CE Chelmsford Cathedral Oct 22nd, 2014

[DracoM]

CE Chelmsford Cathedral



Order of Service:



Introit: Here while the cherubim within the veil (John Jordan)
Responses (Peter Nardone)
Office Hymn: Sing praise to Christ (Engelberg)
Psalms 108, 109 (Bertalot; Hylton Stewart; Hemmings)
First lesson: Proverbs 30: 5-9
Canticles: St John's College Service (Howells)
Second lesson: Luke 9: 1-6
Anthem: Be strong and of good courage (Darke)
Final responses (Rose)
Hymn: God whose city's sure foundation (Regent Square)



Organ Voluntary: Sonata no. 6 in D minor opus 65. (Mendelssohn)



Assistant Organist, Laurence Lyndon-Jones
Organist and Master of the Choristers, James Davy

[DracoM]

Reminder today @ 3.30 p.m.

[ardcarp]

Just heard Chelmsford on i-player. I thought the choir's confidence increased as the service proceeded, and they gave the Darke (which I don't know) a performance worthy of its dedication. The choir's clarity of diction was very good, I thought.

I wonder if anyone with inside knowledge can answer these...

1. How is the choir constituted (e.g. recruitment, choirschool) and are there lay clerks plus choral scholars?

2. How many times do they sing per week?

3. Any details of the organ?

4. (This for the technical geeks.) The recorded sound was very close and immediate. This contrasted with last week's broadcast from Royal Holloway where the choir sounded more at the far end of a tunnel. Why or how do recording engineers arrive at their decisions?

[Philip]

I listened to some of this last night (too late for the whole thing). The Howells St Johns service is a favourite of mine, and not sung in enough places for my liking. OK, its sub Gloucester/Coll Reg/St Pauls, but its very effective, so bonus points for including it. Nice touch to see John Jordan and Peter Nardone represented along with an anthem written for the Cathedral. This was I believe the first broadcast from Chelmsford for a number of years (not sure why that is) and their first under James Davy.

I agree it sounded closely miked, and gave the impression of virtually no acoustic at all. I'm not sure if that is quite the case.

In terms of the organ, Chelmsford actually has two, a IV+P nave organ (although the fourth manual houses only a solo ophicleide) and a II+P chancel organ. The chancel organ is designed for choir accompaniment, the nave organ for hymns, solo rep etc; you can play the Great, Swell and Solo of the nave organ from the chancel console by electronic transfer, it has all the stops provided (and the third manual). In the voluntary (which I didn't listen to) I would have expected to hear the nave organ. Both were built by Mander in the early 90s.

[Magnificat]

Just heard Chelmsford on i-player. I thought the choir's confidence increased as the service proceeded, and they gave the Darke (which I don't know) a performance worthy of its dedication. The choir's clarity of diction was very good, I thought.

I wonder if anyone with inside knowledge can answer these...

1. How is the choir constituted (e.g. recruitment, choirschool) and are there lay clerks plus choral scholars?

2. How many times do they sing per week?

3. Any details of the organ?

4. (This for the technical geeks.) The recorded sound was very close and immediate. This contrasted with last week's broadcast from Royal Holloway where the choir sounded more at the far end of a tunnel. Why or how do recording engineers arrive at their decisions?

ardcarp

The cathedral website gives pretty much all the info. There is no choir school and the boys go to various schools both state and independent. The notes on the cathedral's Centenary Appeal set out the aims of the Choral Foundation.

Although the music list doesn't state the forces singing, the way the choir operates from my reading of the details on the web- site, seems to indicate that it was the boys and men singing ( certainly couldn't hear any 18 year old girls ).

The boys sounded youngish to me but I thought they were very competent even if their sound was slightly thin at times. I thought the diction was very clear as you say and that the choir grew in confidence. It's a shame that the cathedral doesn't have much of an acoustic.

I'm pleased that James Davy, who has been in post for two years, broadcast his boys and men at the first opportunity which has not always been the case with some newly appointed DoMs.

James was a very highly regarded organ scholar at St Albans and I'm sure his choir will go from strength to strength in the years to come as he settles in at Chelmsford.

Laurie Lyndon - Jones his assistant was one of Barry Rose's recruits and became head chorister at St Albans under Andrew Lucas and runs Chelmsford's girls' choir.

VCC.

[mopsus]

I've sung in Chelmsford and it doesn't have a resonant acoustic.
Peter Nardone's 'Mass of St. Cedd' is in our repertoire at church as a congregational Common Worship setting, so it was good to find out how the name should be pronounced!
I suspect the cantor may not have had the words of the collects written out, or they had been incompletely put into traditional language.

[mrbutt89]

As a part-time Lay Clerk at Chelmsford, I should be able to throw some light on some of the questions here.

The Choral Foundation is a relatively recent institution, with St Mary's Church only becoming a Cathedral 100 years ago. The way the music department is organised has evolved over the years since then, and each subsequent Organist/Director of Music has brought their own innovations. There was a particular amount of change in Dr. Graham Elliott's time, with the reordering of the Cathedral and the provision of the new organs. (And the removal of the old organ, of which I was particularly fond.)

The acoustic within the building is relatively dry - hardly surprising given the proportions of the place, which is one of the smallest Cathedrals in the country, albeit with one of the most populous dioceses. For many concerts, the seating in the Nave is actually turned round, with the performers on a temporary stage under the organ at the West End. This normally proves to work very well in terms of exploiting what acoustic there is, as well as providing a more useful space for the performers. For our previous broadcast, under Peter Nardone, the choir sang part-way down the Nave, but this time we stayed in our usual place in the Chancel choir stalls. The Chancel organ is positioned immediately behind the Decani choir stalls, so anyone on the back row on that side gets the full "benefit" (!) of it.

The normal pattern of choir activities is as follows:
Monday: Boys
Tuesday: Girls
Thursday - Sunday: Boys and Men. (Every other Thursday Evensong is men's voices only, and Friday Evensong is unaccompanied.)
Evensong is sung on each of those days (though not every Saturday), plus either Mattins or Eucharist on the Sunday morning.

To answer more specific questions about this particular service: The music was sung by the boys and men. The boys come from a number of local schools, as the Cathedral does not have a choir school. Over the years, good working relationships have been forged with those schools (mostly state schools, both primary and secondary), and they are very helpful when special services require the boys to sing during a normal school day. The back rows at Chelmsford are made up of a variety of people. We have a mixture of Lay Clerks, Deputies, Singing Men (i.e. unpaid volunteers), Choral Scholars and Junior Choral Scholars (usually former trebles). This was the case for the broadcast. The number of Choral Scholars has been increased since James Davy's arrival, which has resulted in a much more stable line-up during weekday services. We've even been able to "divide within sides" on occasion - a real luxury on a weekday!

It's good to hear the positive comments about the choir's diction. James has been working really hard on it with the choir, and he'll be pleased to know that his hard work is appreciated.

[french frank]

Thank you, mrbutt. I think that should satisfy the enquirers

[DracoM]

Yes, excellent response.
So, were both the West End and the Chancel organs used during the CE on Wednesday?

Do you use trebs / junior choral schols from King Edward Vl?

[ardcarp]

Thanks from me too mrbutt, It would be great if more people actually taking part (or at least present) week by week would post in. Of great interest to many here.
Being a DoM and having to recruit, inspire and keep choristers is a pioneering task, and Mr Davy deserves much credit.

[mrbutt89]

From the choir stalls, it's not always easy to hear the Nave organ in action, except in solo passages. However, I'm sure it was in use for the broadcast service. It provides essential support for the congregation in hymns etc..

Yes, we have boys and junior choral scholars from KEGS.

[DracoM]

My thanks.

[vivatregina]

mrbutt89 Interesting to hear about how the set-up fits together at Chelmsford! How many lay clerks do you have? And what's the difference between a lay clerk and a singing man?

[mrbutt89]

mrbutt89 Interesting to hear about how the set-up fits together at Chelmsford! How many lay clerks do you have? And what's the difference between a lay clerk and a singing man?

We usually have two or three lay clerks, but not necessarily full-time, and it can vary from year to year. The "Singing Men" could arguably be described as our most loyal members - they come and sing even though they aren't paid to do so! However, they still have to sing to a high standard, of course, and they are expected to commit well in advance to the services they will be singing, so that numbers can be balanced.

There is also a "voluntary choir" at Chelmsford, as at many other cathedrals, which covers a lot of the main services when the regular choirs are on holiday. As the name suggests, it is made up entirely of volunteers. I was originally recruited into the voluntary choir by the Assistant organist at the time, but then "graduated" to the regular choir.