are great.

Later in 1914 Elgar wrote the Harvest anthem, Fear not, O Land, for the Novello Octavo Series for Church Choirs. In accommodating the needs of choirs with limited ability the composer rather looked back to the style of his early years, but the anthem is no less effective for that. It is in simple ternary form with a contrasting middle section typical of his ‘lighter’ style, but this neatly constructed anthem does not deserve the neglect that it has suffered.

There is ample evidence that for some years Elgar’s faith had ➤

‘Elgar was now the laureate composer in all but name and it was inevitable that he would be asked to compose for the coronation of King George V in 1911.’

Pen & ink drawing of Worcester Cathedral by Trevor Godfrey ©

MUSIC at LEEDS PARISH CHURCH AVERYWARMWELCOMEAWAITSYOU

(for service times see the Website, call 0113 267 7571or email lpc@simonlindley.org.uk)

been declining, and this is indicative in that in the fourteen years following these anthems he wrote no church music of any description. He did orchestrate three anthems for Worcester Festivals during the 1920s, showing a fondness and understanding of the Cathedral repertoire. The anthems in question were Jonathan Battishill’s O Lord, look down from heaven, S.S. Wesley’s fine extended anthem Let us lift up our hearts (a great favourite of Elgar’s from when he heard it at a Festival in his youth), and Purcell’s Jehova, quam multi sunt. Sadly only the material of the last-named is available.

Wednesday 8 December – 7.00 pm*

CAROLS FOR A CHORAL FUTURE

Gala Christmas Concert in aid of the Choral Foundation Appeal

Leeds Parish Church Combined Choirs

Yorkshire Imperial Band

Sunday 19 December – 3.00 pm

FESTIVAL OF NINE LESSONS & CAROLS

Saturday 8 January – 2.30 pm

CHOIR RECITAL AT HELLIFIELD PARISH CHURCH (St Aidan) near Skipton – Tickets at the door

Sunday 9 January –6.30 pm

TRADITIONAL EPIPHANY CAROL SERVICE

Sunday 20 February –6.30 pm

LLOYD WEBBER

The Saviour

Sunday 13 March – 8.00 pm*

THE ROYAL BANNERS

Glorious English Music for Passiontide Holst Ireland,Leighton,Purcell

Monday 21 March –1.15 pm at LEEDS CATHEDRAL STAINER

The Crucifixion

Good Friday 25 March – 7.00 pm*

BACH

Mass in B minor

*Booking from 0113 224 3801 Free admission on all other occasions

www.leedsparishchurch.org.uk

His final pieces, dating from 1928 and 1929 respectively, were the carol, I sing the birth, and what the composer described as a ‘Partsong Carol sort of thing’, Good morrow, written for the King’s happy recovery from serious illness. For both of these works Elgar looks back to earlier times. The carol is particularly interesting for it adopts a modal language which was always claimed to be anathema to the composer; there is almost a suspicion of attempting to join the new group of composers such as Holst and Vaughan Williams who were deeply involved in the folksong and Gregorian chant revival. It is a fascinating and original setting of Ben Jonson’s words, but it is hard to recognise Elgar’s voice in it. Good morrow certainly takes its material from a much earlier hymn tune from the St George’s days, but here it is refined and adapted to suit the varied moods of the five verses of Gascoigne’s hymn. This is pure nostalgia; the style is back to where we began with O salutaris hostia or Ave maris stella

I end as I began with a reference to an incident from my Leeds days. I remember a heated discussion with a young ‘progressive’ curate who tried to chastise me for programming a work at a Carol Service by Benjamin Britten because he was perceived to be an agnostic. What he would have thought of promoting the church music of Elgar I dread to think, but it was the Vicar of Leeds at the time who saved the day by making it clear that all works of art are God’s creation, whatever the belief of the author, composer or artist. This has to be true of Elgar. He certainly had strong belief in his early years, and the Roman Catholic Church gave him every encouragement to pursue his chosen profession; whether or not he ended his life as a believer in any faith is immaterial, for it cannot be disputed that a strong spirituality is present in all his great works, whether sacred or not; the church unquestionably moulded his complex personality and its influence was ever present. His church music, limited in volume though it may be when compared with his contemporaries such as Stanford and Charles Wood, is an integral part of Elgar’s work that sets him apart from others of his time – and since. Seventy years after his death, and with the 150th anniversary of his birth approaching, appreciation of this enigmatic genius is probably at a higher level than it has ever been, yet there remain some aspects of his work that are there to be discovered and enjoyed, and these include his compositions for the church.

‘...all works of art are God’s creation, whatever the belief of the author, composer or artist. This has to be true of Elgar.’

A singularity of voice

It could be argued that the extraordinary resurgence of interest in early music over the past 60 years is due in large measure to the re-emergence of the counter-tenor as a solo voice. But then I would say that wouldn’t I? However, what is undeniable is that the gradual acceptance of the male alto (which had always existed in ‘quires and places where they sing’) by the concert-going public, coincides precisely with the rise in popularity of early music.

Perhaps I should make it clear from the outset, that I have no intention in this article of entering into an academic argument about what is, and what is not a counter-tenor. The discussion has been going on for as long as I’ve been singing Stanford in C, and frankly it doesn’t bother me; call them alto, counter-tenor, contra-tenor (with or without hyphens) or even Crump-Tenor (as Rogers CoveyCrump was once called) or male soprano, that’s fine by me. There are good ones and bad ones, some high some low, each with their own particular timbre, and I think it’s pointless to get worked up about the authenticity, or otherwise, of a name. We are content to accept Pavarotti and Pears, Placido and Partridge, as tenors, though clearly they each make a quite different sound, and excel in differing repertoire.

So why counter-tenor then, rather than any of the other terms? I think it is generally accepted that my father, Alfred Deller,

was largely responsible for the rebirth of the voice in the 1940s. Indeed, he has been referred to, in some of the more extravagant pieces of record publicity, as ‘The Godfather’ of modern day countertenors. What is perhaps not as commonly known, or as readily appreciated, is the degree of antagonism and open hostility that he encountered along the way. But more of that anon; why counter-tenor? When, in 1939, Alfred started to sing as an alto with the cathedral choir at Canterbury, quite a number of pieces from the repertoire of 17th and 18th century music were sung from single score copies of Boyce’s Cathedral Music, in which the alto part was usually referred to as counter- or contra-tenor. Some years later, Michael Tippett was visiting Canterbury Cathedral, to hear the first performance of his Plebs Angelica, written for the choir, and ‘discovered’ Alfred. His words describing that moment have been recounted often, but bear repetition: “I was, at the time, wrapped up not only in Purcell, but in the Elizabethans and all the early English School. One of my heroes

was Orlando Gibbons, so the first thrill of that visit to Canterbury was to enter the practice room, which I found to be almost unchanged since Gibbons himself was there in the 1600s. It was in those evocative surroundings that I heard Alfred Deller sing Purcell’s Music for a while. In that moment the centuries rolled back.”

Tippett was at the time on the staff of Morley College, and it was at his invitation that Alfred took part there in his first London concert in October 1944. Morley College in the 1940s was a magnet for an astonishing number of subsequent musical luminaries, many of whom were foreign refugees; people such as Walter Goehr, Matyas Seiber, Walter Bergmann, and three young string players, Norbert Brainin, Siegmund Nissel and Peter Schidlof, who, together with cellist Martin Lovett, were to become the Amadeus Quartet. It was in this heady arena that Alfred suddenly experienced a whole new world, beyond the confines of the choir stall. Up to this time, he had been content singing in the cathedral choir as an alto, but it was Tippett who decided that, in

Mark Deller recalls the pioneering work of his father Alfred, in reviving the lost art of the Counter-Tenor.

Drawing by John Ward.

employing him to sing the great works by Purcell, he should adopt the old English classical name, counter-tenor. On the last day of 1944, Alfred really made his mark, in a concert held in the Friends’ Meeting House, Euston Road, and conducted by Tippett. The programme included, amongst other things, the Bach Magnificat and Purcell’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day (1692), in which Alfred’s singing of the florid ‘Tis Nature’s Voice’ caused something of a sensation at the time. In the words of Walter Bergmann... “Suddenly, there was Purcell again.”

The immediate post-war period witnessed a burgeoning of interest in early music, not only because of the enthusiasm of composers like Tippett and Britten (especially for the music of Purcell) but also because the emergence of distinguished musicologists like Thurston Dart, Jack Westrup, Anthony Lewis, Denis Stevens, Bernard Rose and John Stevens, amongst many others, meant that there was suddenly a wealth of material readily available for a singer wishing to specialise in that particular repertoire. The creation of the BBC Third Programme, in 1946, was also of immense importance, and it is significant that for its inaugural concert in September that year, Alfred was invited to take part in a performance of Purcell’s Come ye Sons of Art, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. Anthony Lewis, who as a member of the BBC Music Department at the time had been charged with arranging the programme, recalled that... “The effect of two artists, who possessed such unexpected voices, singing the duet Sound the trumpet, was simply sensational. It was a specially invited audience of the select musical public and all the critics, and there is no doubt that the impact on them of Alfred’s extraordinary vocal quality and personal technique, made that concert one of the turning points in his career.”

It was indeed, for the following year Alfred decided that in order to further his career as a solo singer, it was necessary for him to be in London. So it was, with a very heavy heart, that in 1947 he left Canterbury Cathedral, where he had spent some of the happiest and most rewarding years of his life, to take up the post of a Vicar Choral at St Paul’s Cathedral. Despite all that was to happen in the future, it is worth noting that Alfred remained at St Paul’s for the next 16 years, partly because he was a dedicated churchman, loved church music, and appreciated the camaraderie that emanated from being part of a religious community, but also, it has to be said, because he was never sufficiently confident that he could earn a living in the big wide world, without the security of a regular income from a cathedral. By the time he did take the plunge, he was an established international artist, had made more than 50 LP recordings, Britten had written the part of Oberon for him in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and, more to the point, he was 51 years old.

Even though the time was right, and Alfred’s subsequent achievements are readily acknowledged, I doubt that many of today’s breed of counter-tenors have the slightest idea what a

struggle he had at the time, to get the voice accepted. Countertenors are so numerous today worldwide, that it is easy to forget he was a lone voice in the 1940s; in so far as they existed at all, they were only in England, as altos confined to the choir stall. Indeed, another reason that Alfred decided to adopt the name countertenor was because the traditional cathedral alto had acquired the reputation of being of the ‘hooty’ variety; as Sir Jack Westrup remarked... “Until Deller, the alto was regarded as a sort of vice that one had to put up with.” Alfred was to change all that, and eventually make the voice respectable. However, though used to dealing with violent opposition, having been (like Tippett and Britten) a conscientious objector during WWII, disbelief and opposition to his ‘high’ singing voice began early on and close to home; his future mother-in-law had tried to dissuade her daughter from marriage, with the comment that... “He’s not a complete man”. Three children later probably helped to convince her otherwise, but it was the sort of reaction that prevailed for an amazingly long time – I even encountered it myself as late as the 1970s – and the oft-recounted anecdote involving an enthusiastic German fan...

Fan: “Herr Deller, you are absolute eunuch!”

Alfred: “I think you mean unique.”

Fan: “Ja, ja. Eunuch.” occurred some 20 years after Alfred burst on the musical scene. There was understandable resistance on the part of contralti, who could see some of their work being ‘stolen’ by male impersonators, but there were also constant jibes to contend with... “I see we have the bearded lady with us tonight” (leader of BBC Symphony Orchestra, just before concert at the Festival Hall) or another (from a wind player in the Liverpool Phil... “If my mother heard me sing like that in public she’d disown me!”

But the mood was changing, albeit slowly at first, and by the mid 1960s there were, as well as the (by now) established Deller Consort, various other successful early music groups – The Julian Bream Consort, the Philomusica, David Munrow’s Early Music Consort, the Purcell Consort of Voices – and a second generation of counter-tenors (for the first 15 years after the War, there were really only two recognised counter-tenors, Alfred, and John Whitworth) amongst whom were my contemporaries, Grayston Burgess, James Bowman and Paul Esswood, to be followed shortly by Michael Chance, Rene Jacobs, David James, and all those King’s Singers! Then, of course, as mentioned earlier, Britten had in 1960 written the part of Oberon for Alfred, so the sound was beginning to be accepted. (Quite what would have happened, if Karajan’s invitation to me to sing the part of Erda in Das Rheingold had become a reality, is open to conjecture, but that’s another story!) However, early music was still in its infancy, and recordings of it were few and far between. Use of original/authentic instruments was very unusual, although some of Alfred’s earliest recordings for Vanguard in 1954/55 were made with the young Gustav & Marie Leonhardt, Nikolaus & Alice Harnoncourt playing on original

Memorial Plaque in Canterbury Cathedral.

Photo: Christopher Robinson.

instruments. In 1966, Alfred, at his Stour Music festival in Kent, conducted what was to be the first performance of Messiah in England in modern times to be played on original instruments, and his 1976 Harmonia Mundi recording of Purcell’s Indian Queen was, I think, the first time that original instruments had been used to accompany a major choral work by Purcell.

Alfred died 25 years ago this summer, in Bologna; he was only 67, but he had inspired and enriched a whole early music revival. As Harnoncourt said recently...

“Above all, he was the most important singer of the blossoming early music movement.” His legacy extends beyond the generations of counter-tenors across the world who have benefited from his pioneering work, and the number of his recordings, for he had a profound influence on instrumentalists as well as singers. Gustav Leonhardt says that he considers Alfred as... “one of my foremost teachers.” He was one of the first to bring the works of Purcell and Monteverdi to a wider public, and through his work with the

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Deller Consort opened doors for many to the delights of vocal chamber music, both sacred and secular. His long-time friend, Norman Platt, founder of Kent Opera, who sadly died earlier this year, said that Alfred’s creative influence... “went beyond that of most performing musicians. His most important contribution lay in what he did for composers, especially those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His insight into the work of the lutenists and composers of the baroque period was profound; but his work for Purcell constituted nothing less than a revelation and a revolution....By the 1940s there were people, including Purcell’s own successors, Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett, who had come to understand him, but it was Alfred who first translated that understanding into action, and led the movement which resurrected Purcell into his living place among the great. It would be difficult to exaggerate his influence in this field on present-day performers, instrumentalists as well as singers.”

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‘Counter-tenors are so numerous today, worldwide, that it is easy to forget he was a lone voice in the 1940s.’

less obvious, although it remained throughout his life an abiding love and interest. He was a noted raconteur, and some of his best stories derived from the time he spent in the choirs at Canterbury and St Paul’s. But without his ground-breaking work in restoring the male alto to respectability, it could be argued that the esteem in which English cathedral and collegiate choirs are held across the world, might be altogether different. As Canon Joseph Poole, Precentor first at Canterbury and later at the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral, said... “He exposed the poverty of the cathedral alto and persuaded people in charge of cathedral music to work to get more musical and more agreeable sounds in the alto line. I don’t think even King’s College, Cambridge, would have gone so far as to produce the perfect blending of the altos with the tenors and basses but for the example of Alfred Deller’s voice.” There speaks a King’s man! But in fact it’s probably true to say that but for Alfred, there would not have been such a rush of choral scholar candidates for many of the Oxbridge colleges,

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which have proved such a productive nursery for professional counter-tenors ever since. Alfred’s influence on the church music repertoire has, as Poole noted.. “probably been more oblique. By playing such a part in the revival of the music of Purcell and the Golden Age, through the medium of the BBC Third Programme (and recordings) he helped to shame cathedral organists into purging their repertoire of much music which, when looked at alongside such masterpieces, had been shown up as valueless. None of us realised just how valueless, until we got another standard of comparison, which Deller helped to bring us.” (I’m sure there is a lot of truth in that, but I have to say that when I arrived as a Vicar Choral at St Paul’s in 1969, we were still subjected to West in C, Morning and Evening Canticles!)

One of Alfred’s favourite composers was Orlando Gibbons, the same composer that Tippett had recalled when he first heard Alfred at Canterbury in 1944. There is a handsome memorial to Gibbons in the nave of Canterbury Cathedral, and it is significant that the next musician to be honoured in the Cathedral in this way, some 350 years later, was Alfred Deller, whose plaque can be found in the south quire aisle.

As a choirboy at Margate, it was the Gibbons anthem (as we then thought) O Lord, increase my faith, that had made such an impression on the young Alfred. When he died, we sang it at his funeral, and I remember a conversation at the tea party afterwards, with his old friend Walter Bergmann, who as a refugee from Nazi Germany before the War had become a naturalised British subject at the end of it. Somehow, despite having lived here for ages, Walter never managed to lose his thick German accent, although paradoxically he did have a wonderful sense of humour.

“Mark” he said, “zees piece you sang, by Loosemore....it is by Gibbons, ja?”

“Well Walter,” I said, “it always was by Gibbons, until you musicologists got hold of it and decided it is in fact by Henry Loosemore.”

He gave me an old-fashioned look, and with a delightful twinkle in his eye, said... “Ah zo... it is not such a good piece now!”

ALFRED DELLER

Portrait of a Legend

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The fact that the countertenor voice is now universally accepted is due almost exclusively to the pioneer work of Alfred Deller. His voice was a gift to cathedral music and the early music industry alike. Sir Jack Westrup remarked that before Deller the (male) alto was regarded as a sort of voice one had to put up with. Many recordings of cathedral choirs pre-Deller feature the familiar hooty altos of the time sounding like armies of mad owls. The arrival of Deller in 1947 to sing in the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral caused a sensation. I remember the impression he made on me as a small child the first time I heard him sing. I was completely bowled over. The four CDs present a selection from his recorded output under the headings of solo song, folk song, sacred music and stage music by Purcell. There is inevitably unevenness in some of the examples but through it all shines the delight and pleasure in performing music previously unrecorded or even undiscovered. One or two personal favourites are missing from the compilation (Dowland’s In darkness let me dwell and the anonymous Have you seen but the white lily grow, for example). The collection is a worthy tribute to a great musician and a reminder of a unique voice that once heard could never be forgotten.

Alan Spedding

‘It’s probably true to say that but for Alfred, there would not have been such a rush of choral scholar candidates for many of the Oxbridge colleges.’

A golden age of Cathedral music

Timothy Storey writes on the Edwardian era and its lasting influence

Mattins: Ireland in F Te Deum

Anthem : O living will – Stanford

Holy Communion: Stanford in C & F.

Anthem: Blessed are the pure in heart – Walford Davies

Evensong: Bairstow in D.

Anthem: I was glad – Parry

This is the music for a Sunday in our imaginary cathedral, in about 1910. We must imagine that organist and precentor/succentor are keen to keep the repertory up-to-date, for the music by Stanford and Walford Davies is hot off the press and the oldest piece is Parry’s anthem for Edward VII’s coronation in 1902. Only the Te Deum of Ireland’s morning service is available (published 1907): we will have to come back in 1912 for Benedictus, so meanwhile we must make do with singing it to a chant or ‘borrowing’ the canticle from another setting. Were we prepared to be a little old-fashioned (in 1910 terms!), we could have Harwood in A flat(1892), Noble in B minor(1886) or the early Evening Services by Charles Wood, in E flat (1891), D (1898) and C minor (1900), or quite a lot of Stanford including the services in A (1880-95), B flat (1879) and F (1889) and several anthems including The Lord is my Shepherd (1886).

What is remarkable is that such a list would not seem out of place in 2004, especially if a visiting choir were singing the services, for the ‘Edwardian’ school of composition still dominates the repertory of the ‘good parish choir’ and is still a mainstay of the daily round in many (most ?) cathedrals. To call it Edwardian is not strictly accurate, for much music that seems to belong in it was composed up to twenty or more years before or after the first decade of the twentieth century: we think of Charles Wood (1866-1926) as archetypically Edwardian, but his music’s great popularity belongs to the years after the Great War and much of it was published after his death. Some composers have fallen by the wayside, of course: Charles Harford Lloyd’s service in E flat is rarely heard nowadays, nor his quite splendid Evening Service in A (1902), and little of Alan Gray’s output has remained in use apart from the F minor Evening Service and What are these that glow from afar? It would be good to explore some of his music in 2005, the 150th anniversary of his birth and 70th of his death: perhaps some enterprising establishment could broadcast Gray in B flat and Dixit Dominus, and I would direct you meanwhile to Amphion PHI CD 184, archive recordings from York Minster, which includes a fine performance of the E major Te Deum

So what is it about the music of Parry, Stanford, Wood, Gray, Bairstow, C. H. Lloyd, Walford Davies, Brewer etc., that has made it so enduringly useful? I think that it was the product of one of those fortunate times in history when several sets of circumstances happened to be favourable at once, and much of the credit must be given to the Victorians for planting trees for their children and grandchildren, as it were.

We may as well start with the composers themselves. The factor common to them all is that they had a proper musical education, nearly always at the Royal College of Music, founded in 1882 as the successor to the National Training School which Sullivan and Stainer had directed. If only S.S. Wesley’s genius had been nurtured and directed by some proper training! If it is going too far to credit Stanford with inventing the form of the standard Anglican canticle (the Evening Service of Stainer in Afollows much the same plan as Stanford in B flat), his harmonic palette was richer than Stainer’s and he was the more influential teacher. Harold Darke, William Harris, Henry Ley, Sydney Nicholson and even Percy Whitlock followed much the same rules between the two World Wars, and Stanford would heartily approve of the structure of Bairstow in G(1940) and Jackson in G(1950): he might think Murrill in Eand Leighton in G, and a great deal of later Howells, rather diffuse by comparison.

Without exception these Edwardian composers were organists, often of cathedrals or college chapels, and pretty good ones at that, as anyone who has tried to play the accompaniments to almost anything by Bairstow will testify: even the famil-

Mattins (with Dr Keeton at hand to throw him off the stool and take over in mid-verse if things began to go awry) as a somewhat terrifying overture to the day’s musical instruction. The young Sargent became first a Bachelor and then a Doctor of Music of Durham University, whose external examinations until quite recently provided a well-respected alternative qualification for those who did not attend a college of music: Drs Jackson and Wills are but two of our senior cathedral musicians who followed this path. Organ Scholarships at the old universities were barely heard of, that at King’s College, Cambridge having been founded as recently as 1928 as a memorial to Dr A.H. Mann.

The result of this eminently practical training was that an organist-composer of the Edwardian type wrote music which the choir could sing and which the organist could play to everyone’s satisfaction, and this is why the best of it is still popular. Even the less-inspired still has its uses. It is a strange sort of musical snobbery which would rather give us those phoney fauxbourdon settings culled from the festal psalms of Byrd, Gibbons, etc. at Monday Evensong (when the choir needs a rest after the demands of Sunday), rather than Gray, Ireland, Stanford or Wood (or even Lloyd or Walford Davies) in F or G or whatever, which would be much more fun for all concerned and in fact easier to sing convincingly.

iar Save us, O Lord, waking has its moments. One could reasonably assume that an Edwardian cathedral organist, even if not trained by the famous (and formidable) Walter Parratt at the Royal College of Music, would be a Fellow of the (Royal) College of Organists, another great Victorian foundation, whose examinations were and are a stiff test of all-round musical ability. If no cathedral post was available, a large parish church could offer a more than acceptable substitute: Bairstow was organist of three parish churches before his appointment to York Minster, and Harold Darke was never a cathedral musician. The local Doctor of Music ran not only the choir at the priory, abbey or parish church but also the local choral society and orchestra, perhaps finding time to be music master at the local grammar school as well; to all these he brought a professional training and professional standards, and the loss of this ‘second division’ in the church musician’s profession is to be regretted, now that schools are less accommodating and parishes no longer able to find the money for a musical tradition which in any case they may not value any more.

Nor was the tradition of ‘articled pupils’ completely extinct. Charles Reed’s biography of Sir Malcolm Sargent (there must surely be a copy in every second-hand bookshop in Britain!) gives a fascinating account of his training by Dr Haydn Keeton at Peterborough Cathedral between 1912 and 1914, where theory and practice went hand in hand: a pupil would accompany

The Edwardian cathedral’s organ was another legacy of Victorian innovation. If it were not a Father Willis, it was likely to be a Hill or Walker or the product of a good local firm in the style of the great masters, while the early rebuilds by Harrison and Harrison at Durham and Ely were but forerunners of the typical twentieth-century cathedral organ. Whoever its builder, one could expect it to be colourful, expressive, easy to control and powerful. The same might be said of the choir, for not the least important of the Victorians’ achievements had been the reform or re-founding of chorister schools so that whether day or residential they offered an education good by the standards of the day. There was still time in the curriculum for the boys to sing Mattins as well as Evensong daily; and choirmen were able to sing twice daily as well, for stipends, in the wealthier establishments at any rate, were sufficient to provide all or most of a decent living. The music composed for these choirs assumed a minimal amount of rehearsal time but a high level of skill in sight-singing within a conservative idiom, good soloists among both boys and men, and the direction of speed and dynamics through the organist’s playing with the music not conducted. Speeds would tend to be on the slow side, and rhythmic complexity was not likely to be successful. Amphion’s archive recordings of boy sopranos (The Better Land – 5 CDs) and the choirs of Rochester, Windsor, York and the Temple Church give some idea of how the music might have sounded, with due allowance made for technical imperfections and changing musical conventions. The only Edwardian recording I have heard was made by the choir of Westminster Abbey and Sir Frederick Bridge, and jolly good it was!

Mention of ‘Westminster Bridge’ (so-called to distinguish him from his brother Joseph, ‘Chester Bridge’) brings me neatly to another Edwardian legacy, the scholarly re-discovery of old music. Contrary to popular belief, Richard Terry at Westminster’s new Roman Catholic cathedral was not the sole pioneer in this field, though his choir had to perform rather a lot of Palestrina, Byrd and co. which was about all it was allowed to sing under the terms of the papal decree motu proprio which forbade Viennese Masses and most other post-Renaissance music. Our specimen Sunday at our imaginary cathedral could

‘Without exception these Edwardian composers were organists, often of cathedrals or college chapels, and pretty good ones at that.’

equally have had Gibbons at Mattins, a Palestrina mass (in English, of course) at the Holy Communion and Caustun or Mundy at Evensong, with anthems by Battishill, Byrd, Dering, Gibbons, Palestrina, Vecchi or Victoria, and in most cases the editors would have been Sir George Martin, Organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, or Sir Frederick Bridge, two of the composers most vilified by E. H. Fellowes in his English Cathedral Music (1940). Many ‘received opinions’ seem to have begun with Fellowes (and Colles and Hadow), and important though Fellowes’s editions were in bringing about the Tudor revival in the 1920s, it must not be forgotten that the true pioneers had been at work some twenty years previously. Another valuable legacy of the Edwardian decade is the Church Music Society, inaugurated on 20 March 1906 as an agent for the encouragement of better music in worship both at cathedral and parish level. It flourishes as much as ever, producing for cathedral choirs scholarly editions or reprints of works which the large publishers feel unable to publish. Its work for the parish musician has largely devolved upon the Royal School of Church Music, but the familiar Jesu, joy of man’s desiring is an enduring legacy of its original aim to publish simple but good music.

The third name on a scholarly edition would have been W. S. Royle Shore, who is described as Lecturer in Sacred Music to the Diocese of Birmingham, whatever that may have been. The Diocese of Birmingham was founded in 1905, and the first organist of St Philip’s Church in its new guise as Birmingham Cathedral was Edwin Stephenson, later organist of St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, where he was famed for his weekly recitals. His regime at Birmingham was both busy and innovative: the full choir sang Evensong daily, and the repertoire included a quantity of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English music without parallel in any other cathedral at the time. There was considerable interest in the new cathedral’s music both locally and nationally, but sadly there were insufficient funds to pay the men and the whole establishment had to be scaled down to the more conventional ‘parish church cathedral’ formula, with Sunday choral services plus a couple of Evensongs in the week. All that remained were Royle Shore’s editions, and most copies were lost in the second World War when the cathedral was damaged. The other diocese founded in 1905 was Southwark, whose musical regime between the wars was similarly well regarded and likewise has not survived on anything like the original scale.

‘Another valuable legacy of the Edwardian decade is the Church Music Society, inaugurated on 20 March 1906 as an agent for the encouragement of better music in worship.’

These two are the only English dioceses founded by the Edwardians. Ripon (1836), Manchester (1847), St Albans and Truro (1877), Liverpool (1880), Newcastle (1882) and Southwell (1884) date from the nineteenth century, though many of their cathedrals are of course buildings of a size and antiquity perfectly suited to their enhanced status. All the Scottish Episcopal cathedrals date from this wave of diocesemaking as well. The other new dioceses in England were founded between 1914 and 1927, and in many cases their cathedrals were former parish churches already possessing professional musical establishments run by musicians trained in the manner already described. So one can claim them as another Edwardian legacy, and because many of the choirs are part-time, with limited rehearsal and neither choir school nor fully professional

men, the Edwardian repertory, so practical, straightforward and effective, is perhaps more firmly entrenched here than in the older cathedrals where there are skills, time and opportunity to meet the challenges of a wider range of music.

So our typical Edwardian cathedral would have services sung morning and evening throughout the year to a commendable standard by boys decently educated and cared for and men whose sole or main employment was the cathedral choir. The music might range from Tallis, Byrd and Gibbons (not much in some places, one must admit) through a quantity of the Old School of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the works of Mendelssohn, Spohr and Gound plus the native school from Attwood to Stainer. If your cathedral was of the Old School and had not been Gounod-ised there would be rather more Goss, Ouseley and Hopkins in preference to more highlycoloured fare. You would be almost certain to find whatever was new from Boosey, Novello or Stainer and Bell, contemporary in the strict sense of the word but hardly ultra-modern, but highly effective in performance by a choir so much better then twenty years previously and accompanied by an organist (no mean composer himself) on organ with all the latest tonal and mechanical refinements. It was a golden age indeed for any Friend of Cathedral Music.

The Great War had a drastic effect on sung services: at Durham choral services on weekday mornings were discontinued to free the men for war work, though they were subsequently resumed on two days only, while at St Paul’s the available manpower was concentrated on five days of the week, with the boys singing on their own on the other two. In the 1920s cathedrals were short of money, so it was easier to reduce the men’s duties than to increase their pay. By the late 1930s only St Paul’s, Lichfield and Wells could offer sung services every day, both morning and evening. In the late 1940s and 1950s a few cathedrals were fighting a kind of rearguard action, with boys-only Mattins at Salisbury, and full choir on a couple of days a week here and there, while Mattins at Worcester survived until 1965 but sung at an hour when most folk would be finishing their breakfast. If men can no longer be paid to sing on weekday mornings, the demands of the choristers’ general education mean that they too are no longer available then, for the standards in choir schools have to be at least as good as elsewhere, and junior and preparatory education is a more professional and intensive business nowadays.

LIVING BREAD

TRURO CATHEDRAL CHOIR

Directed by Robert Sharpe

Organ: Christopher Gray

Wash me throughly, Wesley

Ego sum panis, Palestrina

Hear my prayer, Mendelssohn

O Lord, look down, Battishill

Miserere, Allegri. ALitany, Walton

Versa est in luctum, Lobo

The ways of Sion, Wise

Panis Angelicus, Franck

Lo, the full, final sacrifice, Finzi

In Tune with Heaven

THE GIRLSAND MENOF NORWICH CATHEDRAL CHOIR

Directed by Julian Thomas

Organ: Thomas Leech

Blest Pair of Sirens, Parry Faire is the Heaven

Come, my Way, Harris

O for a Closer Walk, Justorum Animae, Coelos Ascendit, Beati Quorum, Magnificat & Nunc in G, Stanford

We should not be depressed, for the cathedral tradition is nothing if it ceases to adapt and evolve, and there are many good things going on today. Some of the problems are age-old: choirmen and choristers were hard to recruit even in Victorian times, and money has not always been plentiful. The Edwardians (and late-Victorians) were fortunate in enjoying a period of national prosperity and had the good sense to invest their wealth in education, the church and the arts: they repaired and furnished the ancient cathedrals, reformed their choirs, made the cathedral organist a well-educated professional musician rather than a hired servant, and left us a distinctive corpus of good-quality choral music still apt for its purpose, which to judge from the contents of many recorded anthologies seems to be thought the very essence of the English cathedral style. ‘In many respects the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries represented a ‘golden age’ for cathedral music, with twice-daily choral services, efficient choirs, and sufficient rehearsal time to support a large and varied repertoire.’ So writes Dr Peter Horton in his new and quite superb biography of Samuel Sebastian Wesley: it is gratifying to be able to enlist the support of so eminent an authority.

‘The Edwardians were fortunate in enjoying a period of national prosperity and had the good sense to invest their wealth in education, the church and the arts.’

In Quires and places where they drink

Nestling in the shadow of the world famous Royal Worcester Porcelain Factory in the centre of Worcester, and a gentle stroll from Worcester Cathedral, is a quaint little retreat known as The Salmon’s Leap. Here on Saturdays after Evensong you will, from time to time, find a committee meeting of the Lay Clerks of Worcester Cathedral taking place. At these meetings are discussed the many pressing matters that weigh so heavily on the minds of the Gentlemen of the Choir, such as ideas for raising funds for the Music & Light Appeal. To help each meeting pass more pleasantly, it has been known for those attending to sample one or more of the many excellent beverages available. Although Timothy Taylor’s ‘Landlord’ is the backbone of this selection, the ‘Leap’ is a Free House and the range of real ales is constantly changing. The natural curiosity of the lay clerks inevitably causes them to call in at other times, usually post Evensong, to see what brews are currently available. As the landlord, Bernie, takes so much trouble to arrange for such a fine selection (usually five real ales plus various lesser top pressure brews), it is of course ungracious not to sample each new one on its arrival.

On convening, each committee meeting is called to order by the traditional cry “Whose round is it?” At this point many find that the excitement and emotion of Evensong suddenly overwhelms them and they hastily excuse themselves to the Gents.

On occasion the lay clerks are able to welcome their illustrious Master of the Choristers to the meeting although his attendance has been sporadic recently due to his growing interest in property

development. However when present, he shows admirable leadership in the manner of his sampling of the ales. He is particularly made welcome when he remembers the ancient salutation of a Master of the Choristers to his lay clerks – “What’s everyone having chaps?”

One duty that the lay clerks take particularly seriously is to assist in the education and training of the organ scholars. Much pride is taken when, at the end of the year at the cathedral, the fresh faced innocents, who had arrived the previous September, move on to their chosen university safe in the knowledge that he, or she, will be able to lead the socialising of their college choir in the college bar and/or other local watering holes.

In addition to real ales, The Salmon’s Leap offers a selection of fine food throughout the day, ranging from traditional pub fare to more exotic Bernie specials. For the Worcester Three Choirs Festival (which will take place next year from 6 - 12 August) a splendid hot buffet is available conveniently catering (in every sense) for the variable rehearsal and concert schedule. From time to time a barbecue or a pig roast are welcome gastronomic variations.

So if you are ever in Worcester and in need of victuals in a cosy and welcoming environment, then the ‘Leap’ would be a good choice. If your visit is on a Saturday evening during term time, you will be most welcome to observe the ancient rituals of the lay clerks’ meeting. Simply remember the sacred passwords “Evensong was stunning – let me get the next round” and you will find a warm welcome awaits you.

LAYCLERKS’ TALE

Where do lay clerks hang out in your part of the country? If your local hostelry is worth a mention drop the Editor a line along with a photo of the lay clerks partaking of a pint.

‘On convening, each committee meeting is called to order by the traditional cry

“Whose round is it?” ’

Richard Pugh takes us to The Salmon’s Leap in Worcester.

A collection of Anglican chants

1995-2004

Peter W J Kirk

Happiest when sitting in any cathedral, (especially Southwell Minster) and being surrounded by our musical heritage which we must all cherish.

tpkirk@halcyon291.fsnet.co.uk

Peter W J Kirk, (Guildford Diocese) Freelance organist. Duty Organist at Aldershot Crematorium; Collector of all choral music; Owns a very large private music library; Friend of Southwell Minster, Guildford, Winchester and St. Paul’s Cathedral; Fervent supporter of the principles of the Friends of Cathedral Music.

‘I have used 2/2 time signatures against each chant, thus saving over two hundred and fifty thousand computer transactions.’

My interest in Anglican chants has stayed with me since my days as a chorister, then later as a parish organist. Knowing exactly where a certain chant was contained always proved time-consuming. Having obtained a somewhat antique computer system, I thought I would wade through the sixty plus psalters and hymn books and put them on the computer alphabetically. Composers such as Turle, Crotch and Barnby plus countless others appeared in practically every book. Eventually all the composers were accessible together with dates of birth and death (where obtainable – dates do vary from edition to edition).

My collection amounts to around 4500 chants. As with all collections, this subject is never complete but is now very comprehensive. My thanks to the many cathedral organists who have helped me out over the last 10 years, especially to Dr. Robert Ashfield and the late Dr. John Sanders who sent chants in their own handwriting – so very kind.

To date, I have chants by 959 composers covering nearly 350 years. The most prolific composer is Dr. George Thalben-Ball 1896-1987 with, at last count, 84 doubles and short doubles; 49 singles and miscellaneous chants. Some chants have very many arrangements, some with trills(sic) and a myriad of passing notes. Chants of the 18th and early 19th century appear to be ‘cleaned up’ and devoid of all moving parts by many of the late 19th century composers and arrangers.

Among my own favourite composers are Dr William Crotch 1775-1847 with 22 doubles and 18 singles. I have a great interest in major and minor chants, such as the two samples by Christopher Teesdale 1782-1855. The most inspiring to me personally are by Dr. John Camidge & Matthew Camidge with sixteen chants between them. The most ghastly, in my humble opinion, are some of the late 19th century single chants produced by many unknown British organists. Enough said!

If anyone has access to any old psalters that I can borrow to continue this project, I would be most appreciative. I am not reproducing these chants so hopefully I will not fall foul of copyright implications. Most of my music comes from second-hand bookshops in places such as Hay-on-Wye.

Last year, my son and I were having a beer in a public house at the centre of Derby, a few hundred yards from the cathedral, when we noticed a beer mat with what looked like graffiti on it. Upon closer examination, we found two single chants by Sir Joseph Barnby 1838-1896 (not in my collection at that time) scribbled-down, which we duly ‘copied’. Are thanks due to the local lay clerks?

To save endless bar line implementation, I have used 2/2 time signatures against each chant, thus saving over two hundred and fifty thousand computer transactions. Maybe one day, I could hold the national chant archive. Who knows!

My son Matthew, who was a cathedral chorister in the late 1980s, gave me a nice conclusion to this article – an extension perhaps to the St. Augustine of Hippo quotation: ‘He who sings, prays twice’ (but he who sings Psalms, prays thrice).

‘As with all collections, this subject is never complete but is now very comprehensive.’

Cathedral Girl Choristers:

Before the imaginative and bold decision taken by Salisbury Cathedral and The Cathedral School in 1990 to depart from tradition and create a new choir of girl choristers, opportunities for girls to sing the magnificent repertoire which is unique to the British Isles were few and far between. Since that decisive day, a number of cathedrals have admitted girl choristers and it is clear that others are currently considering a change in this direction.

I am perhaps in a unique position to assess this interesting question as Headmaster and, for seven years, Choral Director of the Girl Choristers at Llandaff, and this has led to a request to provide a personal view of the subject with regard to our own experiences at Llandaff and in the wider sphere of cathedral music.

It was clear when I arrived at Llandaff in 1994 that there were many musical and vocally gifted girls in the school who would benefit hugely from a regular ‘taste’ of the cathedral repertoire and all that goes with it. At the time, the boys

sang services every day (except Wednesday) and twice every Sunday; since Wednesday Evensongs were covered by St Michael’s Theological College there was no obvious slot for the girls, so I proposed that a choir of fifteen girls from the Cathedral School should sing occasionally as a ‘Cathedral School Choir’ when the boys were giving a concert elsewhere, or when a special Sung Eucharist was needed in addition to Evensong. The first occasion, in 1996 was very special and attracted a large congregation which included many of the boy choristers’ parents – and even some boys themselves!

It was soon clear, however, that the girls would benefit from a more regular opportunity in the Cathedral, so it was agreed that they would sing Evensong every Monday from September 1997. At this stage it was necessary to convince a few doubters and pessimists that the scheme could actually work, but overall the reaction was very enthusiastic and even though the girls were still officially a school choir, they played an important

role in the music of the Cathedral. In the early stages, the girls sang alone, but gradually, we introduced SATB services which were greeted with enthusiasm by all concerned.

I personally found that the girls were remarkably ‘quick learners’, something that Richard Seal at Salisbury Cathedral also emphasised when he first trained his girl choristers at the beginning of the previous decade. Indeed, the repertoire gradually grew from 15 settings and anthems per annum to a total of 45 pieces, and the girls even performed a four-part (SSAA) unaccompanied setting of the canticles on two occasions.

In the year 2000 the Llandaff Girl Choristers were fully integrated into the worship of the Cathedral and became known as ‘The Cathedral Girl Choristers’; since that time they have increased their contributions to three services a fortnight, occasional Sundays, a joint concert with the Boy Choristers and Men, an ordination, and involvement (together with the boys) in the enthronement of the Archbishop of

Llandaff Girl Choristers 2003

Wales. Indeed, their increasing commitments, allied to my role as Head in a rapidly growing school (from 280 to 580 pupils in 10 years) led to my decision to relinquish (most reluctantly!) the Directorship of the Girl Choristers last year.

Without doubt, there have been immense benefits from the scheme. These include some very obvious advantages for the girls themselves as well as several indirect benefits which relate to other groups.

1. The girls have access to the wonderful repertoire of cathedral music which was previously unavailable to them. Although they do not sing as often as the boys, their contributions to the worship of the Cathedral are steadily growing.

2. The sight-reading ability of the girls has improved markedly and they are also far more confident when singing solos.

A personal view by

3. The introduction of girl choristerships has had a profound effect on the advent of girls in general to the school; we are now seen to be a coeducational establishment rather than a school for boys with some girls!*

4. The Boy Choristers now sing five services a week rather than seven; this has enabled the Organist and Choirmaster to be able to spend far more time on such areas as vocal technique, blend and other important aspects of choral training, rather than having to concentrate on mainly ‘learning the notes’.

5. The boys themselves, whilst they are obviously still busy, have far more free time than they did when singing seven services per week. They are also able to take part in far more school activities, drama productions and sport.

6. By having access to two choirs, it

is increasingly possible for one group to sing at concerts and services elsewhere (an important aspect of outreach in the locality), whilst the other group covers the regular Evensong.

*At Llandaff, we have a particular advantage that the school age range now extends to 16; the girls in Years 9 and 10 are naturally experienced and very confident. We allow them to sing in Year 11 (GCSE year) if they so wish, but some (very reasonably) choose to concentrate on their academic work at this stage.

The introduction of girls to cathedral music has been criticised by some people. The criticisms include the following points:

1. “The presence of girls will erode the great British choral tradition of male cathedral choirs. Girls will ‘take over’ as they have in many church choirs.”

There is no evidence, as far as I am

aware, that, ten years after the Salisbury ‘experiment’, the Cathedral choral tradition is being eroded. We have not seen closure of cathedral boy choirs since 1991; indeed, there are many establishments where the boys continue to sing regular services each week, but are now able to avoid the problems of overburdening the voice at such a young age thanks to more frequent non-singing days.

My personal view is that the arrangement of having two distinct, separate choirs, i.e. boys and girls, works extremely well, with the occasional option of putting both groups together for special services or concerts when a larger group is needed. There are, of course, examples of foundations, such as Manchester Cathedral Choir, where the boys successfully sing together with girls, but whether the boys sing together with the girls or separately, it is essential to ensure that singing is not perceived to be something that is ‘mainly done by girls’.

Lindsay Gray

‘In the year 2000 the Llandaff Girl Choristers were fully integrated into the worship of the Cathedral and since that time they have increased their contributions to three services a fortnight, occasional Sundays, a joint concert with the Boy Choristers, an ordination, and involvement in the enthronement of the Archbishop of Wales.’

This is clearly a very subjective question. There have been various occasions when listeners have been asked to state after hearing an unseen choral group whether the ensemble comprises boys, girls, or a combination of the two. I myself was present with a group of choir school heads and cathedral organists on one of these occasions; we were surprised when the answers were revealed because our assessments of the gender of the singers were grossly inaccurate!

It was felt that, irrespective of the boy/girl issue, the sound of the choir is clearly influenced to an enormous extent by the individual choir director as well as the acoustic of the building; indeed, we are all aware of the many differing timbres emanating from cathedral choirs around the country.

An interesting question, however, concerns the distinctive sounds of girls’ voices as they begin to mature in Year 8 and above. We find at Llandaff that some girls do begin to produce naturally more vibrato at this stage of their development, so care is obviously needed in ensuring that the blend of the choir is maintained. In fact, Charlotte Church sung at Llandaff for two years at a very early stage of her career and whilst she was already producing a considerable amount of vibrato in school and local concerts, she was exceptionally adept at producing the pure, straight sound as a Girl Chorister which blended extremely well; she even pos-

sessed a distinctive ‘third’ voice employing heavy chest tone which she used to great effect in school musicals!

3. The repertoire was composed with boys, and not girls, in mind.

This is true, but in addition to referring back to the points made in the paragraph above, and at the risk of offending the authenticists, I believe that the wonderful opportunities provided for the girls far outweigh any concerns regarding authenticity. Two parallels spring to mind in the world of classical music: firstly, few people object when a female contralto or a male counter-tenor sing Bach’s alto arias from the cantatas even though these were originally composed for, and sung by boy trebles; similarly, who complains when a cathedral boy choristers sing the top line of Haydn’s The Heavens are Telling or that delightful trio Lift Thine Eyes from Mendelssohn’s Elijah, neither of which were conceived with anything other than female voices in mind for the relevant parts?

4.The presence of two choirs puts an impossible strain on the finances of cathedrals.

This has created problems in some places, but schools and cathedrals have found a range of solutions including special trusts created to fund girl choristers, full-scale appeals or money provided by the school to enable the choir to make a start. In some cases there has been a

reduction in scholarships and a greater emphasis on bursaries (for financial need) in line with the trends at senior school scholarship level. In other cases, girl choristers have been ‘volunteer’ choirs drawn from the school or from the surrounding area.

In summary, one would have to admit that the path to achieving a choir of girl choristers is not always easy and there can be plenty of obstacles that have to be overcome in the early stages, but I am sure that those who have taken the step to introduce girls would never for one moment consider turning the clock back. In an age which admirably strives to avoid discrimination (even though it may not always achieve such goals!), I believe that every opportunity should be taken to enable girls to receive the same kind of training and experience within cathedral music which once was only the province of boys. Having not only trained the girl choristers but also having had the great advantage of observing the development as a parent myself, it has been wonderful to experience first-hand the creation, progression and considerable achievements of girl choristers when they are given the opportunity to take part in and benefit from this unique tradition.

If you would like to discuss any views in this article with Lindsay Gray or if you are considering starting a girls’ choir, please write to:

headmaster@cathedral-school.co.uk

2. “The sound of the girls is inferior to that of the boys.”

Llandaff Girl Choristers 1999

New President

“The greatest threat to the future of cathedral music is sheer ignorance.” Declares our new President Dr Christopher Robinson whose appointment was warmly welcomed at the FCM AGM in Salisbury Cathedral. He succeeds his predecessor at St John’s College, Cambridge, George Guest. Dr Robinson is no stranger to FCM, he wrote a stimulating article for the last edition of CM and his Naxos CDs of English choral music have been welcomed to great critical acclaim. Dr Robinson told CM that “Though cathedral music, like many other precious areas of our national heritage needs constant protection, the greatest threat to its future prosperity is, to my mind, sheer ignorance. Not only members of the public but many clergy, I find, seem very unaware of the glories of cathedral music, to say nothing of its educational benefits. This situation needs tackling. Perhaps we need more open days, more open rehearsals and more openness in general.”

Christopher Robinson retired as Organist and Director of Music at St John’s College, Cambridge, in 2003 after twelve years’ service, having previously served at St George’s Chapel, Windsor (1975-91) and at Worcester Cathedral (1963-74). Christopher Robinson was conductor of the Oxford Bach Choir (1977-1997) and the City of Birmingham Choir (1964-2002). He also conducted the Three Choirs Festival when at Worcester Cathedral. He was elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in 1980 and was President of the Royal College of Organists from 1982 to 1984. Both Birmingham University and the University of Central England have conferred honorary degrees on him and in 2002 he was awarded a Lambeth Doctorate in 2002 in recognition of his contribution to church music in this country and abroad.

In 1992, HM the Queen honoured him with the appointment as Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in recognition of his work at Windsor Castle and in this year’s New Year honours he was given the CBE in recognition of his services to music. Peter Toyne says: “We are fortunate indeed to welcome such a distinguished figure in cathedral music as our President. Christopher’s knowledge and expertise as an organist, choral and orchestral conductor is well known and respected. To have a President who for so long has been at the ‘sharp end’ of cathedral music will be a great asset to FCM and we will greatly benefit from his expertise, wisdom and influence.”

FCM Website

As part of our programme to upgrade the FCM web site, a new page with details of the Society has recently been added by our web site programmer Ian Wride. This new page with the title, All About the Friends of Cathedral Music , includes sections covering the Society’s purpose, beliefs and achievements as well as details of recent FCM Grants, a short biography of our founder – Ronald Sibthorp – and a brief history of the Society. The page can be found at www.fcm.org.uk or you can go straight to it at www.fcm.org.uk/Aboutus

News from Choirs and Places where they sing

We know from the recent Cathedral Music Readers’ Survey, that 54% of FCM members are now on the internet! But those of you who are not can always ask a friend or family member to print the page out for you. Further pages including A Brief History of the Church in England and A Brief History of English Church Music are in preparation and will be added during 2005.

Sir David Calcutt QC

FCM Vice-President Sir David Calcutt QC died on August 11 aged 73. As a boy he was a chorister at Christ Church, Oxford. He then won a music scholarship to Cranleigh, followed by a choral scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge, He took two degrees simultaneously, Music and Law. He was passionate about church music throughout his life. He was a founder of the Edington Festival. As a barrister he specialised in music copyright cases. He was knighted in 1991. In his later years Sir David suffered from Parkinson’s Disease but remained cheerful and genial.

SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL CENTENARY Liturgical Music Composition Competition

To mark the Centenary of the Cathedral and Diocese of Southwark the Dean and Chapter are launching a competition for new anthems or settings of the canticles for Evensong (Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis). Entrants should be aware that the adjudicators will be looking for music which draws on different ethnic traditions but which can be incorporated into the regular repertoire of the Cathedral Choir.

Prize:a cash prize of £1500,plus a possible performance of the work on BBC Radio 3 Choral Evensong.

Entry: Details of the competition and an entry form can be obtained by post from:Peter Wright,Director of Music, Southwark Cathedral,London Bridge,London SE1 9DA. Website:www.southwark.anglican.org. E-mail:peter.wright@southwark.anglican.org

Final Submissions to:

Peter Wright,Director of Music,Southwark Cathedral,London Bridge,London SE1 9DA by Friday,25th March 2005.

FCM

Photos of Dr Robinson taken by Helle Christiansen

Canon Paul Rose on Christopher Gower MA, FRCO, JP

Afairly green curate in Torquay in the early 1960s knew and was friendly with Lionel Dakers, the already wellknown cathedral organist in Exeter. At the same time as I moved to Devon in 1961 the new assistant organist at Exeter was Christopher Gower, fresh from an organ scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford. The organ he had played there when Bernard Rose was Director of Music was replaced by a new smaller instrument in the 1980s, but affixed to the wall on the spiral staircase leading up to the console at the west end of the chapel is a list of organ scholars covering the years of the latter part of the 20th century. Christopher succeeded one Dudley Moore, also well known, in 1957. Apart from Christopher and Dudley Moore in that list only Jeremy Suter is someone we know of, it seems, in today’s musical world.

After some time at Exeter, Christopher became organist at Portsmouth Cathedral, and there were one or two broadcasts of Choral Evensong from there which were sung by a robust choir who obviously enjoyed their music - that from a former parish church cathedral which had no traditional choir school.

The time came for Dr Stanley Vann to retire from Peterborough in 1977 after a distinguished career which had really put a traditional cathedral choir on the map – he only rarely had more than six lay clerks in the stalls, whom he took great care to blend. It was a hard act to follow, but Christopher came and has presided now for 27 years, during which he has had to cope with many changes, often outside his control. All these he has accomplished with his delightful quiet humble friendliness to all alike. Like so many organists and choirmasters today we do not hear enough from him at the console, where he is an impressive performer, because he is nearly always downstairs goading and conducting the large choir of men and boys. There are sometimes 20 boys in the stalls, and on occasions at least 10 men singers. The choir is in many ways more uninhibited and unfettered than it used to be; there is no fear of opening up on great occasions.

Behind all this Christopher, for many years a Justice of the Peace, has had to cope with a complete alteration of the venue for the boys – from the Becket Chapel by the main gateway (now the cathedral restaurant) to the chapel over the west porch, and from there to Laurel Court, which now forms a very suitable day choir school in place of the residential dwelling it used to be. Besides these adaptations, however, came the decision to close the choir boarding house at the King’s School and to concentrate on recruiting day boys from the much enlarged city and its surroundings. One or two boys today come from as far afield as Oundle

Photo: Graham Hermon

12 miles away. So whilst Peterborough no longer accommodates choristers from all over the country as we used to, sufficient boys are welded into his cathedral family by Christopher and his assistants – not to forget a new choir of girls looked after by his assistant Mark Duthie. It takes a man of courage, equanimity and, yes, some gentleness to take all this on board and make a success of it in these very mobile and changing times.

More was to come when on St Cecilia’s Day in 2001 there was a fire of plastic chairs in the cathedral behind the organ pipes, which meant that the choir organ was severely damaged and the whole instrument had to be dismantled and will not be back in action until 2005. The Peterborough organ has been a gem at an unusual sharp pitch, and no doubt the battle over whether it could be effectively changed without enormous expense has held up the rebuilding now taking place. For almost three years Christopher has been without his cathedral organ. Makin were quickly on hand with a temporary electronic replacement, but it is sad that he has had to make do without the fine organ which Harrison and Harrison are now restoring.

Christopher is a straightforward, friendly, unassuming and hardworking musician to whom many generations of boys, girls and men will want to pay tribute, besides his many friends in the city and throughout the Diocese. His bustling about his daily task as he seeks to get the best from those who come to sing under him, together with the wry humorous smile which so often lights up his face, is something distinctive which everyone is going to miss; and, as I know, he is always willing and generous. I know because over the years he has lent me several pieces – even sets of choral music – and a gown when I could not find one for a university dinner. He has not only been a member of FCM for many years but has keenly encouraged the holding of gatherings at Peterborough and given every assistance in making the arrangements.

As we look forward to the arrival of Andrew Reid and his wife, we know that the morale of the musical foundation here at Peterborough is alive and vibrant from the regular care it has received over many years.

The Secretary of the Old Choristers’ Association referred to Christopher as coming second in length of service to the legendary Haydn Keeton who was here for 50 years. That unfortunately is not quite true – there was John Mudd here for 47 years, James Hawkins for 36 and John Speechly for 34 – but 27 years is a good innings and comes next in line. The cathedral is losing a devoted and faithful servant and tireless musician who deserves a long and happy retirement, and warm thanks from all of us for his and Sylvia’s friendship.

‘It takes a man of courage, equanimity and, yes, some gentleness to take all this on board and make a success of it in these changing times.’

inQuire

Musical Chairs

Following the appointment of John Scott to a major post in New York City Malcolm Archer (Wells) has been appointed to succeed him at St Paul’s, and he in turn will in due course be succeeded by Matthew Owens from St Mary’s Edinburgh. Judy Martin has been in post for a year now at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin – she was the Director of Chapel Music at Worcester College, Oxford, and was selected for ‘her proven creative and administrative skills in directing girls’ and adult choirs’. Tim Bryam Wigfield has moved to St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Canterbury Cathedral has appointed Robert Patterson as assistant organist, he was organ scholar at Peterhouse, Cambridge and York Minster. Thomas Leech has moved to take up the post of Assistant Organist at Ripon Cathedral leaving the Organ Scholar’s job at Norwich Cathedral. Birmingham announces the appointment of a new Assistant Director of Music, Stuart Nicholson, previously Director of Music at Waltham Abbey. He succeeds Christopher Allsop, who has moved to Worcester as Assistant Organist. Birmingham has also appointed a new Organ Scholar, Peter Dutton, previously Organ Scholar at All Saints Church, Margaret Street, London. At Leeds David Houlder has been appointed Sub Organist after an extended period of distinguished service at Liverpool Cathedral, and he is joined by the new Edward Boyle Organ Scholar in the University of Leeds, Peter Brand Gloucester has said farewell to William (Bill) Armiger after an amazing 33 years as lay clerk. He is also standing down as Three Choirs Festival Secretary. With characteristic generosity, Bill, as he is widely known, urged his friends and well wishers to join the FCM. Our warmest wishes go to Christopher Gower, who retired from Peterborough Cathedral after 27 years see page 28 for an appreciation of his work.

Richard Osmond rounds up the news from DRs

St David’s Cathedral Festival was described as one of the best ever this May, with three major world premieres. The festival featured an exhibition of Musical Traditions in Celtic Lands as well as a recital by Carlo Curley, and a broadcast Choral Evensong

The Marriage of England and Spain was the theme of a major celebration at Winchester to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the Wedding of Mary Tudor and Philip II of Spain in Winchester Cathedral July 1554. Sadly, the Cathedral Choir was on holiday but the excellent group Index Cantorum marked the date (St James Day) with a fine concert ably supported by instruments of the period.

Rochester 1400 Not Out

2004 is the 1400th anniversary of the foundation of the see of Rochester by St Justus. Apart from a broadcast Choral Evensong there was a concert, which included a commission by Barry Ferguson Open Thou My Heart Barry Ferguson was himself cathedral organist for 17 years. Dr Robert Ashfield, Barry’s predecessor and now in his nineties, was in the audience. Rochester have also commissioned an anthem from John Tavener for the dedication of a fresco on the theme of baptism. The Organist of Notre Dame, Olivier Latry, gave a celebrity recital.

Gloucester Gathering

Gloucester enjoyed a successful gathering on 4th May, and a further joint gathering with Exeter is planned for 23rd April 2005.

The two Cathedrals have S S Wesley as a link as well as the name Nethsingha. Our man in Gloucester has particularly

written to commend the visiting choirs at Gloucester (your columnist was in one this September) and makes particular mention of St Petri, Hamburg, not least for their performance of Bach’s Jesu, Meine Freude

The Exeter Connection

Highlights here have been two new CDs for Herald, which should be out by Christmas: Music for the Eucharist, to include mass settings by Anthony Caesar (who celebrated his 80th birthday this year) and Andrew Millington, together with motets by Elgar, Lotti, Tallis, Day, Duruflé, Gabrielli, Holst, Britten and Mozart, plus Evensong for St Peter’s Day (girls and men). Exeter continues its outreach to the Diocese with concerts this year in Stoke Gabriel, Paignton and Ilsington. Chorister Michael Dawson, aged 11, won the Choirs Schools’ Association Composition Competition with a setting of There is no rose for upper voices. The choir visited Malvern Priory and Pershore Abbey and the boys took part in a very successful workshop with local children in a Malvern primary school.

Exeter broadcast Evensong on 3 November (Girls and Men) and the 10th anniversary of the Girls’ Choir is being celebrated on the weekend of 20/21 November with a specially commissioned anthem by Barry Ferguson (a former Exeter chorister). The Choir visits Belgium and Holland in December.

Southwark

The choir undertook a busy five-day tour to the Republic of Ireland during the October 2004 half-term. Their attention is now focused on the Cathedral’s centenary in 2005 for which a major composition competition has been launched. The

sum of £1500 and a broadcast on BBC Radio 3 are the prizes for a new sacred work which the Southwark choir will premiere at the 100th Consecration Day Evensong on Sunday 3rd July 2005. The piece should include some ‘ethnic’ element at the Bishop of Southwark’s request. The closing date is 25th March.

The Southwark Girls’ Choir enjoyed a successful tour to Prague at Easter 2004 which marked the triumphant conclusion of the careers of the first girls to join in 2000.

Energetic Ely

The choir will be particularly busy in the Michaelmas Term this year (as distinct from the usual ‘busy’). Apart from the regular services and several concerts, they will have much other music to fit in.

In mid-October there will be recordings for two BBC TV Songs of Praise programmes to be broadcast on Remembrance Sunday and the last Sunday before Christmas. After Festival Services for St Etheldreda, Ely Cathedral’s founder, the choir starts a 14-day tour of Canada on 20th October which will include 6 Concerts, Services on two Sundays and a Workshop in Calgary. Shortly after returning home, BBC Radio 3 Choral Evensong will be sung by the choir on 17th November. Once December is upon them, the concerts become more concentrated including the SSAFA Christmas concert in the Guard’s Chapel, London.

A New Precentor for Leicester

The Reverend Dr Stephen Foster has been installed as Precentor to succeed Canon John Craig. He was formally vicar of St Anne with St Francis, Sale, in the Diocese of Chester, and has been responsible for major acts of worship at Chester Cathedral. Stephen is a semiprofessional opera singer (principal) and drove to his interview in Leicester after an evening on stage in Manchester!

Representatives of the Cathedral Choir were delighted to be invited to sing in the Festival choir for the 350th Festival Service of the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy in St. Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday 18th May along with representatives from 37 other cathedral choirs.

The choir stayed in Chester for the week commencing 9th August and sang daily services in the cathedral.

Pancake Day

The annual Pancake Concert was held on 24th February at Carlisle and featured instrumental and vocal solos performed by the choristers and lay clerks. Three days later the choir gave a concert in the Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, in aid of the Cathedral Music Appeal. A moving performance of Stainer’s Crucifixion on Palm Sunday signalled the start of an unusually busy Holy Week which included the funeral of Ian Dixon, who as a chorister and lay clerk had given over 50 years’ service to the choir. Ian’s rich bass voice was heard for one last time during the course of the service, when a recording of a BBC broadcast of Parry’s Hear my words was played.

At the start of the summer term three new choristers were admitted, bringing the treble line up to its full strength (16) for the first time since April 1999. After an interruption of 18 months the boys are again singing six services per week. Does any cathedral without a choir school sing a greater number of services than this?

Early in May the choristers took part in a CD recording of Douglas Steele’s Autumn Sequence . There was much excitement three days later when Princess Alexandra attended the laying up of colours for the Kings Own Royal Border Regiment. After the service HRH stopped to talk to members of the choir. One was able to remind her that he had sung as a chorister for her wedding in Westminster Abbey over 40 years ago!

On June 20th the choir headed west in order to sing Evensong in St. Cuthbert’s, Seascale. Before the service there was time to enjoy a ride on the Ravenglass and Eskdale narrow gauge steam railway. The Carlisle International Summer Festival featured a choral concert given on July 16th by the Cathedral and Youth choirs during which Caedmon’s Hymn, a specially commissioned anthem by David Briggs, received its first performance.

The Dr H. E. Ford Memorial Prize (a bound and engraved copy of Handel’s Messiah) was this year awarded to Jordan English, who will succeed Oliver Margerison as Head Chorister (Cantoris) in September. At the time of writing preparations are well in hand for the choir’s visit to Dublin (where Messiah was first performed) scheduled for October half-term holiday. The chorister raised £364 towards the cost of the tour as a result of a sponsored ‘Penalty Shoot Out’ competition held on June 28th. After nearly a year’s inter-

regnum a new dean will be installed on October 2nd: Mark Boyling moves from Liverpool Cathedral, where he has been Canon Precentor.

Wi nchester celebrated five years of the Girls’ Choir this summer and they have since undertaken a visit to Stavanger Cathedral in Norway with which Winchester is twinned, and broadcast Choral Evensong on 29th September, with music including Stanford’s Latin Magnificat and Holst’s Nunc Dimittis, with which it is often paired. It is hoped to arrange an FCM Evensong during the winter months. Members in the diocese will be notified. For the second year running, under the leadership of Mrs Tessa Till (wife of the Dean) a secondhand bookstall has raised £25,000 towards the annual running costs (should that be singing costs?) of choristers. This has really captured the imagination and is warmly recommended.

Leeds PC Choir travelled to Norwich in July for the installation as Dean of The Very Revd Graham Smith (Rector of Leeds 1997-2004), joining with the home team under David Dunnett. David Houlder gave a recital of music by Leeds and Norwich composers before the service. During his time at Leeds, Canon Smith was a great supporter of the Choral Foundation Appeal, nearly £200,000 of the targeted £500,000 having been raised so far. The Church is particularly grateful to the Trustees of the Ouseley Trust for a grant of £20,000 to endow a lay clerkship, and to the late John Hanson for a very generous bequest.

A service of thanksgiving for the life of Joseph Stones, founder director of Leeds College of Music, included music performed by principals from Opera North and LCM lecturers, with singing led by a large adult choir assembled to honour the memory of one of the great figures in late 20th century Yorkshire music. There have been joint services with Doncaster Minster and Ripon Cathedral (St. Peter’s Day Eucharist) respectively. There has also been increasing co-operation with the choir of Leeds (RC) Cathedral – a very welcome development. There was a notable tour of Scotland (27th July – 1st August), which included appearances at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral (Edinburgh), Dunblane Cathedral and St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh.

The choir also visited Ely in July to sing Dr Francis Jackson’s A Time of Fire, in the presence of the composer and with Jonathan Lilley at the organ. The boy choristers raised a remarkable £1,500 towards the costs of the Scottish tour by a sponsored walk in June.

Leeds also received some distinguished visitors including the conductor and composer Andrew Carter (Principal Guest at the Choristers’ Prize-giving) and concert organists Carlo Curley and Gordon Stewart. At the time of writing the Revd Dr Peter Mullen has been invited to preach at this year’s Friends of the Music Festival on Sunday 17th October at 3pm, at which the choir is due to be joined by former choristers.

Cambridge news

My Cambridge correspondent reports ‘no news from Jesus’ (presumably the College and at the time of going to press) but reports busy schedules at John’s and King’s.

John’s are travelling to London on 9th November to launch their first ‘own label’ CD, with music ranging from Allegri and Byrd to Harvey and Philip Moore. They will also give a concert at Granchester (of Rupert Brooke fame) on 17th December and take part in a Wigmore Hall Christmas Concert on 18th December. However, pride of place must go to the George Guest Memorial Concert on 14th December at St. John’s, which is expected to include music Dr Guest loved to perform.

On 16th January the choir will visit Paris (Cité de Musique) for a concert of English Liturgical music, and the traditional Advent and Ash Wednesday services will be broadcast as usual. A further CD is likely to be recorded during the Autumn term.

King’s also have a busy and exciting year ahead, giving concerts in Reading and Derby before the Advent and Christmas

peak, together with a tour of the USA in mid-December, visiting Dallas, St Louis, Minneapolis, New York and Norfolk (Virginia) and finally Washington (The National Cathedral).

After all that(!) they appear at London’s Royal Albert Hall on 22nd December, with the Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus.

The approach to Easter sees the King’s Choir at St. John’s Smith Square, London, before a series of services and concerts in Chapel during Holy Week (late March), singing Bach’s St. John Passion and Part II of the Messiah as well as the more regular services. It is expected that there may be two broadcasts from this week of sacred music.

To the Tower

The 400th anniversary of the Hampton Court Conference of 1604(whose main outout was the Authorised Version of the Bible) was marked among other things in May by a service of Choral Matins attend by HM The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. The event was even more remarkable for being (as far as can be discovered) the first time that a Sovereign has worshipped at the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court since 1737 when the court left that Palace. The music included Britten’s Te Deum (chosen by the gentlemen of the choir!) and this was happily complemented by the same composer’s setting of the Jubilate which Prince Philip had commissioned in 1961.

In July, by complete contrast, the choir was allowed to provide the backing music for a short animation The Unsteady Chough. The music by Trevor Jones was recorded in Studio 2 (made famous by The Beatles at Abbey Road Studios and added to the orchestral track.

Welcome Guests

Mention was made earlier (Gloucester) of the contribution of visiting choirs and I make no apology for saying more here. They are a very real way of keeping musical worship alive at peak tourist times and contributing to the FCM aim of spreading the word. I have written before of French Cathedral Singers, who take the message further afield. This year Philip Baxter led over 50 singers to Reims, to perform music by Rutter, Moeran, Dyson, Holst and Bach in Reims (Cathedral, Basilica St. Remi and Eglise St. Jacques) Joarre Abbey and Notre Dame De Chalons. Next year the plan is for a visit based on Montpellier. If you would like more information, Philip’s e-mail is: pbaxter@sarumuse.com.

It was interesting to note that in this 60th anniversary year of the liberation of Reims collaboration was still a dirty word in some quarters! It was a thrill to sing Compline virtually alone in the Cathedral in the Apse Chapel containing the beautiful Chagal stained glass windows.

Nearer home the St Hugh Singers have marked 25 years of visiting cathedrals with a successful weekend at Coventry at the end of August, organised by the indefatigable Dr Robin Rees and his team. The group grew out of RSCM adult courses at Lincoln (hence the name) and held their first meeting all those years ago at Guildford.

inQuire inQuire

inQuire

Christopher Allsop, Assistant Organist at Worcester Cathedral on Cape Town and his favourite cathedral

Seconds in Music Profile

Age: 30

Education details:

Colet Court and St Paul’s School, London.

Organ Scholar, Trinity College, Cambridge

Career details to date:

Organ Scholarships at St Mary’s, Twickenham, St Martin-in-the Fields, London and St George’s, Windsor.

Assistant Organist at Great St Mary’s, Cambridge 1996-1997.

Assistant Organist at Birmingham Cathedral, and Organist of the Blue

School, Edgbaston 1997-2004

Assistant Organist at Worcester Cathedral from 2004.

What or who inspired you to take up the organ?

Attending my parish church from an early age and singing in the choir. My first organ teacher was Philip Buckmaster at St. Augustine’s, Whitton.

What is your:

a) favourite organ to play?

Both the beautiful Metzler in Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge and Westminster Cathedral’s Willis III.

Cathedral Music 33

Coat

Where do lay clerks hang out in your part of the country? If your local hostelry is worth a mention drop the Editor a line along with a photo of the lay clerks partaking of a pint.

‘My favourites often include many of Vierne’s Pièces de Fantaisie, most of Messiaen’s organ music and always some Bach.’

b) favourite building? Currently Worcester Cathedral! It’s elegant grace and riverside setting is very inspiring.

c) favourite anthem? Lo, the full, final sacrifice – Finzi.

d) favourite set of canticles? St. Paul’s Service – Howells.

e) favourite organ piece? Couldn’t possibly choose only one! But my favourites often include many of Vierne’s Pièces de Fantaisie, most of Messiaen’s organ music and always some Bach.

f) favourite composer? Has to be J. S. Bach.

What is your favourite radio and television programme?

Radio 4’s I’m sorry I’m haven’t a clue and Just a Minute

What Newspapers and magazines do you read?

Occasionally The Independent

Have you played for an event or recital that stands out as a great moment?

Playing for the Christmas morning service in St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town in 1994 – an unforgettable experience.

Are you planning any recordings and if so what repertoire would you hope to include?

None planned just at the moment, but ideas include an organ disc including twentieth-century repertoire by Shostakovich and Stravinsky. The Cathedral’s Voluntary Choir (under my predecessor Daniel Phillips) have just released a CD and in due course it would be excellent to do a follow-up to that.

Are you looking forward to next year’s Three Choirs Festival? What will be the highlight for you?

Absolutely! The programme looks splendid – but I think hearing Britten’s War Requiem in the Cathedral will be a particularly overwhelming experience.

What was the last CD you bought? Nina Simone – The Gold Collection.

SALISBURYCATHEDRAL

What was the last book you read? The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency –Alexander McCall Smith.

What are your hobbies?

Cooking, walking (especially in the Welsh hills), horse-riding and exploring unusual countries (most recently Iceland).

WESTMINSTER ABBEY CHOIR

Organist and Master of the Choristers: JAMES O’DONNELL

Be a Choristerfora Day

Saturday 20 November2004

An Open Day for prospective choristers aged 6-9 yrs and their families

Voice Trials

Boys 7-9 yrs – Saturday 22 January 2005

Girls 7-9 yrs – Saturday 5 February 2005

For an informal discussion with the Director of Music and/or further details of the Open Day and Voice Trials please contact:

The Director of Music

Department of Liturgy and Music at Ladywell 33 The Close Salisbury SP1 2EJ

Tel: 01722 555125

Headmaster: JONATHAN MILTON

All boys are educated in the Abbey Choir School. They receive substantial Choral Scholarships from the Dean and Chapter of Westminster and have the opportunity of taking part in concerts, foreign tours, recordings and broadcasts.

If your son is 7 or 8 years old, why don’t you let him come for an informal hearing?

Details from:

Westminster Abbey Choir School

Dean’s Yard, London SW1P 3NY

Tel: 020 7222 6151 Fax: 020 722 1548

Email: headmaster@westminster-abbey.org

‘I think hearing Britten’s War Requiem in the Cathedral will be a particularly overwhelming experience!’

Appreciation for the life of Connie Drake

As our tribute to Connie we reproduce the Address given by the Dean of Southwell at a Service of Thanksgiving for her life on Thursday 24 June 2004 at Southwell Minster.

O Come let us sing unto the Lord! Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving.

The first two verses of Psalm 95 (The Venite).

Daily the members of our Music Foundation and all who enter the cathedral by the south doors are confronted with these words. They are engraved on those doors, given in memory of Andrew Daykin, a former chorister of this Cathedral. We come to sing to the Lord to offer worship and praise. We come before his presence with thanksgiving in our hearts and our minds. We come to give thanks “for our creation, preservation and all the blessings of this life, but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace and for the hope of glory”. (General Thanksgiving - Book of Common Prayer)

To this cathedral Connie Drake came faithfully and regularly for many years. She was drawn here by the beauty of the place and by the music. She came to offer her praises and thanksgivings to God, as we do, and today we meet to give thanks to God for her life and work.

Connie was a very private person. I, and many others who knew her in recent years, know little about her early life. It is known that she came from London and lived in Grimsby before settling in Nottingham, where she worked as a secretary – a skill she put to good use in the service of the Church – and for many years she cared faithfully for her father at the home where she lived and died.

At one time Connie worshipped at St Saviour’s in the Meadows, and there wor-

shipped with services of the Book of Common Prayer, which were the basis of her deep and strong spirituality. She was a member of the Prayer Book Society, and she loved cathedral Evensong in this place. Music was her love. She worked hard for the Royal School of Church Music as secretary in this diocese, organising the choir festivals here for many years. She was also an active member of the Friends of Cathedral Music and was responsible for producing and selling its Christmas Cards – a task she undertook, like all others, with great efficiency and effectiveness. Connie was a Sidesman here and was faithful in attending Evensong when she was on duty. (This was not always easy for her, considering the variations in the bus services between West Bridgford and Southwell!) She regularly attended the Annual Parochial Church Meeting, taking her duties as one on our Electoral Roll very seriously. She was a good member of the Guild of Stewards and

shared her love of this place with many visitors.

We all have lasting memories of Connie. Let me mention but three of mine:-

In my early years, I remember her organising the bi-annual service for Guide Dogs for the Blind. It was organised in meticulous detail, and many blind people appreciated being able to come here with their guide dogs and being welcome to share in worship and to listen to our cathedral choir.

I remember also on an occasion when I was suffering a heavy cold and was discovered by Connie coughing in the Quire aisle before a service. She delved into her bag and produced a little packet. “Try these.” she said. “You’re probably taking all the wrong medicines!” She was into, as they say, alternative medicine!

My lasting memory was seeing her every year before Christmas perched rather precariously on a step ladder at the west end of the Nave, decorating our Christmas ➤

Constance Jeanette Drake was on the FCM Council for more than 30 years and her main work as Secretary for Leaflets and later, also Christmas Cards was carried out with diligence and efficiency almost to the end of her time with the FCM.

Photo: Colin Brookes. Connie Drake is 2nd from right. The picture was taken at a FCM Peterborough gathering.

News from Choirs and Places where they sing

Portsmouth Cathedral Choir and D-Day 60

Portsmouth Cathedral Choir was privileged to be part of the international gathering to mark D-Day 60 in June. In the space of five days they were asked to pack in two radio broadcasts, a concert and an appearance at the worldwide gathering of leaders and veterans at Bayeux – broadcast live on TV and radio. The broadcasts were demanding. A year or two ago, Portsmouth City Council invited David Price, Cathedral Organist to commission a musical work to be sung at the international gathering in Caen on 6th June – not far from the liberation beaches of 1944. The piece would be performed by Portsmouth Cathedral Choir, la Maitrise de Caen and a newly formed Portsmouth Youth Chamber Choir. Everyone in Portsmouth was delighted and moved by the wonderful composition that Harvey Brough wrote for the choir following the City Council’s commissioning of him in 2003. Valete in Pace turned out to be a very fitting 60th memorial. Harvey collaborated with Lee Hall – the creator of the film Billy Elliot and the result was a wonderful set of words. Oliver Jones – an 18 year old Portsmouth tenor choral scholar, took the part of an 18 year old English soldier seeing his first days of action. “He astonished us all, let alone our fellow choirs and capacity audience on Sunday 6th June in the huge Abbaye-aux-Hommes. The part written for him was demanding. He rose to the challenge with consummate skill. Then on the Monday afternoon, he and a number of our singers were back in time for school and public examinations!” David Price said. Portsmouth Cathedral is often referred to as ‘The Sea Cathedral’ so with all its historical naval links, everyone at the Cathedral looks forward to being part of the 2005 International Festival of the Sea, the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar and a tour to Cadiz in Spain to mark the 1804 death of Admiral Lord Nelson.

tree with tinsel, baubles and all kinds of other decorations! This was her great joy and her contribution to our Christmas.

Whatever she did was part of Connie’s service to this cathedral church, and for that we give thanks today. With our thanksgiving we offer our prayers for Connie as we commend her to God’s gracious love and safe keeping; we commend her to God who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who wipes away our tears, who comforts and sustains us and makes all things new. He offers new life as we trust in him. New life, eternal life, which begins here and now, as we trust Him – as Connie did.

Music is as important to us as it was to Connie, for it refreshes and sustains. It is a means of renewing our life. Music often expresses our deepest emotions in circumstances in which we sometimes find ourselves ‘lost for words’. It can disturb and challenge; it can lift up our hearts and minds to God in Heaven. What indeed will be the music of Heaven, I often ask and I am sure we all do, hoping the music in Heaven will be the music we love!

Music is a part of our worship: the way we express our praise and adoration, our penitence, our sorrow. Let us be faithful, as Connie was, in singing to the Lord, singing to his praise and glory, so we have the strength to live our lives as his disciples in the world.

A Night of a Thousand Angels

The second only candlelit dinner ever to be held in the Nave of Ripon Cathedral! Ripon Cathedral’s girls choir entertained and delighted 340 guests at a glittering dinner in aid of the Ripon Cathedral Music Appeal. The evening commenced with a champagne reception in the Choir, a four course dinner followed served in the candlelit Nave and the girl choristers giving a stunning choral performance of choral favourites. Sir Simon Jenkins spoke about how churches and cathedrals should be used in this way to bring the community together and Alan Titchmarsh entertained the guests with stories of his days filming Ground Force and more recently about his new history series on BBC 1. All this was captured on DVD which is to be shown on Sky Television in December. The Development Campaign raised £17,000 for the Music Foundation. Next year the Angel Dinner will be held on Friday 30 September 2005 so book early as tables are already being filled following this year’s successful event.

We need to give careful attention to words and music in our worship; they need to ‘fit’ together, hold together. They not only express our desires, our hopes, our fears and our longings, but our looking towards God in adoration and praise that he is our God. O come let us sing unto the Lord. There need to be times of preparation and expectancy, as we prepare for worship. We need to make time to ‘tune the instrument here at the door’, as John Donne put it, then we shall sing more worthily the praises of God.

Connie died alone in her home, probably suddenly and certainly unexpectedly. There is a sadness about that scene, but as we renew our faith and trust in God, who gives resurrection and new life to his faithful people, we can recall the words of St John of the Cross “The Lord who loves you greatly loves you to be quite alone, so that he may be your only companion”.

Connie died not completely alone, but with Christ as her companion. Now we pray that by God’s redeeming love and generous mercy, she may share the companionship and the worship of Heaven and discover in Christ, who was her companion in life and in death, her risen Lord and Saviour – the one in whom we now affirm our trust and to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, we sing our praises and ascribe all honour, worship, thanksgiving and adoration, now and for evermore. Amen.

‘Music often expresses our deepest emotions in circumstances in which we sometimes find ourselves ‘lost for words’.’

In a talk to Ripon Retired Clergy Group last November, the Very Revd Paul Burbridge recollected his time from chorister to dean.

Cathedral half century

My wife and I were at a party some fifteen years or more back, when a smart young woman was introduced to us. It transpired that she was a BBC producer, and her manner of speaking reminded me all too painfully of Linda Snell, my bete noire in the Archers soap! Her opening comment after being introduced to us was “It must be absolutely frightful living in the Close – sheer Barchester, with ‘Yes Archdeacon –no Archdeacon… and all that!” You could tell that her experiences of Trollope had been neither forgotten, forgiven nor overlooked! When we pointed out that in the eighties it could hardly be more different from what she was describing and that our four daughters actually referred to the Archdeacon as “Mike – wow!”, and indeed normally addressed him by his Christian name (minus the suffix!) she just couldn’t (or else wouldn’t) bring herself to believe it. “Oh, but it must be Barchester” she insisted “how could it be anything else?” Such is the image problem that cathedrals have to contend with.

I am not questioning Trollope’s perception of Barchester and there is considerable evidence that in his day he was probably not far off the mark. But just bear in mind that most institutions have changed quite radically in the last century and a half – and cathedrals have certainly been no exception.

My own experience of cathedrals goes back to mid-January 1941 when I became a chorister of Canterbury Cathedralthough at that time the Baedeker raids on Canterbury meant that we were cathedral choristers temporarily evacuated to a small village in Cornwall called St Blazey, between Fowey and St Austell. St Blazey Parish Church must have been one of the few village churches to have had sung Evensong five days a week in term time! On Saturdays we sang at another nearby church, and each Sunday we were taken to different churches all over Cornwall, as far away as Bude in the north, Plymouth in the east, Helston in the south and Penzance in the west. How we did this, with the wartime petrol restrictions I shall never know – unless we were considered to be contributing some way (morally, at any rate) to the war effort! Neither do I know how it was that we were allowed to enjoy so many cream teas on these expeditions, when they certainly must have contravened the current Ministry of Food restrictions. Strangely enough for a Canterbury cho- ➤

Copyright Fisk-Moore. Reproduced courtesy of Canterbury Cathedral Archives and the Friends of Canterbury Cathedral. Shattered remains of window in Trinity Chapel Canterbury Cathedral following blitz. Barrage balloon visible thorough gap in window. June 1942.

rister, the first cathedral I ever either saw (or indeed ever sang in) was Truro Cathedral. There from time to time we joined up with the Truro choir, and also with the evacuated St Paul’s Cathedral choristers.

My first sight of Canterbury Cathedral was delayed until November 1944. This followed Archbishop William Temple’s sudden and untimely death on 6th November that year, when we all returned to sing at his funeral. But Canterbury Cathedral in those days was a remarkable sight for several reasons.

Firstly, it was externally far more visible than it was either prewar or has become since. The entire eastern half of Canterbury High Street had been totally demolished by enemy action, and so had many buildings on the south perimeter of the Precincts. You could therefore view the cathedral’s exterior in a way that had been impossible before, and is certainly not possible now.

Secondly, nearly all the window spaces were filled with asbestos sheeting, into which were inserted rectangular panels of wired glass to admit the daylight. Mercifully the priceless medieval stained glass had all been removed at the outbreak of war and taken to a place of safety.

This meant that the cathedral itself actually had a great deal more natural light than it has today. Most of the medieval tombs were either sandbagged or else walled up with breeze blocks. The north choir aisle had been filled to a depth of about five feet of soil covered with wooden boarding. This had been done to provide additional protection to the crypt underneath, which was used by many Canterbury citizens during the blitz as an air raid shelter. The cathedral was cold, because the heating system was defunct – the boiler house had received a direct hit (as had also the cathedral library). The magnificent Willis cathedral organ was also unusable. This was because much of it had been away at the organ builders in London when war broke out, and Willis’s factory was also bombed. We therefore had to make do with a couple of Hammond electronic organs – one for the nave and one for the choir. Electronic instruments of sixty years ago were appreciably worse than their modern counterparts, and were known on occasions both to administer unexpected electric shocks, and also to behave somewhat independently of the organist!

The Canterbury Deanery had had its front blown out, and so the Dean lived at one end of his extensive house. Two of the residentiary canons’ houses had been totally destroyed, and

another’s was only partly habitable. Fortunately, our choir school was only superficially damaged, and was repaired sufficiently for us to end our Cornish exile and return to Canterbury in early January 1945 – four months before the war actually ended. From time to time we had to shelter beneath the spiral staircase during flying bomb attacks, but the end of the war was in sight and so we were ready in place to sing the victory services when they came. But during the coldest winter months that year and next – up until Holy Week – we sang services in the eastern crypt, which was heated by coke burning stoves.

I suppose that one of the more obviously Barchesterian elements still evident at that time was the fact that the Archbishop, the Dean and one of the two Archdeacons on the cathedral staff invariably wore gaiters (the other one only wore them sometimes!). There was little doubt that these ecclesiastical figures were held in awe in a way which would be quite unknown, and (quite frankly I think) not really even encouraged, today. There was an aura of the past when the Dean’s verger would go over to the Deanery before service, help him to robe, and then solemnly precede him with a silver mace over to the cathedral for Evensong, whilst the visitors looked on with astonishment. After service this procession was repeated, though this time in the opposite direction.

I think it was also true that the Dean and Chapter were markedly conscious of a substantial social divide between themselves and the minor canons, organist and all other cathedral employees. A really rather curious situation ultimately arose a few years after the war, when one of the minor canons was actually elected Mayor of Canterbury, and (along with the other city fathers) periodically had formally to be received at the cathedral great west door by the Dean and Chapter. I would have loved to have overheard the unwonted pleasantries that must have passed between them, but unfortunately I was never close enough to hear!

At Canterbury in the 1940s the Dean was a distinctly unusual personality. His name was Dr Hewlett Johnson, and he was tall and venerable in appearance, completely bald on top but with long white locks hanging down the back and each side of his head. These he used to comb assiduously when waiting fully robed at the great west door to receive important dignitaries –as was quite frequently the case, (we were not short of stray

‘Electronic instruments of sixty years ago were appreciably worse than their modern counterparts, and were known on occasions both to administer unexpected electric shocks, and also to behave somewhat independently of the organist!’

archbishops and eastern Patriarchs coming to be received at the cathedral in those days). He hit the headlines at the time because, not only had he been appointed during the premiership of the socialist Ramsey McDonald, but in addition he openly claimed to be a communist, and was popularly referred to as ‘The Red Dean’. He periodically visited Moscow, and having been presented there with a magnificent pectoral cross, he invariably proudly wore it, along with his scarlet Doctor’s gimp over his surplice, and (not entirely surprisingly) was frequently mistaken by visitors for the Archbishop! This was a trifle unfortunate, since he and the Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher were hardly on the happiest of terms! And in any case, there were those for whom a ‘Communist Dean’ was a contradiction in terms. Such people frequently urged the Archbishop to sack him – which, of course, was the one thing he could not do.

These Russian connections of the Dean were to provide us choristers with a certain amount of unexpected entertainment. The custom in those days was that main Cathedral Sunday evensong was sung at 3pm in the afternoon, whilst in the evening there was a rather more popular congregational type service. At this the Dean was normally the preacher. We choristers found his sermons fascinating on two counts. Not only were his frequently described jaunts to Russia far more fascinating than the average dry would-be mini-Bampton lectures of some preachers, but his constantly repeated phrases of “I said to Stalin... and Stalin said to me...” were calculated to cause some of the congregation get up in high dudgeon, and stalk out in a most ostentatious manner during his sermons. Meanwhile, we would be enthusiastically keeping a count of how many had departed so far! I have forgotten now what the record was, but I recollect that it was quite considerable!

On a different level, those were the days of almost totally unfettered freedom and independence for deans and chapters, with no system of external consultation in place as far as the fabric of any cathedral was concerned. It was just this sort of freedom that had led to the substantial debasement of Norwich Cathedral, where a former dean and chapter (with more money than artistic or historical judgement) decided they would like to turn the historical clock backwards and reinstate a quantity of completely bogus Victorian Romanesque

architecture in place of genuine late medieval modifications. (Some of you may recollect the clamour at the removal of the George Gilbert Scott iron choir screen at Hereford and the removal of stained glass in the Chapter House of Salisbury. Both of these moves were widely condemned and raised a national outcry at the time). And so during the latter half of the twentieth century something analogous to DACs was established by the creation of the Cathedrals Advisory Committee, of which I was a member for a number of years. Initially this was (as its name implied) a purely advisory body. However, it subsequently acquired more teeth when voluntary consultation was made compulsory. With the 1990 Cathedrals Measure this became the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England with statutory powers of enforcement, backed up by punitive penalties. I think that many Deans and Chapters would now think that centralised control has taken over too completely – more particularly since the Commission’s priorities for the use of cathedrals can sometimes be at variance with those of the Dean and Chapter on the ground. There is also an even more serious danger of creating a drab uniformity of archaeological practice and aesthetic judgement – and bear in mind that the cynical definition of an expert is: ‘one who disagrees with all other experts!’ I have good reason passionately to believe that ‘pluriformity of practice’ is absolutely vital. However, totally centralised control hardly encourages this.

Now to move more from Canterbury to York. In 1962, to my immense surprise, I was invited to go to York Minster as a Vicar Choral and Chamberlain. (This post of Chamberlain was, I believe, unique to York and involved being personal assistant to the then Dean, Eric Milner-White.) In 1942 he had moved from being Dean of King’s Cambridge to become Dean of York. I understand that it was wittily observed at the time that the Dean of King’s had gone to become King of Deans! He was certainly a man of very great distinction and holiness, and I was privileged to work with him. As you will know, he is still widely known for his many collections of prayers – of which ‘After the Third Collect’ was best known, though there were many others. He was also the last of a line of autocratic (and aristocratic) deans – deans who very definitely said “to this man go and he goeth and to another come and he cometh!” York is an Old Foundation cathedral, where the Dean is, theoretically

‘When I went to York it could fairly be said that the Minster was almost the private chapel of a limited coterie surrounding the Dean and Chapter.’

Paul Burbridge as Canon Precentor at York Minster enthroning Stuart Blanch as Archbishop. February 1976.

at any rate, a primus inter pares without even a casting vote. He didn’t let this cramp his style, however. His personality was such that he would invariably get his way whatever the Statutes (or even his colleagues) might think! I sometimes wonder whether he would have got away with it in the 21st century, with our more developed notions of collegiality!

In his day deans and chapters still exercised virtually complete independence over their finances, and Dean Milner-White was well aware of his own undoubted financial abilities. I understand that if certain shares came up on the Stock Market which he felt the Dean and Chapter really ought to have, he would sell off the odd property or two in York city centre to raise the necessary finance to underwrite the venture. I understand that the strong control which is now exercised by the Church Commissioners over any such transactions stems directly from his practices in this realm.

Even in the sixties many, though not all, cathedrals still had a certain affluence that was rapidly to be eroded by inflation, coupled with a new awareness of the need to take visitors and the public generally far more seriously than before. When I went to York it could fairly be said that the Minster was almost the private chapel of a limited coterie surrounding the Dean and Chapter. If you were in, you were very much in: and if you weren’t in you were very definitely out. (Perhaps to that extent in those days it was then still a trifle Barchesterian.)

Dean Eric Milner-White died a year after I arrived in York, in June 1963. He was succeeded by a very different person in Dr Alan Richardson. He was a most distinguished theologian who,

after a period as a Professorial Canon at Durham Cathedral became Professor at Nottingham. He told me that since he had very much hoped to pursue his theological writing while Dean of York, before accepting the appointment, very, very wisely he explicitly enquired into the Minster’s structural state. Having received confident assurances from the architect of the day that all was well, he accepted. However by 1966, by which time I had become a residentiary canon there, our new architect, Bernard Feilden, convincingly showed us that a massive restoration scheme with an appeal would urgently have to be made. He warned us of the possibility of a central tower collapse within an estimated 15 years if nothing was done. The East wall too, with John Thornton’s magnificent 15th century east window in it, was several feet out of plumb, and it was clearly only a matter of time before gravity took over. The twin western towers were also demanding attention as well. (Memories of medieval builders’ casual attention to foundations in William Golding’s The Spire inevitably came flooding into our minds).

I believe this was to be a radical turning point for York. Regrettably it was also to mark the end of Alan Richardson’s gifted vocation as a theological writer “Paul;” he said to me one day “You know the real cross that I have to bear as Dean of York is that I can no longer read or write.” It has to be admitted that during his York years, apart from editing A Dictionary of Christian Theology for the SCM Press and writing his least good book, The Political Christ, his theological literary work came to an end: and what a tragedy I believe that was, not only for the Anglican church, but for the whole Christian church in the

‘Cathedrals now, so far from being the closed cosy communities they had once been, can well be said to be contributing in a very tangible way to rebuilding the broken bridges of Christendom.’

Copyright Fisk-Moore.Reproduced courtesy of Canterbury Cathedral Archives and the Friends of Canterbury Cathedral. WW2 War damage St Anselm’s Chapel after blitz June 1942.

latter twentieth century.

Following a period of inevitably limited repair work over the wartime years, many cathedrals found themselves faced with massive maintenance backlogs demanding increasingly urgent attention. So appeals sprouted left right and centre from many English cathedrals. Of these, ours at York in 1967 then topped the lot at £2 million – the equivalent of a good £20 million or more today. Now, if you are going to appeal to the country at large, there is no room whatsoever for little coteries treating cathedrals as their own private preserve. The York Appeal was initially opposed by many, not least by certain clergy in the Bradford diocese nearby. But in the end opinion was swung round in our favour, even to the extent of the West Riding County Council’s imposition of a penny rate on behalf of the Appeal. But with this appeal the period of the cathedral close being a snug close community inevitably had finally to come to an end.

Then the increasing popularity of cathedrals as tourist centres in a big way also had a marked effect. Back in 1962 there was a pretty clearly defined holiday season which used to finish quite abruptly in early September. During the brief summer period in those days York Minster’s single concession to tourism was the provision of a picture postcard table in the south transept. This was manned by an otherwise unemployed choir man. But during the late 60s and 70s – fuelled partly by the extensive physical upheavals of the restoration, that season had extended very considerably. Now, of course, it has grown so much that it is doubtful whether any particular holiday period as such exists any more. Tourism has now become a major all-the-year-round industry. Cathedral staffs have very properly grown to meet this situation, and cathedral shops, refectories and visitors’ centres have multi-

plied. But this situation has also demanded an enormous army of volunteer helpers as well.

Whenever volunteer helpers are involved, they also create strong claims on the time of deans and resident chapters, who are naturally expected constantly to be doing the rounds amongst them in a ‘hands on’ manner. It may interest you to know that at Norwich each year my chapter colleagues and I used each to sign personally a ‘thank you-cum-Christmas card’ for as many as 600 or so helpers who assisted in one or another. This was really quite a labour in itself. I used to sign these cards in August, passing them on in turn to my three chapter colleagues for their signatures in September, October and November respectively. This meant that the secretarial staff could then send them out during December. This perhaps indicates something of the nature of the change in cathedral’s relationships with the wider world since the early 1960’s – a situation surely inconceivable in Trollope’s Barchester!

Perhaps most important is the attitude of Christians of other traditions towards our cathedrals, and ours to them. I frequently used to say that although we were staffed by Anglican clergy and used Anglican formularies for our regular worship, nonetheless our cathedrals are actually looked to, and often used by – and in a sense possessed by – the Christian community at large. As examples of this, quite recently the local Methodist minister over at Masham was actually ordained at a Methodist ordination in Norwich Cathedral! Also the Farewell service for a retiring Chairman of Methodist Conference also took place there. We regularly had a URC service and on occasions we made it available for Roman Catholics to have a Mass in the cathedral. ➤

Cantica Nova

18 NEW MOTETS FOR CHOIRS

Cantica Nova is an outstanding collection of new motets by contemporary British composers. Scored for mixed voices (a cappella and with organ) the pieces present a kaleidoscope of different styles and sonorities, united in their ability to communicate fresh ideas and in the skill of their vocal writing.

Kerry Andrew

Bob Chilcott

• Michael Berkeley

• Michael Finnissy

Gabriel Jackson

Joseph Phibbs

• John Joubert

• Jonathan Pitkin

Anthony Powers

• John Rutter

Howard Skempton

• Will Todd

• Alan Bullard

• Andrew Gant

• Tarik O’Regan

• Francis Pott

• Andrew Simpson

• Roderick Williams

Cantica Nova is a companion volume to the recently published New Horizons series of choral leaflets.

0-19-335536-1

£10.95

160 pages

www.oup.com/music/choral

News from Choirs and Places where they sing

Durham Cathedral Organ 2005

To celebrate the centenary of their rebuilding of the Durham Cathedral organ, Harrison & Harrison has published a calendar with colour photographs by the Durham organ photographer CRA Davies. The accompanying text includes appreciations of the organ and its history by the Dean, James Lancelot and Richard Hird. The calendar is designed to be a lasting souvenir of this milestone in the organ’s history. The calendar has 16 colour photographs and is priced at £14 including postage from Harrison & Harrison, St John’s Road, Meadowfield, Durham DH7 8YH in aid of Durham Cathedral Choir Associations.

Two FCM Retirements

It was with great fondness that FCM said goodbye to two stalwarts of Council at the AGM in June. Secretary Michael Cooke stood down as Secretary handing over to Roger Bishton whose address appears elsewhere in the magazine. Also departing was DR Coordinator John Craddock. Both have served FCM well over many years.

The Acorn Christian Foundation had the permanent use of a room in the cathedral as a ‘listening room’ run by ‘Christian Listeners’ – and one of the perceived definite advantages of this was that it was taking place within a building that was effectively supra-denominational! (Bradford Cathedral also has a similar facility, and I suspect there are many others). Cathedrals now, so far from being the closed cosy communities they had once been, can well be said to be contributing in a very tangible way to rebuilding the broken bridges of Christendom – and what could be more important than that?

However, I believe that one of the more serious disadvantages of all this change in our cathedrals was epitomised by Alan Richardson’s cri de coeur that as Dean he ‘could no longer read nor write.’ The days when cathedrals were potentially sources of theological study and learning, providing the space and opportunity for study and deepened spirituality, have sadly (and, I rather fear, irretrievably) come to an end. The greatly increased administrative demands that these places make mean that the academically inclined are understandably now less willing to sacrifice study for the sheer grind of administration. In turn this has meant that the selection (notably of Deans) now tends to centre on those with administrative and business flair for the running of what have come to be regarded as ‘ecclesiastical heritage theme parks’ – and of course, I know that heritage is big business these days, and cannot wisely be ignored. This I see as the very real downside offsetting some of these new, important and exciting developments in cathedral life.

FCM

January 28 - 30

London, including Westminster Cathedral, Hampton Court, Southwark Cathedral and Westminster Abbey

June 17 - 19

Chelmsford and Brentwood

October 7 - 9 Brecon

Details from Peter Smith.

I have intentionally said nothing of the final democratising of our cathedrals with the establishment of cathedral councils, giving both the bishop and the laity a greater say in the running of cathedrals, since this took place after I had left office, and I am therefore unqualified to comment. However. all this certainly represents real change. But if there is one thing of which I am totally and utterly convinced, it is this: that never again is ‘sheer Barchester’ likely to be either a fair or a valid criticism of the inhabitants of our English cathedral closes.

NATIONAL GATHERINGS IN 2005

‘The days when cathedrals were potentially sources of theological study and learning, providing the space and opportunity for study and deepened spirituality, have sadly (and, I rather fear, irretrievably) come to an end.’

Peter Toyne & John Craddock.

Photo: Janet Walker

Michael & Joy Cooke.

Photo: Janet Walker

Age: 30

Education details: City of London School; Peterhouse, Cambridge (BA); University of York (MA).

Career details to date:

Organ positions: Organ Scholar, Peterhouse, Cambridge; Organ Scholar, York Minster; Assistant Director of Music, Hampton Court Palace; Assisting Organist, New College, Oxford; Organist, University Church, Oxford.

Teaching positions: music teacher at Bradfield College, Berks; Assistant Director of Music, St Helen and St Katherine, Oxon.

What piece have you been inspired to take up recently and why?

Bach A major P & F BWV 536, as it is a beautiful little piece that doesn’t seem to be often performed, and the fugue is

Seconds in Music Profile

so interesting rhythmically.

How have you tackled the approach?

I always play the piece through a few times to get a sense of the overall architecture and balance, and then I learn the manuals (normally at the piano as I find this is better for technique at the early stages) and then add the pedals at the organ.

Have you been listening to a recording of the piece and if so is it just one interpretation or many and which players?

I listened to Kooiman and Fagius play it as I happen to have their recordings, but I tend not to listen to too many performances when I’m learning a piece as I think it is important to respond to your own ideas first before considering other interpretations.

What or who inspired you to take up the organ?

Singing in my local RSCM choir, and thus hearing the organ, coupled with the enthusiasm of the choirmaster and organist.

What is your

a) favourite organ to play?

Depends on the repertoire, so for ‘earlier’ music then Pembroke, Oxford (Létourneau) I think is lovely and for romantic/modern I guess the York Minster organ.

b) favourite building?

The acoustic in St Antoine in France where Nigel Allcoat runs his summer school is fantastic (New College performed a concert there), but I recently gave a recital at Exeter Cathedral and the view from the organ loft there is breathtaking.

c) favourite anthem?

Either Harris’s Faire is the Heaven or one

Robert Patterson, Assistant Organist at Canterbury Cathedral, on tackling Bach and planning for 2007

‘I tend not to listen to too many performances when I’m learning a piece as I think it is important to respond to your own ideas first before considering other interpretations.’

or the bigger Leighton anthems such as God’s Grandeur.

d) favourite set of canticles? Probably Howells St Paul’s especially the Nunc.

e) favourite organ piece? Almost anything by Bach or Duruflé.

f) favourite composer? Bach.

What is your favourite radio and television programme?

I only really watch the news, though dry comedy programmes such as Early Doors I find very funny.

What Newspapers and magazines do you read?

I steer between The Guardian and The Telegraph depending on my mood.

Have you played for an event or recital that stands out as a great moment? Either playing continuo for the B minor mass in York with Peter Seymour or playing in Suntory Hall, Tokyo with New College Choir.

Are you planning any recordings and if so what would repertoire would you hope to include?

I’m not planning any recordings, but I am planning to play the complete Buxtehude in 2007 (he lived 1637-

1707), although I don’t know where yet!

How do you cope with nerves?

By (hopefully) doing enough practice to then have the mental strength and confidence not to be phased by the pressure of performance.

Do you play any other instruments?

I used to play the flute (fairly badly) and I do sometimes sing bass (no comment...).

What was the last book you read?

I’m reading Watching the English – the hidden rules of English behaviour at the moment, though I have just bought Edward Norman’s latest book Anglican Difficulties

What was the last CD you bought? Bach – Lutheran Masses on the Chaconne label. Excellent singing and playing.

What are your hobbies?

Exploring the countryside and enjoying fine red wine.

‘I’m not planning any recordings, but I am planning to play the complete Buxtehude in 2007, although I don’t know where yet!’

2004 Roger Tucker Festivals Report

Spitalfields Festival 7th – 25th June

Inspired by Hawksmoor’s stupendous baroque masterpiece, Christ Church (1714), this Festival has grown in stature and scope each year since its inception in 1976. Always eclectic in its mix of events, it has become increasingly peripatetic. This is one of its strengths and has enabled it to reach out to the wider communities of the East End, reflecting the diversity of this historically colourful area. Although it has always been centred on a church, Spitalfields is in no way a festival of church music, but that rich musical tradition has always commanded inclusion. Its founding director, Richard Hickox, a leading specialist in large-scale choral works, was succeeded in 1994 by a trio of composers, Michael Berkeley, Anthony Payne and Judith Weir, who ran the festival jointly, then Weir on her own for three years. In 2001 the present director, Jonathan Dove, was appointed, by which time he had already established himself as one of our most talented younger composers in both the choral and operatic fields. His anthems and canticle settings are being heard more and more in cathedrals and churches, including his 1996 Salisbury Cathedral commission Into thy hands sung at last year’s festival by the choir of St John’s College, Cambridge. So it is not surprising that Dove’s festival programmes have each year included concerts of sacred music, given by top professional and traditional collegiate choirs. Last year there were three from Oxbridge, which, because of the ongoing interior restoration of Christ Church, were given either in Wesley’s Chapel or Shoreditch Church.

This year’s major sacred music concerts were again given in Shoreditch Church, starting with the Russian Patriarchate Choir from Moscow singing the Vigil for the Feast of the Mother of God. This I was unable to hear but I attended the performance given by the Ex-Cathedra Consort, directed by Jeffrey Skidmore, who founded the Consort in 1969 at the age of 18, before taking up a choral scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford. Under the title How shall we sing the Lord’s song? this ambitious concert compared psalm settings for the Protestant Calvinist Genevan Psalter (1562), sung in old French, with those for the Catholic Latin liturgy.

For five of the six psalms, we heard the basic tune from the Psalter, followed by an elaborated setting by either the Dutch Reformed Church composer Sweelinck or the Huguenot Claude Le Jeune.

(Over a century after Le Jeune wrote these settings, the Genevan Psalter was brought to Spitalfields by the ➤

Shoreditch Church

Huguenots (French Protestants), forced to flee abroad because the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIVth in 1685 ended all protection for nonCatholics in France. Many settled in the Netherlands and others were drawn to Spitalfields, because of the silk-weaving opportunities. As a result ten churches were built there between 1687 and 1743 to serve the new immigrant community, and in these the services would have been conducted in French and used the Genevan Psalter).

As a contrast, for several psalms we also heard Latin settings by either Monteverdi, Charpentier or Nivers and it was striking that these had a more florid character, setting off the more open sound of the words.

Then as a third source in this web of changing styles there were settings by two English composers: the 16th century Thomas Tallis, whose setting for Psalm 2 uses the haunting theme made famous by Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia (which he used to call ‘the Tallywag’) sung to the words of Matthew Parker’s The Whole Psalter translated into English Metre, published in 1567. Tallis, who was 24 when Henry VIII broke with Rome and established the Church of England, remained

1610

a Catholic but was flexible enough to write settings for both liturgies, which is no surprise if one remembers that in his adult lifetime the faith was switched from Catholic to Protestant, back to Catholic and then back to Protestant again.

The other English setting sung was for Psalm 137 By the waters of Babylon by the 17th century Pelham Humfrey. He had been recruited as a chorister at the age of 13, along with Blow and Turner, into the choir of Charles II’s restored Chapel Royal under Henry Cooke. At 17 Humfrey was sent by the King to Paris to study with Lully, whose style His Majesty much admired. On his return he became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal and five years later succeeded Cooke; but for his early death at the age of 27 he would clearly have become one of the great church composers of the Restoration period.

Ex-Cathedra’s performance fully revealed the expressive beauty of both Humfrey’s and Tallis’s music, with no less polish and care than they applied to the Dutch, French and Italian composers. This Consort excels in highly demanding and idomatic repertoire and on this occasion they transported us far beyond the confines of Shoreditch, finally

sending us away uplifted by the richness of two further settings by Monteverdi, his Cantate Domino and the great six-part Magnificat of 1610.

There were also two late-night church concerts given by the BBC Singers directed by Bo Holten, which presented sacred polyphony by another five Renaissance composers. The 2004 Festival ended with one of the greatest choral masterpieces: Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, performed by the Baroque Orchestra and Singers of the Royal Academy of Music under Laurence Cummings.

Organ music fared less well than last year, when there were three full-length evening recitals at the Dutch church in Austin Friars; we had only one fiftyminute lunchtime performance at the same venue. However, it was one of the festival’s free events, given by a brilliant prizewinning young organist, Bart Jakubczak, currently holding a fellowship at the RAM, with a well-chosen programme of Sweelinck, Reincken, Krebs, Knecht and Bach.

Let us hope for more next year, there should be no problem, because organ recitals, like everything else at Spitalfields, seem to pull the audiences in.

The 277th Three Choirs Festival at Gloucester 7th – 14th August

This year’s Gloucester festival, the first directed by Andrew Nethsingha, was dedicated to the memory of John Sanders, who had been playing in the cathedral as Assistant Organist, Organist and latterly as Organist Emeritus for over 40 years by the time of his unexpected death last Christmas at the age of 70. Two months later there was a special Evensong in Thanksgiving for the Life and Work of this much loved man, whose own compositions, provided all the music for the service, apart from the Howells canticles. So it was at the Festival Opening Service,

with a similarly packed congregation listening to Sanders’ music framing the service, again with canticles by Howells and this time a Vaughan Williams chant. At both services Andrew Nethsingha achieved a superb performance from his choir and a great understanding of both the Sanders and the Howells settings. It was particularly good to hear James Bowman again taking the alto solo in The Vision, the final chorus of Sanders’ cantata Urbs Beata, as he did when the work was premiered at the last Gloucester festival in 2001 under the composer’s baton. Other works by Sanders were worked into the

festival programme: with over 65 available there was plenty of choice. The first night concert opened with the Festival Te Deum, his first large-scale work, then on Monday in the first Choral Evensong directed by Andrew Nethsingha all the settings were by Sanders, and the voluntary, except for the Sumsion Introit

A new feature this year was a half-hour organ recital before each of the four Evensongs sung by the combined cathedral choirs. On Monday Gloucester’s Organ Scholar, Simon Kirk, played two pieces by Herbert Brewer and two by Howells, one of which, Master Tallis’s

‘The 2004 Festival ended with one of the greatest choral masterpieces: Monteverdi’s

Vespers. ’

Jonathan Dove

Testament, is a favourite of mine. It is so utterly sad and bleak. On Tuesday the Oriel Singers from Cheltenham sang a Sanders chant and his anthem Bring us O Lord

Before Evensong on Wednesday Gloucester’s Assistant Director, Robert Houssart, played the complete Symphonie Romane by Widor and then accompanied the service, which was directed by Adrian Lucas and used Jackson in G and a Mendelssohn anthem. Thursday’s Evensong was sung by Tewkesbury Abbey School Choir directed by Ben Nicholas.

On Friday Hereford’s Assistant, Peter Dyke, played a mainly Bach programme and then Geraint Bowen conducted Evensong set to music composed in the century before Bach.

Worcester’s Assistant, Daniel Phillips, played the final pre-evensong organ recital, performing music by Bossi, Mendelssohn, Venables and Bairstow. Evensong under Geraint Bowen used the Howells St Paul’s Service, followed by Vox Dei, a 16-part motet by one of his pupils, Philip Wilby, with some delicate treble solo calls at the end. Robert Houssart played a splendid Vierne Final as the voluntary, which ensured my attendance at his solo recital on the final Saturday morning, which had an interesting programme. The standard of playing and singing in the Recital/Evensong slot was very high throughout the week. The musicians of the three cathedrals deserve much praise for their consistent brilliance sustained throughout the eightday festival.

The major works in the evening concerts should always offer a substantial and satisfying sequence, building up during the week to some memorable choral heights: this year Brahms’s German Requiem, Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass, Elgar’s The Kingdom, Haydn’s Creation, Elgar’s Music Makers, Poulenc’s Gloria and Beethoven’s Ninth did just that and ensured there was virtually no rest for the Festival Chorus! This highly trained but amateur choir is at the heart of each festival and manages to sustain a very high performance standard for eight days, Gloucester being the longest of the three.

The other ensemble which has to maintain standards for eight consecutive evening concerts without respite is the Philharmonia Orchestra and it is their participation which put the top gloss on the Three Choirs Festival this year. Thursday evening’s concert did not call for the Festival Chorus, the choral contribution came instead from the combined

choristers, who sang with sustained musicality in the Messiaen Trois petites Liturgies

The final work was the ‘Organ Symphony’ by Saint-Saens, with David Briggs making the organ part as dramatic and telling as can be. The conducting at this concert was shared between Andrew Nethsingha and Christopher Robinson, former Organist of Worcester Cathedral, who has recently agreed to become President of FCM, in succession to the late George Guest. Seeing him in action left me in no doubt that he can still galvanise choral and orchestral forces into delivering his exciting interpretations of large-scale works.

Friday evening’s concert featured a little-known work by Howells, King’s Herald, and this year’s Festival Commission Orchestral Variations on Down Ampney. This involved five leading British composers in each writing a variation on the theme of Vaughan Williams’s hymn tune. I found the idea worked for me and the resulting composition was musically fascinating.

Two works by Elgar in part 2: a vibrant and idiosyncratic reading of the ‘Cello Concerto by Raphael Wallfisch, which I much enjoyed, was followed by the uneven but charming Music Makers, here given a sympathetic Three Choirs performance.

Later on there was a chamber recital in the Cathedral Quire of Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres, given by Picander, a small ensemble with Jonathan Manson (cello) and Mark Williams from St Paul’s Cathedral at the chamber organ. We were treated to an exquisitely sung duet by sopranos Elin Thomas and Carys Lane, with faultless intonation and incisive phrasing. An outstanding performance, which was not given by candlelight as

advertised but under the glare of spotlights!

The final concert offered us yet another performance of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, which has been done many times at Three Choirs but always seems to me out of place. It has become so heavily associated with the EU in recent years and also has a traditional place in the last week of the Proms. My feelings were focused by a chance comment I overheard afterwards: “wasn’t it exciting, just like the end of the Proms!”

For me it seems the wrong work with which to end this quintessentially English cathedral festival. It is also one that requires drier acoustics for the detail of the complex scoring for the strings to be heard properly. However, I can report a fine performance, save for the painfully sharp intonation of the baritone at his solo entry in the Ode to Joy. The concert opened with a very energetic and forceful performance of Poulenc’s Gloria, which is the kind of work that benefits hugely from an acoustic like Gloucester Cathedral’s.

This year’s Three Choirs was an overwhelming musical feast, offering more than anyone could comfortably digest, so that selection was essential. I have only been able to mention the highlights.

Andrew Nethsingha deserves many plaudits for his planning and execution, as does Bill Armiger, the Festival Secretary and Programme Book Editor, not least for the quality of the new full A4 size book. One other musical star of Gloucester delighted us throughout the festival; the wonderful Harris organ dating from 1666 which John Sanders had rebuilt in 1970, with further improvements more recently by David Briggs.

‘My feelings were focused by a chance comment I overheard afterwards: “wasn’t it exciting, just like the end of the Proms!”.’

Paul Wigmore, Bilton, Gloucs.

An excellent piece from Paul Edwards! (Issue 1/04.) It’s about time the chapel choirs were celebrated – and the celebration could not have been more telling in other than the practical yet gently emotive voice of Paul Edwards. And I particularly appreciated the practicality of those two quite brilliant tables of information about the Cambridge and Oxford chapel choirs and their services, right down to the detail of the times and telephone numbers. Thank you.

Brian Reid, Kettering,

Northants.

I much enjoyed reading Paul Edwards article (Issue 1/04), indeed at many of the ‘minor’ Oxbridge colleges there is much excellent music-making which is seldom heard, sadly, by the general public. The other week, my daughter had invited my wife and me and her sister to the formal hall dinner on a Sunday evening at her college, Magdalene in Cambridge. Whilst waiting to go into the hall in the court outside the chapel, the singing of the hymn How shall I sing that majesty flowed over us – a truly magical, uplifting experience which made us all feel that this was a very special moment and carried us far away from the ‘busy-ness’ of the street outside into something approaching an insight of what heaven must be like. We owe all of these college choirs, their directors and organists, a huge debt for being able to provide us (and them) with such magical moments.

David Gedge MBE, Brecon Cathedral.

Thank you for publishing Lay Clerks’ Tales from Brecon Cathedral; a framed copy now hangs proudly on the wall in The Bull’s Head. Nearby in another frame, hangs a copy of The Lay Clerks’ Grace, which was to have been recited at a choirmen’s dinner by one of the minor canons until he spied the Bishop of Swansea and Brecon sitting nearby and lost his nerve. It reads:

‘Almighty God and Lord Divine

Who turneth water into wine Have mercy on us sinful men

About to turn it back again’ There’s one for the collection!

David Martin, York

Lay clerks were not only being frowned upon in the early 17th century. Heard the one about the Lay clerk and the Horse? in CATHEDRAL MUSIC, (Issue 1/04). They were still being subjected to fun-filled satire at the end of the century, to judge by the book Letters from the Dead to the Living, published in about 1696.

The book imagined that various eminent persons, lately deceased, were writing letters back to their friends in the land of the living, who then replied to these heavenly letters. One such reply was imagined as being written by John Blow to his late friend Henry Purcell, who had died in 1695. Amongst other things, John Blow is represented as telling Purcell how things were going with the lay clerks of Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s. Blow writes:

‘I have no novelties to entertain you with, relating to either the Abbey or St. Paul’s, for both choirs continue just as wicked as when you left them. Some of them come reeking hot out of the bawdyhouse into Church, and others stagger out of the tavern to afternoon prayers, hiccup over a little of the Litany, and so back again. Old Claret-face beats time upon his cushion stoutly and sits growling under his purple canopy, a hearty, oldfashioned bass who deafens all about him. Beau Bushy-wig preserves his voice to a miracle, charms all the ladies over against

him with his handsome face, and all over his head with singing. Parson Punch makes a very good shift still and lyrics over his part in the anthem very handsomely.’

If this state of affairs were still a part of a lay clerk’s job description, it might be easier to recruit good men into this underpaid vocation.

F H Pearce Richards, Tavistock, Devon.

Please, please, no orchestras at Choral Evensong. Elizabeth Morgan by e-mail.

We wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments expressed by Catherine Clark of Coventry. Knowing somebody singing with Portsmouth Cathedral Choir, we listened to the broadcast from Caen (9th June) and didn’t recognize it as Evensong. I don’t know who decides we need change. When all the world around is in a state of flux, it is reassuring to have just one thing standing firm. As a volunteer helping with cathedral visitors, I am are that all faiths and none are reassured by its long history of worship. It is wonderful to think of services going back to monastic times.

Sarah Samuelson, Billericay.

Oh, how right Catherine Clark is. Evensong is Evensong, we don’t want frills, we want the divine service as we get in a cathedral everyday of the week, on Radio 3. It is there to reflect that unique service not to make it a concert or a special service.

John Paulson, Matlock.

I disagree fundamentally with the opinion expressed by Catherine Clark

of Coventry (Issue 1/04). In a Choral Evensong we offer to Almighty God the very best in liturgy and music and by enlisting the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the Cathedral Occasional Singers to join the Liverpool Cathedral Choir and the mightiest of cathedral organs, Ian Tracey displayed his well-known devotion to this concept.

This particular broadcast on Radio 3 inspired me to write an article for the parish magazine of my church.

Joe Cassells. By email.

I read Mr Thomas Hartley’s letter in the May issue with a mixture of relief and liberation: how good it was to discover that there are other Friends of Cathedral Music who do not have a musical background. I empathise very much with his concluding comment that ‘cathedral music’ has opened a door for many of us to a world which previously we had only gazed into from the cloisters. Greatly emboldened, can I go further and confess that at least one

of your readers is not only a non-singer, but also a non-Anglican – in fact an Ulster Presbyterian elder of the dourest Calvinistic hue! In my native Northern Ireland in the 1950s there was very little love lost between the nonconformist churches and the Church of Ireland. I well remember an old Minister snorting “Aping Anglicanism!” when he encountered a robed choir in a provincial Presbyterian church. The scales fell off my eyes in August 1966, when I was an impecunious student, billeted for the summer vacation at Smedley’s canning factory in Wisbech. On Bank Holiday Monday when the factory was shut, I took the train to Ely and wandered into the cathedral just as Evensong was beginning. I stayed, I marvelled, and nothing was ever the same again. A short time later I read – for the first of many times – Trollope’s Barchester Towers, enthralled immediately by the rarified world of precentors and prebendaries, archdeacons and deans. Retrospectively it began to dawn on me that throughout my schooldays the prayers our headmaster read at assembly were in fact the second and third collects from the B.C.P. Morning Prayer. From the 1970s onwards, my holidays increasingly began to take in a cathe-

dral service where possible, while workaday Wednesday afternoons found me tuned into Radio 3 at 4p.m. Also on the radio there was the annual treat of Dr George Guest’s Advent Service from St John’s College Cambridge, as well as Christmas Eve from King’s. Finally, three years ago, I stumbled by a happy accident on the F.C.M. website – and I’ve been enjoying cathedral music ever since!

I will never be anything other than a convinced Presbyterian, but a completely different liturgical tradition has become a valued part of my Christian experience. In my adoptive town of Coleraine, the Parish Church of St Patrick had for many years a fine choir with an eclectic repertoire. Coleraine is relatively close to my native Belfast, and to St Anne’s Cathedral with its talented choir directed by Philip Stopford. Of late I have begun to make the journey to St Anne’s for choral eucharist each Ascension Day, never failing to be moved by the beauty of the music and the Book of Common Prayer. On my travels around Ireland I am often uplifted by Evensong in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin – usually sitting in a pew with a marvellous brass plate inscribed ‘The Corporation of ➤

Dublin’ – or up the hill in Christ Church, so intimate yet so spacious, with a marvellous acoustic that encourages even a small congregation to join in the hymns. Some years ago I discovered the stunning beauty of Lismore Cathedral, in the heart of a village that might have been dropped direct from the Cotswolds to the heart of County Waterford, where the small congregation was led through an impeccable sung eucharist by a talented organist.

I will always regret not having learned to sing, to read music or to play an instrument – probably too old now to begin – but intelligent listening is at least a second best. Most readers will have experienced that frisson which come when first they ‘connect’ with something totally new in worship. Basil Harwood’s Oh, how glorious moved me nearly to tears when I first heard it, and

this Easter I was thrilled by Vaughan Williams’ Rise, heart. S.S.Wesley’s better known anthems became similar favourites, and Epiphany was never the same again after I first heard Crotch’s Lo, star led chiefs. Then there is the experience of quarrying into something really demanding – maybe off putting at first, but gradually growing on you as you hear, then search out a CD recording and work at listening to it. This was my experience with Walton’s The Twelve, and Philip Moore’s All wisdom cometh from the Lord, while I have become fascinated over time with anything by Herbert Howells – as recently as Radio 3 Choral Evensong from Wells, the week before I composed this letter. And there are those tantalising CD reviews in CATHEDRAL MUSIC, with their temptation – often succumbed to – to give something new a try.

And who would be the favourite of this dour Calvinist? Oh, many – but perhaps Stanford most of all. I’m sure there were other FCM members in the packed congregation at Winchester on last Easter Sunday for Stanford’s evening service in A – a service which at

the Dean’s gentle instigation ended with generous congregational applause for a glorious musical celebration of the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Stephen Green, Isle of Wight.

I was surprised, when I attend the splendid FCM weekend at Salisbury to see some of our members applauding the organist at the conclusion of his voluntary. Is not this normally inappropriate at the end of an act of worship? There is a case for occasional applause (as on the retirement of Sir George ThalbenBall) but surely not in the ordinary course of events. At St Paul’s Cathedral they do things properly. At the Festival of the Friends of St Paul’s the proceedings at Evensong are received in total silence. At the subsequent concert given by the choirboys (which is usually attended by royalty) the various items are greeted with loud applause.

A HISTORY OF MUSIC AT CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN

Barra Boydell

236 pages 23x15cm

ISBN:1843830442

Hardback £45 ($75.00) Boydell Press

This book describes in detail the complex and varied history of Christ Church, the Anglican diocesan cathedral church of Dublin. Barra Boydell is a leading authority on Irish musical history, which manifests itself in an authoritative account. One niggle to get out of the way first relates to the illustrations, there are examples of music sung and other manuscripts and there are a few plates showing the cathedral as a subject for an artist. There are not, though, any up-to-date photographs of the present day choir, the interior of the building or the organ. This is a book where the appendices are sufficiently up-to-date to include Judy Martin’s name. Judy is thought to be the first woman No 1 organist and choirmaster in either an English or Irish Anglican cathedral. The pages tell an interesting tale with a number of well researched snapshots of musical and church history. For most of the 20th century the standards at Christ Church had declined, finally picking up in the last decade under Mark Duley’s stewardship. There is also comment on 18th and 19th century repertoire which will interest those who like to compare different generations. At one point Boydell writes that ‘one critic of the choir had described the choirboys in 1885 as ‘not generally good’ and in 1890 that they had ‘squalling bad voices’ and ‘the slow tempi spoil the whole service.’ The same critic, Robert Prescott Stewart was not afraid to comment on Telford’s organ which he described as a ‘saw-sharpener’ which would ‘stagger at every full chord for lack of wind’ and which he detested ‘daily more and more’. Alas anyone commenting today would be castigated such is the sensitivity of the politically correct wing of society.

The chapter detailing the pre- and post-disestablishment of the Church of Ireland (1871) and the 20th century provides insight and the declining resources section will have resonance today with some choir directors. One of two Anglican cathedrals in the capital of a predominantly Catholic country and the church of the British administration in Ireland before 1922, Christ Church is an Irish cathedral within the Anglican tradition, yet through much of its history it was essentially an English cathedral in a foreign land. With close musical links to cathedrals in England, to St Patrick’s Cathedral, the Anglican National Cathedral in Dublin, and to the city’s wider political and cultural life, Christ Church has the longest documented music history of any Irish institution, providing a unique perspective on the history of music in Ireland. Barra Boydell, has written a detailed study drawing on the most extensive musical and archival sources existing for any Irish cathedral. The choir, its composers and musicians, repertoire and organs are discussed within the wider context of city and state, and of the religious and political dynamics which have shaped Anglo-Irish relationships since medieval times. More than just a history of music at one cathedral, this book makes an important contribution to English cathedral music studies as well as to Irish musical and cultural history.

Ian Morgan

PERCY WHITLOCK

Four transcriptions for Organ arranged by Malcolm Riley

Fanfare (1940); To Phoebe; Elegy; March Dignity and Impudence. Banks Music Publications £7.50

This just goes to show that Whitlock didn’t only write stunning and extremely attractive organ music, but that he left music for brass with percussion and organ, organ and strings, and full orchestra. The exquisite Elegy is the second movement from Whitlock’s largest orchestral work, Symphony in G minor for Orchestra and Organ – a recording from Amphion (PHICD155) is available. The Whitlock scholar, Malcolm Riley, has transcribed it together with a fine fanfare, an equally effervescent march and a romantic andante, to create a must for all you Whitlock fans out there.

Stephen Power

Book & Music Reviews

ROBERT COCKROFT

Fantasia ‘In Nomine’ Banks Music Publications £2.25

A Good King Chills Out For Spring Banks Music Publications £2.25

Robert Cockroft, has found a style of composition for the organ which is very approachable. In Nomine is dedicated to fellow Huddersfield Organist Association member, Douglas Bell, who on his 70th birthday was treated to a concert of pieces written especially for the occasion, at Huddersfield Town Hall. Cockroft weaves an aptly named homage to Herbert Howells (Bell’s teacher) around the notes from the dedicatee’s name (DGABE). In typical Howells manner, the loud section occurs in the middle, with a softer introduction and ending. Hidden within A Good King Chills Out For Spring is a well-known carol tune connected with Wenceslas. Dedicated to Gordon Stewart, organist at Huddersfield Town Hall, Cockroft clearly has the organist/entertainer in mind. Written for flutes, this would make a welcome appearance in a Christmastide concert, provided you have a secure technique. The piece is marked jaunty, rhythmic, quick and is in 6/8 time with the odd bar of 7/8 thrown in to put the foot-tapping audience off beat. Good fun.

Stephen Power

ARRANGED BY DAVID BRIGGS

Grieg Prelude In the King’s Hall Allegro Music £7.95

Briggs Improvisation on a theme by Holst Allegro Music £4.95

Mahler Adagietto Symphony No 5 Allegro Music £3.95

Bach Siciliano Second Flute Sonata Allegro Music £2.95

Here we have a varied selection of pieces, from the pen of a master improviser and someone who is also emerging as a master arranger and composer. The transcription of Siciliano by Bach works well on an organ even of limited resources, and it is not at all difficult. The clarity of print (Sibelius 7) is excellent in all these products, as is Briggs’ attention to registration markings, which helps bring the music alive. Beware though! The Mahler is set out on four staves, and might take some deciphering before you can play it. You can hear how this and the improvisation should be played on Priory disc PRCD 649 and if you are lucky enough to have it, the limited edition double CD of the reopening concert of the Gloucester Cathedral organ, where Briggs improvised on themes from The Planets Suite on 22nd January 2000.

Stephen Power

‘Barra Boydell is a leading authority on Irish musical history, which manifests itself in an authoritative account.’

CD Reviews CHORAL

MARCEL DUPRÉ

Dupré La France au Calvaire; Langlais Festival Alleluia; Alain O Salutaris; Messiaen O sacrum convivium

Vasari Singers. Director: Jeremy Backhouse.

Organ: Jeremy Filsell. GUILD GMCD 7239 TT 78:25

Of all the CDs in my current batch for review, this has given me the most consistent pleasure. The major work on the disc – the large-scale Dupré oratorio – was written in response to the ravages inflicted on the French people in two world wars; it was completed in 1956. It is a remarkable choice for a British choir to tackle – and this is apparently (with the exception of one movement) the first recording. Those of you who read French will know perhaps how deep a part of the French psyche are – still –the events of sixty years ago. And indeed, how could it be otherwise? This stark, troubling work imagines an allegorical figure of La France kneeling beneath the cross at Calvary; she begs the dying Christ to forgive her countrymen their sins. In support of her plea she recalls a procession of French saints through the ages. The singing – by choir and soloists – is very fine indeed and the musicians make an impassioned, entirely convincing case for this maverick work. It is an authentic, committed performance: the French accents are irreproachable; the organ registrations (the recording was made in Douai Abbey) idiomatic. The recording is clear; it gives a sense of place and draws the listener into this unusual music with its plainsong echoes, its sometimes slightly blues-y harmonies, its redolence of incense, its mysticism. If you too love the sacred music emanating from 20th century French organ lofts, you will enjoy this CD and I commend it to you most strongly.

Andrew Davis

EVENSONG FOR ST SWITHUN’S DAY

Surplice I was glad; Bairstow Blessed city; Elgar Te Deum; Moore Preces Responses; Langlais Fête; Dupré Te lucis anteterminum

The choirs of Winchester Cathedral.

Director: Andrew Lumsden. Organ: Sarah Baldock.

HERALD HAVPCD 297 TT 59:20

Released just in time for St Swithun’s Day (and thus as a beguilement for the rainy season) this disc offers a splendid opportunity to compare the boys and girls top lines of Winchester; or it would if it told you which was which! Old FCM hands will say they can tell them apart, but would they be unanimous?

Dyson in D is coupled with Bairstow’s Blessed City, and as Festal Te Deum Elgar in F, which in particular has some wonderfully fresh and hauntingly beautiful singing. Psalm 84 is sung to the inevitable (and to me dreary) chant by Bairstow. There’s not a note wrong and the entire programme is a delight and inspiration. Not to be missed. (Incidentally, a CM scoop: the girls sing the Elgar).

Richard Osmond

ELGAR

Sacred Choral Music

Give unto the Lord; Ave verum; Ave Maria; Ave Maris stella; O Hearken Thou; Te Deum; Benedictus; O salutaris hostia; Great is the Lord; the Spirit of the Lord; Go Song of Mine; Seek Him that maketh the seven stars; Light of the world.

Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge.

Director: Christopher Robinson. Organ: Jonathan Vaughn.

NAXOS 8.557288 TT 74:20

A touching valete to Christopher Robinson, this mirrors some of his earlier (1969) Worcester recordings. There is striking consistency of interpretation and an integrity of style over the years. The Te Deum is different from the

Winchester girls Herald CD (slightly more self-conscious enunciation and altos occasionally just a little too forward), but I would not want to be without either, though from this disc I shall treasure in particular the less well-known pieces (Go, Song of Mine, for example and Light of the World). The recording quality is well up to what we have come to expect from Naxos, though I understand St John’s are about to embark on their own label. It is good that Christopher Robinson’s Presidency of FCM begins as this highly recommended disc appears.

Richard Osmond

HANDEL

Ode For St Cecilia’s Day

Asfelder Vokalensemble.

Concerto Polacco. Director: Wolfang Helbich.

NAXOS 8.554752 TT 48:44

Handel opened his 1739 concert season at a difficult time politically owing to the outbreak of war with Spain. The weather was also against him. The Thames froze over and it was essential to assure patrons that the Theatre Royal in Lincoln’s Inn Fields would be well heated. Early in his career Handel must have learned that the music was the least of his problems and that it is the incidentals that cause the real anxieties. The performance starts with a lively account of the French Ouverture and never looks back. The choral singing is precise and there is some fine instrumental solo work. Mark Wilde delivers his recitatives and arias with style and panache but the star of the show is the German soprano Dorothee Mields, who sings with beautifully clear tone and an enviable ability to sustain the musical line. Some commentators regard the 1739 Ode as a lightweight work while agreeing that Handel’s imaginative word-painting provides obbligato opportunities for trumpet, drum, flute and lute, violin, ‘cello and organ. Handel was not attempting to please the academics, however, but trying to produce entertainment for his sophisticated (and fickle) London audience and in this he was more than successful. Well worth buying and unbeatable at the price.

Alan Spedding

HUMMEL

Missa Solemnis; Te Deum Tower Voices New Zealand. New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Director: Uwe Grodd. NAXOS 8.557193 TT 56:59

The choral music of Hummel seems to be undergoing a revival at present and on the strength of this CD it is easy to see why. The Te Deum is immediately attractive, with its Haydnesque choral writing and lively orchestration. (Hummel was, after all, Haydn’s pupil and his successor as Kapellmeister to the Esterhazy court.) The Missa Solemnis is likewise in the Haydn mould, but not slavishly so and there is assured control of key relationships, orchestral effects and colours in the service of the text, notably in the Credo at Et incarnatus est and Crucifixus. The Mass was written for the wedding of Princess Leopoldina Esterhazy in 1806 and the emphasis is on the joyfulness of the occasion. Comparisons may be made between this Mass and Beethoven’s Mass, also in C, written for the Esterhazy Prince a year later. Hummel understands vocal tessituras better than Beethoven and his choral writing sounds much more grateful to sing. Tower Voices New Zealand sing with commendable clarity and energy. The excellent solo quartet sings the Benedictus (in the score they appear only in the Sanctus), even though the orchestra is somewhat weighted against them. This is a sensible decision and not such a problem in the recording studio as it might be at a public performance. Another highly recommended NAXOS production.

Alan Spedding.

WALTON: BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST

Walton: Belshazzar’s Feast; Crown Imperial; Orb & Sceptre Huddersfield Choral Society. Leeds Philharmonic Chorus. Laudibus. English Northern Philharmonia.

Director: Paul Daniel. Baritone: Christopher Purves.

Organ: Simon Lindley. NAXOS 8.555869 TT 48:17

It’s interesting that this work is performed in Leeds Town Hall, the very place it was written for, and where it received its premiere in 1931. Interesting too that the Huddersfield Choral Society was involved in the first recording of the work. The singing is very good, both disciplined and lively, although the orchestra is rather too prominent although, that said the orchestra shines. The choir scores in the quieter passages, where we hear some well-balanced singing. Laudibus is an excellent youth chamber choir which is used to great effect in the brief semi chorus. Naxos has chosen well with conductor Paul Daniel, baritone Christopher Purves, whose diction is good and of course, Simon Lindley at the organ. A good Naxos buy.

Andrew Palmer

BACH: ST MATTHEW PASSION

3 CD set. Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York.

Director: Willem Mengelberg. NAXOS 8.110880-82 TT 3:27:26

This is a fascinating insight into performance practices of a previous generation. Mengelberg’s fortieth and final annual Amsterdam performance of the St Matthew Passion was recorded in 1939, just before the outbreak of Hitler’s war – an especially difficult and poignant time for performers and audience alike. Mengelberg was famous for ignoring the composer when he saw fit. Indeed, he wrote, ‘The conductor...often knows much better than the composer.’ To modern ears his St Matthew is overburdened with treacly religiosity, underscored by ponderous tempi and extremely wayward rhythms, with massive ritardandi. Mengelberg seems to engage in a power struggle with the score and the performers, in his determination to control every aspect of the performance. (He once spent twenty-five minutes of rehearsal time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra making them tune up – just to show who was boss.) This was the way things were in his day, of course, and whereas his singers needed iron lungs to make sense of his turgid phrasing, some modern singers are hard put to it to keep up with the breakneck tempi forced on them by present-day conductors. Interestingly, Mengelberg uses a harpsichord continuo (even though the example on the CD sounds more like a cimbalom), at a time when a piano was standard in English performances. Beecham’s view of the harpsichord is well known and oft-quoted, and Vaughan Williams routinely used a piano at his Leith Hill performances. Even in my student days, I once accompanied the great Evangelist, Wilfred Brown, on a Steinway grand. The recording is of great historical interest as a relic of an era that was about to end and credit must go to NAXOS for making it available.

Alan Spedding

SACRED CHORAL MUSIC CHARPENTIER

Salve regina, à trios chœurs; Beatus vir; Le Reniement de Saint Pierre; Stabat Mater; Te Deum; Transfige dulcissime Jesu Harmony of Voices, Sweden. Director: Fredrik Malmberg. PROPRIUS PRCD 2031 TT 57:08

Charpentier’s (1643 - 1704) tercentenary has set off a long overdue reassessment of his oeuvre and here it is the turn of this fine Swedish choir to make its contribution. The choir, a newly formed ensemble of 14 singers, is the choice of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation as their Artist in Residence for 2004 - 5. All the singers have solo careers. Thus the solo singing is most accomplished while the full ensemble sound is rich – even overwhelmingly so at times. They bring out the unique qualities of Charpentier’s expression, whether dramatic, as in Le Reniement de Saint Pierre, or reflective, as in the Stabat Mater, amply justifying the claim of one contemporary that the composer was ‘one of the most excellent musicians France has ever known’.

Alan Spedding

THE TALLIS SCHOLARS SING TALLIS

A selection from The Tallis Scholars’ output recorded in Merton College, Oxford and Salle Church, Norfolk in the 1980 and 1990s, including Spem in alium, Lamentations, Salvator mundi Director: Peter Phillips. Double CD. GIMELL CDGIM 203 TT 2hrs 39 mins

Here we have the very best of Peter Phillips’s group recorded in the early 1980s originally issued on LP. Gimell has produced a handsome presentation 2 CD. These are highly recommended. It is music from a golden age brought to life in a fresh approach. The 35 page accompanying booklet details the texts.

Patrick Mayhew

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI: BALLI AND DRAMATIC MADRIGALS (1638)

Madrigals from Book Eight:Altri canti d’Amor; Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda; Volgendo il ciel; Il ballo delle ingrate Red Byrd. The Parley of Instruments. Director: Peter Holman. HELIOS CDH55165 TT69:26

Monteverdi’s development as a composer is traceable through the sequence of his published books of madrigals. The eighth and last book is remarkable for its preface and is divided into two volumes, Love and War, both represented here in sparkling performances. It has been said that this music, ‘as a presentation of human passions and an example of the humanisation of music, sums up Monteverdi’s art’.

Alan Spedding

THE SUBLIME TREBLE VOICE OF JAMES RAINBIRD

Piano: Michael Stuckey. PRIORY PRCD 5505 TT 52:04

James Rainbird is perhaps best remembered for his recording of the attractive Welsh Lullaby Suo Gan which was used in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun. Priory claim it is the finest voice they have ever recorded. It is certainly very attractive. He sings with ease, sensitivity and emotion, adding a slight vibrato, which should not annoy those who object to that sort of thing. The recordings were made in 1987 when Michael was 12. The piano accompaniment is excellent and not intrusive. Although his voice is a little too pharyngeal for my taste, it will appeal to many.

Stephen Beet

ENCORE RICHARD BONSALL – BOY SOPRANO

Piano: Alan Pew. Only available from TADPOLE MUSIC, 12 High Road, Hough-on-the-Hill, Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG32 2A2 £10 plus £1 p&p. e-mail: nick@tadpolemusic.com

Richard Bonsall is correctly described as a ‘boy soprano’ and I can honestly say that this is the finest voice I have ever reviewed for CATHEDRAL MUSIC! I would go so far as to describe Bonsall as the best boy soprano since Billy Neely, who recorded in 1950. Whilst maintaining that distinctive boyish quality, it is a true soprano voice, beautifully and effortlessly soaring to the heights and richly descending to the depths in a pure head tone, reminiscent of a bygone age. He sings with emotion, not too much vibrato and his diction is excellent. Tadpole Music is to be congratulated in reproducing the best of Bonsall’s tracks, recorded when he was 13 and 14 years old in the early 1970s. Cathedral choirmasters please take note! This CD deserves to be in every music lover’s home. The repertoire is delightful so sit back and enjoy a really good concert!

Stephen Beet

THE COMPLETE MORNING & EVENING CANTICLES OF HERBERT HOWELLS VOL

4

Settings for St George’s Chapel, Windsor; Canterbury Cathedral; St Mary Redcliffe; West Riding Cathedrals Festival; Washington Cathedral and Unison Voices and Organ in E flat

The Collegiate Singers. Director: Andrew Millinger. Organ: Richard Moorhouse. PRIORY PRCD 783 TT 79:48

The Collegiate Singers, although an amateur choir, sing with professionalism. The music of Howells is taxing for the best choirs, and large doses can get a bit on the tiring side. The Morning Canticles on this disc combine text and music on a high emotional scale as well as demanding technical security. Howells’s organ writing often gives no assistance to the singers, but adds to the pallete of colour instead. With the exception of a few passages of flat singing, the resulting disk would be the envy of most professional choirs. The quality of the singing and of the organ accompaniment from Richard Moorhouse cannot be disputed. I would argue, however, that the quality of the music is not always up to the standard that we would wish to remember Howells by. Paul Andrews, in his notes suggests that the dearth of Choral Matins is the reason for the relative obscurity of the music on this disc, but he forgets that some cathedral choirs sing a morning canticle in place of a psalm at the Eucharist, so why aren’t these particular specimens sung? The answer is probably not in the quality, but the complexity of the music, and the ability on limited rehearsal time to bring off a performance to the greater glory of God. Even more reason to praise Andrew Millinger’s Collegiate Singers. If you are a collector of Howells’s music, you will, by now, have this disc in your collection, along with the other three volumes in the series. With the exception of the unison settings, each Te Deum and Benedictus has a fascinating story to it. The repertoire is essential to the series, and is an invaluable resource. None of the settings presented here knocks the Collegium Regale off the top spot (available on another volume no doubt) but the West Riding Te Deum and the unison settings come across on this recording as particularly finely crafted pieces.

Stephen Power

GESUALDO

Gesualdo Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday

The King’s Singers. SIGNUM SIGCD048

As the membership of the King’s Singers has metamorphosed over the years, one is reminded of the man who had a broom which had had seven new heads and five new handles but was still as good as new. Their name has long been a byword for excellence and their reputation is further enhanced by this wonderful CD. Gesualdo was a child of his times and a victim of his personal circumstances. The Counter-Reformation inspired Catholic artists and musicians to come to the aid of their embattled church. Add to this Gesualdo’s neurotic personality and guilt for the murder of his first wife, not to mention his own adulterous behaviour during both marriages, and the ground is prepared for some of the most distinctive and intense music of any period. In the Tenebrae Responsories Gesualdo gives his tortured genius full rein and the King’s Singers do him full justice in terms of balance, clarity of tone and diction, and sheer interpretative intelligence. A must!

Alan Spedding

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Bach: Cantatas: BWV10, 93, 107, 178

Yukari Nonoshita (Soprano); Matthew White (Counter-tenor); Makoto Sakurada (Tenor);

Peter Kooij (Bass); Bach Collegium Japan; Masaaki

Suzuki (Director) BIS CD1331 TT75:43

After listening to the stultifying Bach of Mengelberg (reviewed elsewhere), these performances of four cantatas from Bach’s second year at Leipzig (1724) came as a welcome breath of fresh air. Each one is beautifully judged and paced and delivered by an excellent team of soloists, a freshtoned chorus and with crisp playing from the instrumentalists. All four are socalled chorale-cantatas, being based on specific seasonal Lutheran hymns. Two

movements will be familiar to organists since Bach reset them as chorale preludes in his Schuebler publication. Since its formation in 1990, the Bach Collegium Japan has gained an international reputation, which, on the evidence of this CD, is richly deserved.

Alan Spedding

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL ARCHIVE RECORDINGS VOl 3

From Douglas Guest’s time (1950 -57) and Christopher Dearnley’s time (1957-68) TT 76:02

I am sure that friends of cathedral music everywhere would wish Salisbury Cathedral Choral Foundation the best success in this venture of reproducing these historic recordings on CD, proceeds from sales of which will be shared between themselves and the Salisbury Hospice Care Trust. The recordings in the main come from BBC broadcasts and Decca recordings, though from an age when only private recordings were made of live radio broadcasts. Not only does the disc contain much of the staple repertoire of the 1950s and 60s, conducted by Douglas Guest and Christopher Dearnley, but, there is also a good selection of photographs relating to the choir of the period. Extensive notes accompany, thus a good read can accompany a very good listen.

Stephen Power

THE BRECON TRADITION

Bach Cantata 140; F J Haydn Missa Brevis de Sancti Joannis de Deo; Wesley Thou wilt keep him Brecon Cathedral Choir with orchestra and soloists, Director David Gedge

HERALD HAVPCD 294 TT 66:27

This CD is a splendid testimony to the work and dedication of the husband and wife team David and Hazel Gedge to the music of Brecon Cathedral over nearly forty years. The vocalists and orchestral players, all home-grown, give creditable performances of the Bach Cantata and the Haydn Mass. The joy of this disc is that all the music comes from the choir’s regular liturgical repertoire. Long may the Brecon Choir continue to fly the flag for cathedral music in this beautiful part of Wales.

Alan Spedding

MONTEVERDI THE SACRED MUSIC

Dixit Dominus Primo; Confitebor Primo; Beatus vir; Laudate pueri Primo; Laudate Dominum omnes gentes; Christe redemptor omnium; Magnificat Primo; Messa à 4; Choir of the King’s Consort. The King’s Consort. Director Robert King.

HYPERION CDA67428 TT 75:45

MONTEVERDI THE SACRED MUSIC 2

Exultent caeli; Veinte, siccientes; Currite populi; Ego dormio; Messa à 4; Cantate Domino; O beatae viae; Laudate Dominum; Letaniae della Beata vergine. Choir of the King’s Consort. The King’s Consort. Director Robert King. HYPERION SACDA67438 TT 67:24.

Having completed their landmark recordings of Vivaldi’s sacred music, Robert King and The King’s Consort have now turned their musical spotlight on Monteverdi. Vivaldi was comfortable in composing within the established style of the high baroque, whereas Monteverdi, a century earlier, was at the musical crossroads between renaissance and baroque. He was fluent in the stile antico as is evident in the 1650 Mass, the most substantial work on this CD, while pioneering the new basso-continuo based style of some of the other items. John Whenham’s scholarly sleeve-note puts each item in perspective. Monteverdi’s church music charts not only the changes in musical practice but also the composer’s spiritual life, through many vicissitudes. He remained in the service of the church for his last thirty years and was in holy orders for the last ten. Robert

King is served by an outstanding group of soloists and the performances and recording are well up to the high standard we have come to expect from The King’s Consort and Hyperion.

Alan Spedding

CANTATE DOMINO Music for Three Evensongs

Batten O Sing joyfully; Gibbons Short Service; R Nicolson Cantate Domino; Farrant Lord for thy tender mercy’s sake; Caustun Evening Service for Four Voices; Parsons Ave Maria; Tallis Short Service;Loquebantur variis linguis

The Chapel Choir of University College, Durham. Director: Christopher Totney. Organ: David Jackson. LAMMAS LAMM 162D

The Chapel Choir of University College comprising eighteen student singers are directed and accompanied by the college’s two organ scholars. In essence, this disc contains the choral components from three Evensongs; introit, (no preces & responses), psalms, canticles, anthem, and hymn. The choir is recorded in both of the chapels within Durham Castle, although the choir seems far more at home in their more familiar acoustic surroundings of the Tunstall Chapel than in the tight confines of the Norman Chapel, where the tuning suffers. The first track, disappointingly shows this up. It is also noticeable that the unaccompanied pieces are recorded at a slightly different pitch to those recorded with organ. For those with pitch sensitive hearing, it may prove to be a recurring hindrance to the overall enjoyment of this disc. The singing, on the whole, is controlled and expressive, and the modest chapel organ is handled well by David Jackson. The motets and canticles were composed during the 16th and 17th centuries, which contrast well with a varied range of styles from the 18th to 21st centuries, including an extremely effective chant by director Christopher Totney in Psalm 128. There are some performances here worthy of a recording, but the whole concept may become tiresome if listening to the disc from beginning to end.

Stephen Power

PETER MAXWELL DAVIES

Mass; Missa parvula; Veni Creator Spiritus; Dum Complerentur; Reliqui domum meum; Veni Sancte spiritus

The Choir of Westminster Cathedral. Director: Martin Baker. Organists: Robert Quinney and Robert Houssart. HYPERION CDA67454 TT 66:31

Maxwell Davies seems to have discarded his antiestablishment stance, not only by writing Masses but in accepting the post of Master of the Queen’s Music. The Choir of Westminster Cathedral, directed by Martin Baker, gives sumptuous performances of two motets and of two masses, written specially for them – the latest in a long list of commissioned works by important composers. The boys sound fresh and confident in Missa parvula (2003). Any mass setting for trebles and organ, especially at Westminster, must invite comparison with Britten, but Davies demonstrates that he has something to contribute on his own terms, not only in this but in the full setting of 2002. The fact that most of the works here are commemorative in origin, including the organ pieces Veni Creator Spiritus and Reliqui domum meum, accounts for the intensity of musical expression, so well caught by the performers. Another highly recommended Hyperion/ Westminster Cathedral collaboration.

Alan Spedding

ASCENSION

MacMillan Tremunt videntes angeli; Leighton Preces and Responses; Allain The Exon Service; Gowers Viri Galilaei; Messiaen L’Ascension.*

The Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh. Director (*organist): Matthew Owens. Organ: Simon Nieminski. Soprano: Susan Hamilton. DELPHIAN DCD 34017 TT 76:22

This disc is forward looking in its inclusion of the first recording of two challenging works. The overall impression is stunning, although the Exon Service might not be to everyone’s liking. Organ flourishes, and a flittering high ➤

choral accompaniment to the soprano solo are a feature of the Magnificat A slightly harsh edge and flat singing mar the beauty of the music presented here, though the attack and word endings are very clear. Matthew Owens presents a good account of Messiaen’s L’Ascension

Stephen Power

CANTOS SAGRADOS

Choral Music by James MacMillan

Divo Aloysio Sacrum; The Gallant weaver; A Child’s Prayer; Seinte Mari Moder Milde; Termunt videntes angeli; Cantos Sagrados; Christus Vincit; So Deep. Elysian Singers. Director: Sam Laughton SIGNUM RECORDS SIGCD507 TT 62:50

Cantos Sagrados, the eponymous work on this CD, is a setting of poems by Ariel Dorfman and Ana Maria Mendoza each concerned with political oppression in Latin America and each incorporating a liturgical Latin text offering release and comfort of a kind. The performances are electrifying and it is impossible not to be shaken and profoundly moved by the power of the music. Some of the items are familiar from other recordings (A Child’s Prayer, Seinte Mari Moder Milde and Christus Vincit) but we are left in no doubt of the composer’s passionate feelings for suffering humanity arising from his deeply held religious convictions.

Alan Spedding

A GAELIC BLESSING

Goodenough I will sing with the spirit; Brahms Geistliches Lied;Wie Lieblich sind Deine Wohnungen; Henschel Tantum ergo; Wesley Thou wilt keep him; Bainton And I saw a new heaven; Holst Nunc dimitis; Mozart Ave verum; Franck Panis angelicus; Rutter A Gaelic Blessing; Jackson Father eternal; Tavener Song for Athène; Burgon Nunc Dimittis; Mawby Ave verum; Finzi

My lovely one; Owens Holy Trinity Blessing; Pärt De Profundis Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh.

Director: Matthew Owens.

Organ: Simon Nieminski. DELPHIAN DCD 34007 TT 68:26

On paper, this CD looks to be a winning combination, what with superb music and a reputable choir and a new, enthusiastic Edinburgh-based record company. Unfortunately the beauty of this eclectic programme is marred by moments of flat singing from a few prominent voices, and an imbalance of choir and organ which favours the exemplary accompanying at the expense of diction. There is also a clear join of takes at the end of Brahms exquisite Wie liebich, which on this recording seems too slow, though it is good to hear an English choir singing it in German. Some of the gems include Henschel’s Tantum Ergo and Matthew Owens’s Holy Trinity Blessing, and works by Tavener and Rutter are included for their wide appeal and popularity.

Stephen Power

BYRD TALLIS ...in chains of gold

Byrd Prelude in C; Laetentur coeli; Mass à 5; Organ hymn on ‘Clarifica me, Pater’; Gaudeamus omnes; Justorum animae; Tallis O nata lux; Salvator mundi; Organ hymn on ‘Veni redemptor I & II; O sacrum convivium Dunedin Consort.

DELPHIAN DCD 34008 TT 51:53

A feast of Byrd and Tallis awaits the listener to this disc, which in the comfort of your home will have you feeling relaxed and at peace with the world. Much of the music would have been written for use in private Roman Catholic chapels in a turbulent time in the Church’s history. In this context, composers of the 16th century produced some exquisite music. The small (one to a part) vocal ensemble sing as one, and the organ preludes from John Kitchen are exemplary. Though a little short at 52 minutes, the listener is left wanting to hear more and more from this group.

Stephen Power

RHEINBERGER MASSES

Messe in A; Messe in F; Missa Puerorum; Missa Brevis

The choirs of Blackburn Cathedral. Director: Richard Tanner. Organ: Greg Morris.

LAMMAS LAMM 156D TT 69:40

Recorded 100 years after his death, this disc presents four mass settings, half his output of such works of Joseph Rheinberger. As the booklet notes tell us, Rheinberger was a master teacher of composition during the second half of the nineteenth century which is reflected in these settings. The Renaissance Singers start the ball rolling with assured phrasing which ensures that the imitative part writing is clearly heard. The cathedral lay clerks follow suit, adding a richer timbre to the brighter organ colours. It is worth purchasing this disc just for the haunting moment at the centre of the opus 190 Credo. The cathedral girls choir produces a confident sound, if a little flat at times. The vowel sounds which young females singers make are sometimes a little ‘pop-ish’, but there is none of this here, and the consonants are superb particularly in the opus 62 Sanctus. The sublime unaccompanied Kyrie of opus 117 from the boys and men works well in the generous acoustic at Blackburn. This group sings with a uniform lyricism, clearly a characteristic of Richard Tanner’s ideal choral sound world. This is an unusual disc, but one well worth listening to.

Stephen Power

COME HOLY SPIRIT

Music for Ascension, Pentecost & Trinity

Finzi God is gone up; Victoria Ascendens Christus; Byrd Alleluia, Ascendit Deus; Lobo Regina caeli; Bach Fantasia super Komm, heiliger Geist;Komm, Gott Schöpfer Heiliger Geist; Kyrie Gott Heiliger Geist; Palestrina

Veni sancte spiritus;Spiritus sanctus; Tallis If ye love me; O Lord, give thy Holy Spirit;Loquebantur variis linguis; Lassus tibi laus; Tavener Prayer to the Holy Trinity; Harvey Come, Holy Ghost; Guerrero Duo seraphim; Leighton Let all the world

The Choir of the Queen’s College, Oxford. Director: Owen Rees. Organ: George Parsons. GUILD GMCD 7276 TT 58:07

Many recordings of church music are reduced to programmes of random popular choral pieces with an organ showpiece thrown in for good measure. The Queen’s College Oxford has excelled in a disc dedicated to the three post Easter feasts, with something for everyone. Whilst the stunning Frobenius organ may not have been conceived to suit the Anglican choral accompaniments, the music on this recording has been chosen with some degree of this in mind; the Bach organ solos on the other hand fit it like a glove. The singing is both precise and musically excecuted, with a wonderfully expressive range. The sopranos have a particularly beautiful blend. I highly recommend this disc.

Stephen Power

REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAY

McKie We wait for thy loving kindness; Batten O Sing joyfully; Millington Domine, exaudi nos; Dyson Magnificat in F; Poston Jesus Christ the apple tree; Farrant Call to remembrance; Byrd Ave verum; Arcadelt Ave Maria; Purcell Rejoice in the Lord alway; Blow Voluntary in a; Tavener The Lamb; Rachmaninov To thee, O Lord; Parry My soul; Cochereau Suite française (excerpts); Lindley Ave Maria; Bach Jesu joy; Duruflé Ubi caritas; Notre Père; Franck Panis angelicus; Britten Jubilate in C Choirs of Guildford Cathedral. Directors: Stephen Farr and Louise Reid.

HERALD HAVPCD 288. TT 67:36

Here one can dip one’s toes into the wideranging styles of music on offer from one of the most famous choirs in England. A close, intimate feel is achieved despite recording in such a lofty building. It is good to hear a number of unaccompanied motets, as well as some men only and treble only pieces. In general, the girls have a better blend than the boys, but both treble lines sing with a consistent musicality, supported by a focussed back row of men. The two tracks which, for me, stand out are those where the men sing alone, in Andrew Millington’s Domine, exaudi nos and William Byrd’s Ave Verum, both for the

quality of the music and the execution. The skill of both Stephen Farr and Louise Reid (neé Marsh, formerly of Wakefield Cathedral) as choir trainers and accompanists are amply demonstrated here, as well as some organ solos which complement the singing well. Some flat singing from the girls towards the end of the disc (in the better known pieces) and an arranger-less Panis angelicus in the notes only detract slightly from the quality of this finely crafted disc.

Stephen Power

IN TUNE WITH HEAVEN

Choral Music by Parry, Stanford and Harris

Parry Blest Pair of Sirens; My Soul, there is a County; I know my Soul hath Power; Never weather; There is an old belief; Harris Faire is the Heaven; Come, my way; Come down, O Love Divine; Bring us O Lord; Strengthen Ye the Weak Hands; Stanford O for a closer; Justorum Animae; Coelos Ascendit Hodie; Beati Quorum; Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis in G; A Song of Peace. The Girls and Men of Norwich Cathedral Choir. Director: Julian Thomas. Organ: Thomas Leech. LAMMAS LAMM 169D TT72:23

This CD is a fine collection of staple English cathedral choral music by Harris, Parry and Stanford. Like many cathedrals, Norwich has a girls’ choir and again, like many cathedrals, they get judged critically being the relatively new institution they are to the English cathedral music scene. Like many, I agree that girls’ voices have quite a different tone to boys but I have to say that there is variance between different girls choirs – the usual comment being that they sound feeble and without spirit in their singing. In this recording by Lammas, the singing is full of spirit both on the girls’ part and the gentlemen. In the accompanied pieces we are delighted by the superb playing of Tom Leech especially in Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens

Graham Hermon

CD Reviews CHRISTMAS

O SAPIENTIA

Advent from King’s College, London

Director: David Trendell. Phantasm. Director: Laurence Dreyfus. Organ. Robert Quinney.

HERALD HAVPCD 296 TT 78:15

GLORY REVEALED

Newcastle Cathedral Choir sing music from Advent to Candelmas.

Director: Scott Farrell. Organ: Michael Dutton.

REGENT REGCD188 TT 55:31

These two CDs contain some fine singing and playing. The King’s College, London CD is interspersed with plainsong antiphons which separate music by Michael East, Byrd, and Swayne’s Magnificat. Both the Swayne and George Benjamin’s Twas in the year that King Uzzaih died are superb pieces and worth hearing. An atmospheric disc. The Newcastle CD in comparison has at its centre the Missa ad praesepe by George Malcolm which creates a charming atmosphere of pastoral adoration at Bethlehem. Both contain some lovely singing and use of appropriate repertoire.

Patrick Mayhew

CHRISTMAS WITH THE TALLIS SCHOLARS

Director: Peter Phillips

GIMELL GDGIM 202 TT 157:00

Many different types of Christmas music appear here and as one would expect the singing is excel-

lent. The Tallis Scholars provide a musical feast culminating at the end of disc 1 with Clemens’s Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis and at the end of disc 2 Tallis’s Missa Puer natus est nobis. The Tallis is 24 minutes of pure delight. A perfect accompaniment to Christmas as the long, cold nights are a feature of the calendar, the warmth that is generated by the singing and repertoire contained within this 2 CD box set is to be treasured.

Patrick Mayhew

RE-RELEASES

CD Reviews

DOMENICO SCARLATTI

Stabat mater; Sonatas for organ; Salve regina Choir of Christ Church Cathedral. Director: Francis Grier.

HELIOS (HYPERION) CDH55172 TT 53:05

This CD is a welcome re-release of just some of Scarlatti’s vast output of keyboard music, Francis Grier plays five sonatas on the organ of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, giving a fine performance. The main work is the Stabat Mater, and rounding off this lovely CD is the little known Salve Regina. This disc is certainly good value.

Patrick Mayhew

THE MUSIC OF LINCOLN CATHEDRAL

PRIORY PRCD 5004 TT 64:01

THE SPLENDOUR OF THE PSALMS OF DAVID

A selection of 25 psalms taken from Priory’s 10 CD set of psalms.

PRIORY PRCD 5006 TT 78:57

THE BRITISH CATHEDRAL CHOIR HERITAGE

20 cathedral choirs sing hymns, anthems and canticles

PRIORY PRCD 5007 TT 71:32

All these discs have been reviewed before to good critical acclaim. Priory has chosen a selection of the best of the Psalms discs, as well as other music from its vast catalogue. The choices are well made and each of them would make an ideal gift for someone coming new to cathedral music.

Patrick Mayhew

AN ENGLISH CHORAL TRADITION

Finzi God is gone up; Howells Like as the hart; Magnificat (St Paul’s); Sumsion In Exile; Hunt God be gracious; Holst Nunc Dimittis; RVW Lord thou has been our refuge; Mass in G minor

Worcester Cathedral Choir. Director: Donald Hunt.

Organist: Adrian Partington. GRIFFIN GCCD 4043

This disc is a welcome re-mastering, originally recorded in April 1990 at Worcester Cathedral. The repertoire contains some of the finest music written last century and performed by a superb choir under the direction of Dr Donald Hunt. Griffin has to be complimented in bringing out a re-release containing consummate musicianship and boys whose singing is excellent. One to enjoy and savour.

Andrew Palmer

REQUIEM AETERNAM

Howells Requiem;Take him, earth, for cherishing; Martin Mass

Vasari Singers. Director: Jeremy Backhouse.

SIGNUM 2 SIGCD503 TT 56:30

I loved this CD, which was originally recorded in 1994. Two wonderful works that are performed with expression and very good tuning. The overall effect is one of satisfaction captured by the recording engineers and this more than makes up for some slightly below par moments from the quartet.

Andrew Palmer

WIDOR

Symphony No 5; Marche Pontificale; Mystique

David Hill Plays the Westminster Cathedral Organ. HELIOS (HYPERION) CDH55144 TT 46:30

One understands why Hyperion has seen fit to rerelease this wonderful recording made on 25th-26th July 1985. BBC Record Review described it as very thrilling and an irresistible sound, which I have to agree with. Quite brilliantly played by David Hill.

Patrick Mayhew

CD Reviews ORGAN

1937

Romantic works for organ

Colm Carey plays the organ at the Church of the Ascension and St Agnes, Washington, USA. Whitlock Sonata in c; Bairstow Sonata in Eb; Harris Flourish for an occasion

SIGNUM RECORDS SIGCD508 TT 66:50

The title of this disc refers to the date of composition of the two sonatas, the Harris Flourish coming ten years later in 1947. Carey’s interpretation of the Whitlock Sonata, long one of my favourite pieces, is superlative. Never before have I heard the first movement played with such drive. This momentum is never at the expense of the music, though, and all the passion and drama of Whitlock’s greatest movement is captured perfectly. The following three movements are given performances of equal stature. The Bairstow Sonata is a very different piece indeed, and it seems to be enjoying a revival of interest. Carey’s rendition has bags of personality – enough to make it at least the equal of some of the other fine recordings of the work that have appeared recently. Flourish for an Occasion seems rather inconsequential heard after the two behemoths that precede it, but it does provide a rousing conclusion to what is one of the most musical discs I have reviewed to date. If I have a reservation it is that the Tuba of this otherwise superb Létourneau instrument isn’t quite right!

Tom Bell

JOHN STANLEY

The complete Voluntaries for Organ.

Played by Margaret Phillips on the organs of St Helen, Bishopgate, City of London; St James, Bermondsey, London; St Peter & St Paul, Blandford Forum and St Mary, Rotherhithe, London.

REGENT REGCD190 (2CD set) TT 144:52

Who better than Margaret Phillips to make the complete recording of John Stanley’s Opus 5, 6 & 7? Here she plays four historic English organs: St Helen, Bishopsgate, built by Thomas Griffin between 1742 and 1743; the James Chapman Bishop organ at St James, Bermondsey, St Mary, Rotherhithe with its John Byfield organ of 1764, and St Peter and Paul, Blandford Forum, Dorset

where one finds a George Pike England organ from 1794. Margaret Phillips feel for the soul of Stanley’s eighteenth century voluntaries is caught so well and the organs she has chosen to illustrate this period of English organ music capture so aptly the character, and there is not a boring performance either. Margaret Phillips’ awareness of performance style lead us to hear some wonderfully contrasted voluntaries with thoughtful and diverse registrations. An added bonus is the booklet which details her choice of registration for each piece. A delightful disc in which Regent’s engineers have recorded these delightful organs so well. Recommended.

Andrew Palmer

FANTASIE

Peter King plays German Romantic organ works on the Klais organ of Bath Abbey, Reger Introduction & Passacaglia; Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue of Bach; Liszt Évocation à la Chapelle Sixtine; Brahms Chorale Prelude & Fugue on ‘O Trauerigkeit o Herzeleid’;Chorale Prelude on ‘O Welt, ich muß dich lassen; Karg-Elert La Nuit REGENT REGCD198 TT 72:55

Peter King puts the splendid Klais organ through its paces in a balanced programme. The organ is ideally suited to the music and there is variety in colour and texture in these lively performances. Peter King has every right to be proud of his achievements at Bath Abbey, especially in the provision of this organ, and this CD is a further testimony to his abilities as a recitalist.

Alan Spedding

ICONS: SOUNDS OF ARTHUR WILLS

Robert Crowley plays the organ of Ely Cathedral Icons; Lullaby for a Royal Prince; Trio Sonata; Symphony Bhagavad Gita; Homage to Howells Diptyque LAMMAS LAMM 168D TT 64:25

Known to many as a performer of great distinction, it may well come as a surprise to some that Arthur Wills is also a composer. Here, Robert Crowley and Lammas Records presents his music as they did that of Humphrey Clucas (LAMM151D). The music is extreme in its variety of moods and dynamics, and all the colours in the Ely organ’s spectrum are put to good use. It is particularly apt that the disc opens with Icons which is dedicated to the performer, and takes its inspiration from the Icons found in the Royal Monastery in Cyprus. Homage to Howells, Postlude on Michael, also dedicated to Robert Crowley, uses a similar harmonic language to that used by Howells.

Stephen Power

BUXTEHUDE Complete Works for Organ Vol 2

Bine Bryndork plays the organ of St Mary’s Church in Elsinore DACAPO RECORDS 8.226008 TT 51:04 www.dacapo-records.dk

Whilst at university, I was pleasantly surprised when I first got to know the music of the man whom Bach travelled 300 miles to hear. Imagine my delight, when I was handed a CD of Buxtehude recorded on an instrument which he played! The programme is a varied mix of the larger scale Praeludiums and Choral preludes, for which Buxtehude was famous. The former illustrates the Stylus Phantasticus which is full of rhetorical gestures and fugal interludes. Bine Bryndorf makes good use of the instrument, including the Zimbelstern stop. All her registrations are noted in the booklet, as is a four page biography of the composer. A deftness of touch pervades the music, and also suits the instrument down to the ground. This is a very fine recording.

Stephen Power

EUGÈNE GIGOUT

The complete Organ works – III

Gerard Brooks plays the organ of St Etienne, Caen. Dix Pièces; Poèmes Mystiques; Pièce Jubilate PRIORY PRCD 763 TT 75:28

Here we have a flawless performance of Dix Pièces, Poèmes Mystiques and Pièce Jubilaire by Gigout. Several listenings to some of the more extended works here will pay dividends to the overall enjoyment of this fine music. A stunning Cavaillé-Coll instrument of 1882 and detailed programme notes by the performer renders the enjoyment of this highly original project complete.

Stephen Power

ORGAN MUSIC FOR PASSIONTIDE

Andrew Arthur plays the organ at All Saints, Margaret Street, London.

Bach ‘Valet will ich dir geben; O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß; Partite diverse sopra: ‘Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig’; Mendelssohn Sonata No 6 in D minor; Brahms

‘Herzlich tut mich verlangen’; Dupré ‘Jésus console les filles d’Israël qui le suivent’; Tournemire Choral-Improvisation on ‘Victmae Paschali’ PRIORY PRCD 818 TT 75:39

In reality, this disc takes you from the Palm Sunday ‘Hail King of the Jews’ to the Easter joy. Also included, as the title of the disc would suggest, are longer extracts of holy week passion. Harrison and Harrison have recently completed the Margaret Street organ rebuild which, although possessing a romantic voice has a clarity which suits this programme. The music of Bach is a prominent feature since he wrote much music based on passiontide chorales. Over half an hour on this disc is Bach. The rest of this 75 minute disc also displays the versatility of this instrument and the skill of the player.

Stephen Power

MUSIC FOR ORGAN FROM THE TOWER OF LONDON

Colm Carey plays : Wesley Choral Song and Fugue; C P E Bach Allegro di molto; J S Bach Partita

‘Sei gegrüsset, Jesu gütig’; Vaughan Williams Prelude on Rhosymedre; Jackson Toccata, Chorale and Fugue; Various Renaissance Dances.

LONDON INDEPENDENT RECORDS LIR004 TT 70:11

This attractive and varied programme has been recorded by Colm Carey to show off the versatility of the new Létourneau organ in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. This he most certainly does with fine, sympathetic performances of music from five centuries. The organ of 30 stops, arranged over 2 manuals and pedals has been carefully voiced for the very dry acoustic and quite surprisingly great sonority and warmth of tone has been achieved. The recorded balance and quality is very natural.

Roger Tucker

SOUNDS EXUBERANT Organ music of Christopher Boodle

Played by Neil Weston at Spencerville Seventh Day Adventist Church, Maryland, USA.

LAMMAS LAMM 143D TT 71:44

This CD presents the organ works of a composer with whom I was unfamiliar. There is no doubt that Neil Weston plays with conviction and enthusiasm, and he presents a strong case for the music. There is great contrast in style between the various works, as Weston writes it is ‘never humdrum or predictable’. In terms of style, Boodle’s music is accessible but never colourless. There is some very fine and interesting writing, as well as some good-humoured fun, but not everything is of the same level of quality. Weston also states that Boodle’s music is typified by, among other

things, ‘frequent repeated chords’. Whilst this is fine in one piece once, it does get tiring after one has heard the complete CD a few times. This should not discourage you from buying this – it is essential to explore new music, we can’t go on listening to the same old stuff forever! Too many recital and CD programmes present yet another performance of the same much-loved piece or pieces. This is fine on the one hand, but often the organ lover (as opposed to a general music lover with a lesser knowledge of organ music) seems reluctant to accept anything new at all. Do buy this recording and discover this music for yourself.

Tom Bell

THE ORGAN WORKS OF FRANCIS JACKSON

Francis Jackson plays the organs of York Minster, Blackburn and Lincoln Cathedrals.

4 CDs PRIORY PRCD 930

TT CD1 75:37. CD2 73:35 CD3 69:55 CD4 71:29

Organists of the younger generation, to whom the names of W.T. Best, Alfred Hollins and George Thalben-Ball mean comparatively little, should be thankful for the longevity of Dr Francis Jackson, who, in his 76th, 77th and 79th years, has, with a little help from his friends, (sadly, the Trombonist in Op.76 is not named) produced 4 compact discs worth of his own organ compositions. The staggering thing is that The organ works of Francis Jackson was already out of date on its release, as the Fifth Sonata was composed last year, and the Sixth, for the re-opening concert at Armley, this year. No doubt more music of quality and integrity is being written as you read this, which we deserve to hear in disc, for posterity, performed by the only artist who could possibly do his music full justice. (More please Dr Jackson!) This box set is already a recording of great significant historic value, rush out and invest in it now.

Stephen Power

New Organ Publications

Autumn 2004

Robert Cockroft

Fantasia – In Nomine

Ref.14042 £2.25

A Good King Chills out for Spring (based on Good King Wenceslas)

Ref.14041 £2.25

Francis Jackson

Organ Sonata V,Opus 140 (in C minor)

Ref.14043 £9.50

Percy Whitlock

Four Transcriptions for Organ (arranged by Malcolm Riley) Fanfare (1940),To Phoebe,Elegy, March ‘Dignity and Impudence’

Ref.14040 £7.50

STOCKHOLM CONCERT HALL ORGAN 20th Century Swedish Organ Music

Rosenberg Fantasia e Fuga; Fryklöf Symfoniskt Stycke (Symphonic Piece);Passacaglia; Olsson Prelude & Fugue in f#; Södersten Requiem per Organo. Organ: Erik Lundkvist. PROPRIUS PRSACD 2028 TT 70:48

The large four-manual Stockholm organ was built by Gronlund in 1982. It looks splendid in the cover photograph. The hall is dead, acoustically, however, and the engineers have added a discreet level of digital reverberation. Eric Lundkvist shows it off to great advantage in a programme of music sponsored by the Swedish Musical Arts Society, an organisation with a long and honourable record in supporting the work of Swedish composers.

Alan Spedding

VICTORIAN ORGAN SONATAS VOL 2

John Kitchen plays the Hill Organ of Coats Memorial Church, Paisley Gray Sonata No 2 in A flat; Wolstenholme Sonata No 1 in F; Hopkins Sonata in A; Faulkes Sonata in d

PRIORY PRCD 805 TT 71:55

This disc contains four Victorian organ sonatas which on the whole are worth listening to. The quality of playing is second to none, and the organ on which they are recorded surely deserves a higher profile.

Stephen Power

ORGAN WORKS

Dupré Evocation; Langlais Suite Brève; Incantation pour un jour saint; Evocation; Messiaen Offrande au Saint Sacrament; Litaize scherzo; Lied; Epiphanie; Ropartz Prélude Funèbre; Vierne Trois improvisations

Colin Walsh plays the organ of Lincoln Cathedral. GUILD GMCD 7278 TT 77:22

As ‘openers’ go the Langlais at the beginning of this disc is magnificent! A magisterial curtain raiser to a diverse programme of French music, some familiar, most not quite so. Suite Brève, certainly one of the best works in Langlais’ large output, is treated to a very good performance indeed. The same composer’s Evocation is another fine piece and one to which I will certainly return. The Litaize pieces are not heard particularly often. I am certainly a fan of the Scherzo and also Lied, but I have yet to be convinced by Epiphanie. A discovery for me was the Ropartz Prélude Funèbre, a beautiful piece that is precisely the sort of that thing that I had previously assumed I wouldn’t like!

Tom Bell

THE ORGAN MUSIC OF W T BEST

Christopher Nickol plays the Organs of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (Disc 1) and The McEwan Hall, Edinburgh (Disc 2).

Disc 1: Festival Overture in B flat; Concert Fantasia on Old English Airs; Andante in G; Sonata in d; Adagio in F #; A Christmas Fantasy; Toccata in A; Andante Religioso; Allegro Festivio; Introduction, Variations and Finale on ‘God Save The Queen’ TT 74:21

Disc 2: Fantasia; Christmas Fantasia; Pastorale; Sonata in G; Andante in C; Fantasia and Fugue in e; Andante in E; Christmas Pastorale; Fantasia on a Chorale; Allegretto in B flat; March for a Church Festival. TT 78:07

PRIORY PRCS 681

These CDs not only show off the music of a great man, but also two superb organs in two of Europe’s most individual capital cities. Christopher Nickol brings the virtuosic music to life, giving us a guided tour of these two instruments. Best had a habit of copying, on the organ at Liverpool’s St. George’s Hall, the orchestral works being performed by the local orchestra that same night. It is no surprise, therefore, that his own compositions might have been

orchestrally conceived. Particularly fine are the two sonatas and the Introduction, Variations and Finale on ‘God Save the Queen’, which I cannot resist pointing out was recorded in the Republic of Ireland!

Stephen Power

SOUNDS IDYLLIC

Peter Dyke plays the Willis organ at Hereford Cathedral

A little organ book in memory of Hubert Parry; Stanford Six Short Preludes and Postludes; Bridge Six Organ Pieces LAMMAS LAMM 148D TT 75:30

This CD is a gem – consisting entirely of little pieces the programme provides a veritable kaleidoscope of styles and sounds. Virtually all the music is rarely heard (including the other Thalben Ball Elegy!) and I made many a discovery along the way. I could not possibly single out any particular piece – suffice to say that all were worth hearing, and all conveyed with the utmost musicality. I had not heard Peter Dyke’s playing before, but I look forward to my next opportunity. Every piece, the shortest barely two minutes, the longest almost five, is given equal care and attention. The organ sounds beautiful, with plenty of space around it. Recommended.

Tom Bell

BACH ORGAN WORKS VOL 15

Gerhard Weinberger plays the Zacharias Hildebrandt Organ, Naumberg St Wenzel

Concerto in G BWV 592; Concerto in d BWV 596; Concerto in a BWV 593; Aria in F; Ricercar in c BWV 1079/5; Schübler-Choräle BWV 645-650. CPO 777 0182 TT 62:26

The organ in St Wenceslaus numbers among the most important instruments of the Bach era still in existence today. Its great beauty was articulated already by Bach’s son-in-law Altnickol thus “..he who has seen and heard his organ never went away from it without admiration.” Indeed this particular recording shows off the organ well.

Alan Spedding

RHEINBERGER VOL 10

Ruldof Innig plays the Kuhn Organ

Neumünster Zürich

Sonata No 16; Miscellaneen 12 Orgelvorträge

DG GOLD MDG 317 0900-2 TT 77:31.

Rudolf Innig has already recorded the complete organ works of Brahms, Mendelssohn, Nowowiejski, Schumann and Messiaen to acclaim. This CD of late Rheinberger is tenth in the series of twelve recorded on historic organs in South Germany and Switzerland.

Alan Spedding

A WINDSOR COLLECTION

Timothy Byram-Wigfield plays the organ of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle

Tchaikovsky Coronation March; Bach Prelude and Fugue in G BWV 541; Böhm Choral Prelude: Vater unser im Himmelreich; Mendelssohn Scherzo (A Midsummer Night’s Dream); Franck Prelude, Fugue and Variation; Duruflé Scherzo; Mulet Tu es Petra; Alcock Toccatina; Howells Psalm Prelude Set 1 No 1; Walton Popular Song from Façade; Reger Chorale-Fantasia Hallelujah, Gott zu loben. REGENT REGCD200 TT 72:36

Timothy Byram-Wigfield presents a varied recital programme that puts both organ and organist through their paces. There is some very attractive and stylish playing. The biggest item on the disc is the closing Hallelujah, Gott zu loben, which is given an exciting performance, though not quite as electric as others I have

heard. The preceding Walton Popular Song could have been even more fun... There is much to enjoy here – buy this disc to acquaint yourself with a gutsy English organ, with a highly respected musician and with some great music.

Tom Bell

THE ENGLISH CATHEDRAL SERIES Vol IX

Mark Lee plays the organ of Bristol Cathedral

Alcock Introduction & Passacaglia; Whitlock Sonata in C minor; Harker Rouen Processional (on Coelites Plaudant); Martin Evensong; Elgar Imperial March, REGENT REGCD191 TT 69:22

Bristol Cathedral possesses among the loveliest of any cathedral acoustic and one of the finest Edwardian organs in existence. If you buy this disc, you will find out for yourself. Mark Lee shows us what this organ does best, with a selection of romantic pieces of great intensity such as Whitlock’s Sonata and Alcock’s Passacaglia. Also of interest is a work by Clifford Harker, a former organist of the cathedral, based on the French tune Coelites Plaudant. Vol IX of the English Cathedral Series is another triumph for Regent Records.

Stephen Power

TRANSCRIPTIONS FOR ORGAN

David Price plays the Nicholson Organs in Portsmouth Cathedral

Charpentier Te Deum; Handel Music for Royal Fireworks; Elgar Chanson de Nuit; Chanson de Matin; Nimrod; Imperial March; Sospiri; Delius On hearing the first cuckoo; Vaugan Williams Greensleeves, Romanza, Prelude for the New Commonwealth; Barber Adagio; Walton Suite from Henry V; Fauré Pavane; Sibelius Finlandia

HERALD HAVPCD 265

Ever since Nicholsons enlarged this organ with a nave division it has become a force to reckon with among cathedral organs. Standing virtually in the middle of the extended cathedral, partly under the tower, it presents a challenge to any recording balancer to capture its sound comprehensively. This recording is the most successful I have heard and creates a true impression of the space around this fine organ. Supported by such sonority David Price performs a nicely chosen sequence of transcriptions, which has the great merit of beguiling the ear for over 75 minutes with mostly short pieces of familiar orchestral music. Some work better than others in the transfer to the organ: I liked the Delius Cuckoo, the three RVW pieces, the Barber Adagio, the Fauré Pavane, the Handel Fireworks Music and best of all the Charpentier Te Deum (now famous as the Eurovision March), which is the opener. Walton’s orchestral suite for the film of Henry V really needs the original scoring to make its effect. (There is also a balance failure here in the March, which begins and ends the suite: the pedal registration is too obtrusive and drowns the upper parts.) The Elgar pieces are nicely done but Sospiri needs strings for clarity, as does Finlandia. After listening to the 21 tracks, a friend’s reaction ‘I must get this CD’ makes a persuasive final comment.

Roger Tucker

KING’SCOLLEGECHAPELCHOIR AUDITIONSFORCHORISTERSHIPS FRIDAY/SATURDAY25/26 FEBRUARY2005

If your son wouldlike to: singina world-famous choir singat services in theCollege’s magnificent chapel make recordings withEMI givebroadcasts for televisionand radio giveconcerts throughout theUK enjoy foreign tours then thereis anopportunity toauditionon 25/26 February 2005, when we shall belookingfor potentialchoristers who wouldjoin thechoir inSeptember 2005, or inSeptember 2006.

Applicationforms canbeobtainedfrom theSchoolOffice(tel: 01223 365814).

StephenCleobury,Director ofMusic, willbe very pleased to talk toparents of possiblecandidates about what is involved,andcanbe reachedon 01223 331224.Heis alsodelighted tooffer aninformalaudition toacandidatein advanceof theofficialauditionday.

SOUNDS FRENCH

David Briggs plays the organ of Blackburn Cathedral

Two Cochereau Improvisations; Franck Choral No1; Briggs Symphonie en Improvisation; Langlais Messe Alme Pater; Incantation pour un jour Saint; Demessieux Attende Domine; Dupré Allegro Deciso(Evocation Op 37)

LAMMAS LAMM 164D TT: 67.47

Improvisation is essentially composition ‘on the wing’ and by definition cannot be repeated, unless the medium of sound recording is involved. For fifteen years Pierre Cochereau’s virtuoso improvisations on the 5-manual Cavaille-Coll in the Paris cathedral of Notre-Dame where he was titulaire were recorded. This has enabled David Briggs to transcribe and thereby play many of them, including the two which open this stunningly good programme. Briggs himself studied with Jean Langlais in Paris and developed the great talent for improvisation which enables him to sit down at an organ and improvise a four movement symphony, such as he does here. The result is a very satisfying musical experience. Without being at all derivative, it has immensely evocative qualities and one does want to hear it again. Clearly the listener to an improvisation is not always seized with this desire! How fortunate that this Symphonie was recorded in June 2003 and can now be heard by a much wider public. Briggs the interpreter is also represented with distinction; he gives the most expressive and sensitively controlled performance of the Franck Choral No1 of all the many that I have on disc, with finely judged tempi and authentic registration. All the organ works of Franck should be recorded on the Blackburn Walker, it is the ideal instrument for it. It is equally suited to the works of Langlais, Dupré and the latter’s pupil, Jeanne Demessieux, the titulaire of La Madeleine, who was an important figure in the Paris organ world until her untimely death in 1968. Briggs gives a highly charged reading of her hauntingly beautiful Attende Domino and then ends with a taut rendering of one of Dupré’s best known works. The recorded balance on this magnificently rebuilt organ does it full justice, set off by the cathedral’s natural reverberation time of six secs.

Roger Tucker

St.George’s School,Windsor Castle

Pre-Preparatory and Preparatory Day and Boarding School for Boys and Girls 3-13 years.

• High quality education and traditional values.

• Co-educational policy within a prep school environment.

•Opportunities for boy choristers to sing in St.George’s Chapel.

•Five day academic week with flexible boarding arrangements.

• Purpose built and equipped Nursery and Pre-Preparatory Department.

• Extensive playing fields and heated indoor swimming pool.

• Secure environment for pupils within the Home Park.

VOICE TRIALS

For Boys (7 1/2 – 91/2 years old)

March 2005

Open Auditions will be held for Choristerships (worth up to 50% of the school fees, plus one award of 100%)

J. Roger Jones,Head Master

St.George’s School,Windsor Castle

Berkshire SL4 1QF

Tel:01753 865553Fax:01753 842093

e-mail:enqs@stgwindsor.co.uk

Website:www.stgwindsor.co.uk

Coming up in the next issue:

MUSIC Cathedral MUSIC

Cathedral

Roger Overend interviews Malcolm Archer

Michael Higgins retired Dean of Ely on ‘Whither Cathedral Music?’

David Winpenney writes on Stephen Layton and Polyphony and their Hyperion project

James Saunders

‘Where have all the Clergy gone?’

And we enjoy another pint at a lay clerks’ pub

FRIENDS OF CATHEDRAL MUSIC

ADDITIONAL OFFICERS REQUIRED

Following the recent increase in FCM membership, Council has approved the appointment of additional officers to fill the following new positions:

ASSISTANT TREASURER

To assist the Treasurer, principally with the financial work relating to the sale of Cathedral Music through retail outlets

MERCHANDISE OFFICER

To plan and implement a programme to increase the range of merchandise sold by the Society. Prior sales, retailing or marketing experience would be preferable, though central marketing support will be available

PUBLICATIONS MARKETING OFFICER

To plan and implement a programme to increase the number of retail outlets selling CATHEDRAL MUSIC and other Society publications. Prior sales, retailing or marketing experience would be preferable, though central marketing support will be available

WEB SITE OFFICER

To co-ordinate the upgrade of the Society’s web site, working closely with the web site programmer. Responsibilities will include developing a site map and contents list, writing and/or editing copy, inviting people to contribute text and and ensuring a high standard of graphic design. An appropriate level of computer literacy and familiarity with web sites are essential, though web site programming per se, is not

These positions are entirely voluntary though all expenses incurred will be reimbursed.

For further information please write to the Chairman, Professor Peter Toyne DL at Cloudeslee, Croft Drive, CALDY, Wirral CH48 2JW, or e-mail peter.toyne@tiscali.co.uk

Cathedral MUSIC Cathedral MUSIC

Advertisers and Supporters

Allegro Music..................................................................49

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Kings College Chapel Choir..........................................61

Kings School Gloucester................................................44

Lammas..........................................................................20

LCM Examinations........................................................16

Leeds Parish Church......................................................12

Makin Organs....................................................................2

New English Hymnal......................................................23

Oxford University Press..................................................41

Regent Records..............................................................63

Royal College of Organists............................................63

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Salisbury Cathedral........................................................34

Signum Records..............................................................63

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THE FRIENDS OF CATHEDRAL MUSIC

SECRETARY

Roger Bishton 21 Bradford Rd, TROWBRIDGE, Wiltshire BA14 9AL Tel: 01225 768607 roger@bishton7609.freeserve.co.uk

TREASURER

Anita Phillips, ‘Roseash’, Homefield Lane, Rugby Road, Dunchurch, RUGBYCV22 6QS Tel:01788 816543 anita@rowans.force9.co.uk

PUBLICITY OFFICER & ADVERTISING MANAGER

Roger Tucker 16 Rodenhurst Road LONDON SW4 8AR Tel: 020 8674 4916 roger@cathedralmusic.supanet.com

RECRUITMENT OFFICER

Philip Emerson King’s House, 8 Church Street CUCKFIELD RH17 5JZ 01444 413264 philipemerson@tiscali.co.uk

MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY

Tim Hayward FCM Membership Department, PO Box 207, Scarcroft, LEEDS LS14 3WY Tel: 0845 644 3721 (UK local rate) info@fcm.org.uk

FCM ARCHIVIST

Dr Rosemary Smith 136a Southbrae Drive, GLASGOW G13 1TZ

Tel: 0141 959 0704

PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER

Trevor Godfrey

Meadow Croft, 12 Spilsbury Close, Old College Park, LEAMINGTON SPACV32 6SW

Tel/Fax 01926 831820 trevorgodfrey@onetel.net.uk

SECRETARY FOR NATIONAL GATHERINGS

Peter Smith Paddock House, 7 Orchard View, Skelton, YORK YO3 6YQ

Tel: 01904 470 503

PeterSmith@robertpeter.fsnet.co.uk

MERCHANDISE OFFICER

Joy Cooke

Aeron House, Llangeitho, Tregaron, Ceredigion, Wales SY25 6SU. Tel: 01974 821614 joycooke@aol.om

DR COORDINATOR

Geoffrey Shaw

8 Nightingale Place BUCKINGHAM MK18 1UF

e-mail: geoff.icf@fsbdial.co.uk 01280 812547 and 823363

Signum Classics are pleased to announce four new releases:

Tenebrae Responsories: Carlo Gesualdo

The King’s Singers

Searingly intense ... beautifully judged Daily Telegraph

The English Organ Sonata: 1937 Bairstow &Whitlock Sonatas

Colm Carey - Church of the Ascension &St Agnes, Washington D.C.

Cantos Sagrados: James MacMillan Elysian Singers dir. Sam Laughton

the most compelling disc -- I’ve heard all year International Record Review

Thomas Tallis: The Complete Works 9 Volume Boxed set Chapelle du Roi dir. Alistair Dixon

Almost touches the visionary Gramophone Magazine

Available from all good record shops or direct from Signum Classics Tel &Fax: 0870 710 6101 www.signumrecords.com harmonia mundi distribution