CE Royal School of Church Music Millennium Youth Choir 29.x.2014

[DracoM]

CE Royal School of Church Music Millennium Youth Choir
In Gloucester Cathedral




Order of Service:



Introit: Holy is the true light (Harris)
Responses: Kerensa Briggs
Psalms 148, 150 (Stanford)
First lesson: Isaiah 65:17-25
Canticles: Gloucester Service (Owain Park)
Second lesson: Hebrews 11: 32-12.2
Anthems: We love the place, O God (Sumsion)
Justorum animae (Stanford)
Hymn: For all the saints (Sine nomine)


Organ Voluntary: Festivo (Ronald Corp)



Daniel Moult (Organist)
David Ogden (Director of Music)

[DracoM]

Reminder: today @ 3.30 p.m.
BTW, this a recording.

[DracoM]

Interesting: slightly nearer concert than service for my money, but with a very decent showing for the organ/organist. Canticles a tad diffuse maybe? Choir nicely trained, competent. Sumsion rather better delivered than the Stanford. Nice solo in Nunc.

[Alison]

Interesting: slightly nearer concert than service for my money, but with a very decent showing for the organ/organist. Canticles a tad diffuse maybe? Choir nicely trained, competent. Sumsion rather better delivered than the Stanford. Nice solo in Nunc.

Good summary. I like the Ronald Corp piece.

[Petrushka]

The Stanford 150th Psalm setting was always a favourite of mine as a choirboy back in the day. Sine nomine must be one of the best hymn tunes ever written and I always regretted it's use just once in the church's year!

Yet to hear the broadcast as I always catch the Sunday repeat or record it but comments so far are encouraging and look forward to it.

[mopsus]

When you hear it, you'll find that the arrangement of Sine Nomine may not be quite what you're used to.

[Vox Humana]

When you hear it, you'll find that the arrangement of Sine Nomine may not be quite what you're used to.

Hmm. I have tried this sort of thing before too. It didn't work for me either.

I thought the Corp piece was splendid.

[fsharpminor]

I tuned in part way through the Corp, without knowing what it was; it struck me as being a set of interesting variations on 'What shall we do with the drunken sailor' - though that no doubt says more about me than the work or the performance . . .

[orson]

I thought the singing was very good overall. Possibly a little less sop than rest of the choir, but that may have been the recording. The organ sounded very muffled mostly and unbalanced - lots of bass and not much by way of charm or colour. This isn't down to the organist, who is brilliant. I was disappointed that, with one of the most colourful and distinctive organs in the country, the BBC couldn't do more by way of capturing the sound.
The responses were very dirty! One or two unexpected twists and turns...

[ardcarp]

Having just heard this CE, I must say I find some of the comments above just a little faint in their praise. It's easy to pick out little blips here and there, but I thought it a splendid and uplifting service, and engineered to capture the glorious acoustic of Gloucester. Given that, presumably the choir does not meet regularly together, the impression was of a most musically directed offering where both phrasing, vowel sounds and consonant discipline had been worked on. There were some fairly mature-sounding voices there, especially in the basses.

The organ sounded very muffled mostly

Really? Agreed there was an attempt to make appropriately Anglican sounds in the Sumsion, but the individuality of Gloucester organ was evident in many places, e.g. the splashes of reeds and of mutations in the canticles, in the hymn arrangement and in the final voluntary. Great piece!

[orson]

Ardcarp - sorry, not trying to be faint praising. I thought the singing was excellent, but I don't think the recorded sound was brilliant. I know that organ intimately as an accompanist, and coudn't always tell it was Gloucester until the end. You're right about the voluntary and the hymn - the party horn certainly got an airing. Maybe it's either my ears or the car radio (or the speed at which the car was being driven...)
It may be that I was listening for recording/balance issues, having seen comments about the last few broadcasts of Chelmsford and Royal Holloway in preceding weeks.

[ardcarp]

The Gloucester organ was certainly very exciting when it received the HN&B/Ralph Downes treatment and was 'opened' around 1970. I played it quite a few times then, and was quite thrilled by the chiffy flutes and snarly reeds...so different from the Willis/Harrison sound. I've not played it (or indeed anything!) for a long time and certainly not since Gloucester organ's more recent overhaul (by Nicholson?). As I suggested above, I think the organist in the broadcast was finding registration appropriate to the music being sung, much of which didn't give an opportunity for the characterful side of that lovely instrument.
I heard the repeat today on some decent equipment and was quite impressed with the miked sound...though I am largely ignorant of technical details of sound engineering.

[Miles Coverdale]

A neat little Gloucester connection in that the Responses were by the daughter of David Briggs, formerly organist at Gloucester of course.

[Finzi4ever]

I thought the singing was very good overall. Possibly a little less sop than rest of the choir, but that may have been the recording. The organ sounded very muffled mostly and unbalanced - lots of bass and not much by way of charm or colour. This isn't down to the organist, who is brilliant. I was disappointed that, with one of the most colourful and distinctive organs in the country, the BBC couldn't do more by way of capturing the sound.
The responses were very dirty! One or two unexpected twists and turns...

Odd: I thought this was one of the better examples at capturing the fine acoustic of the building along with the amazing colour of that unique instrument, without losing the clarity of the choir, by whom I was extremely impressed especially with regards to their ensemble (apart from the over-eager Bass at the start of Ps 150) for a group who can't have sung together for that long. Diction was equally impressive. I still like a weighty pedal underpinning everything - the 32' was a great addition, espec when beefed up ?10 years ago.

[chitreb]

Just listened on iPlayer through some headphones and found the whole service a wonderful experience - it really felt like I was there. There wasn't much I didn't find beautiful and uplifting. I don't know why Orson found the responses 'dirty' but the second part came across crystal clear on the top line on my headphones.
Great to see that the BBC has restored the 4 week availability period on iPlayer after the recent problems.