CE Chichester Cathedral Wed, 24th July 2019 [L]

[DracoM]

CE Chichester Cathedral
Southern Cathedrals Festival


Order of Service:


Introit: The Call (Harold East)
Responses: Leighton
Office hymn: O Holy Spirit, Lord of grace (Tallis’s Ordinal)
Psalm 119: 1-32 (Noble, Goodenough, Matthews, Stainer)
First Lesson: Isaiah 26: 1-9
Canticles: Chichester Service (Frederick Stocken)
Second Lesson: Romans 8: 12-27
Anthem: Ascribe unto the Lord (Wesley)

Voluntary: Toccata (Terence Allbright)


Tim Ravalde (Assistant Organist)
Charles Harrison (Organist and Master of the Choristers)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000709h

[DracoM]

Remider: today @ 3.30 p.m.

[silvestrione]

I stumbled on this, expecting the end of the afternoon Prom repeat! I let the whole wash over me and found it inspiring, including the psalm and the readings. The canticles were impressive to me, the Wesley anthem too long and insufficiently inventive (sorry, this is probably ignorance!). I could not, however, take that particular organ voluntary, having hung on for it, and went back to the secular world (well, the cricket).

One question: why are there four names above, in the brackets after the psalm?

[oddoneout]

I stumbled on this, expecting the end of the afternoon Prom repeat! I let the whole wash over me and found it inspiring, including the psalm and the readings. The canticles were impressive to me, the Wesley anthem too long and insufficiently inventive (sorry, this is probably ignorance!). I could not, however, take that particular organ voluntary, having hung on for it, and went back to the secular world (well, the cricket).

One question: why are there four names above, in the brackets after the psalm?

Four different composers of the chants to which the psalm was sung.

[Miles Coverdale]

the Wesley anthem too long and insufficiently inventive (sorry, this is probably ignorance!).

Not ignorance, in my view; it's not a great piece. It has about five minutes' worth of material stretched out over a quarter of an hour.

[silvestrione]

Four different composers of the chants to which the psalm was sung.

So it was a composite assembled by the Director of Music? Is this usual?

[Pulcinella]

So it was a composite assembled by the Director of Music? Is this usual?

This link might be useful:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican_chant

[silvestrione]

This link might be useful:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican_chant

Thanks for that link. I enjoyed the learned and informative article, though may not have read it as carefully as I should have, because I still cannot work out quite why there are four composers for one psalm, unless, as I suggested, the DOM chooses them for variety.

I was a choirboy once, and remember being led to do something like that for the psalms.

[Pulcinella]

Thanks for that link. I enjoyed the learned and informative article, though may not have read it as carefully as I should have, because I still cannot work out quite why there are four composers for one psalm, unless, as I suggested, the DOM chooses them for variety.

I was a choirboy once, and remember being led to do something like that for the psalms.

The article (last bullet point in the single chant section) says this (my emphasis):

Particularly in long psalms, changes of chant may be used to signal thematic shifts in the words. Psalm 119, which is the longest in the psalter, is generally sung with a change of chant after every 8 of its 176 verses, corresponding to the 22 stanzas of the original Hebrew text. However, it is never sung all at once, but spread over successive days.

Naturally, the DOM can choose which chants to use for any particular psalm (or part thereof).

[silvestrione]

The article (last bullet point in the single chant section) says this (my emphasis):

Particularly in long psalms, changes of chant may be used to signal thematic shifts in the words. Psalm 119, which is the longest in the psalter, is generally sung with a change of chant after every 8 of its 176 verses, corresponding to the 22 stanzas of the original Hebrew text. However, it is never sung all at once, but spread over successive days.

Naturally, the DOM can choose which chants to use for any particular psalm (or part thereof).

Far too casual reading from an ex-English teacher! Sorry.

[Pulcinella]

Far too casual reading from an ex-English teacher! Sorry.

No problem; happy to have helped.

[Philip]

Haven't heard the whole thing but the Wesley anthem is one of my favourites. I accept it's not to everyone's taste but you have to put it in the context of it's time, and it's the sort of thing which laid the foundations for much of what has followed. For me there is so much to enjoy - the contrasting 'Let the whole earth stand in awe of him' sections at the start (the first time loud, the second time quiet and down a fourth) are pure and utter genius, and the fugue at the end has more good tunes than you can shake a stick at. This wasn't my favourite performance, some of the tempi were too brisk for my liking; the opening by the men was so ludicrously fast I was astonished but thankfully the aforementioned 'Let the whole earth' was sensibly paced. I didn't enjoy the bounce in the trio 'O worship the Lord', preferring that to flow more, and the fugue at the end also felt a tad brisk. Maybe I just like to wallow in Victoriana too much.

Lovely psalm with a variety of chants I thought. Voluntary more than a tad perplexing.

[silvestrione]

Haven't heard the whole thing but the Wesley anthem is one of my favourites. I accept it's not to everyone's taste but you have to put it in the context of it's time, and it's the sort of thing which laid the foundations for much of what has followed. For me there is so much to enjoy - the contrasting 'Let the whole earth stand in awe of him' sections at the start (the first time loud, the second time quiet and down a fourth) are pure and utter genius, and the fugue at the end has more good tunes than you can shake a stick at. This wasn't my favourite performance, some of the tempi were too brisk for my liking; the opening by the men was so ludicrously fast I was astonished but thankfully the aforementioned 'Let the whole earth' was sensibly paced. I didn't enjoy the bounce in the trio 'O worship the Lord', preferring that to flow more, and the fugue at the end also felt a tad brisk. Maybe I just like to wallow in Victoriana too much.

Lovely psalm with a variety of chants I thought. Voluntary more than a tad perplexing.

Thanks for your comments. I need to hear the Wesley again in a different performance I think. I agree with you on the psalm and voluntary.

[Keraulophone]

there is so much to enjoy - the contrasting 'Let the whole earth stand in awe of him' sections at the start (the first time loud, the second time quiet and down a fourth) are pure and utter genius, and the fugue at the end has more good tunes than you can shake a stick at. This wasn't my favourite performance, some of the tempi were too brisk for my liking; the opening by the men was so ludicrously fast I was astonished but thankfully the aforementioned 'Let the whole earth' was sensibly paced.

S.S.Wesley's longer anthems are seen less and less on music lists these days, which I think is a shame. They are great fun to sing, especially with augmented choirs and at festivals, as here. I expect the tenor/bass quartet resident at Chichester particularly welcomed the opportunity as we are frequently being preached at for fifteen minutes, why not the occasional anthem of similar duration?

Yes, that opening was rather astonishing, driven forward far in excess of the indicated crotchet = 108 though I have no idea whether this was indicated by SSW or a Novello editor. A more usual tempo is followed in the recording by New College, Oxford (linked below) who start at around 88 bpm. The 1981 Southern Cathedrals Festival performance from Winchester (where the piece was composed) is also on YT but unfortunately the orchestral accompaniment IMO is not an improvement on the organ, though the opening conveys its usual nobility.

https://youtu.be/_kGqr_nk1Ek

[silvestrione]

Stocken canticles an exciting find IMHO.