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Choral Evensong Blog

Choral Evensong Blog: Sunday 6th May 2018

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The psalm appointed for this evening is Ps 45, which begins ‘My heart is inditing of a good matter.’ These words have been set by Purcell, and also by Handel as one of the four anthems he wrote for the coronation of George II in 1727. (The most famous is, of course, Zadok the priest.) Verse 10 of this psalm has the memorable words, also set by Handel, ‘Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in a vesture of gold.’

The Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis will be sung to Harris in A minor. This is a companion piece to Harris in A which we sang last year. The copies we use are from the St Albans Diocesan Choir Festival of 1964. Both settings are in the “short service” idiom; they contain limited word repetition and little counterpoint, which does make them short, but makes the words come through the texture clearly. Harris cleverly achieves musical unity by adapting the opening phrases to new words as the music progresses. The time-signature is a simple 4/4, but Harris follows the metre of the words and we have bars of six and, more occasionally, five and seven beats.

The anthem is ‘Surgens Jesus’ by Peter Philips (c1560-1628), an English composer who because of retaining his catholic faith fled to Holland. One source that I saw gave the text as that of Responsary 8 for Low Sunday in the Roman rite. There is an equivalence in the Anglican rite with the Gospel for Low Sunday, St John chapter 20 vv 19-20. “[Then] came Jesus and stood in the midst [of the disciples] and saith unto them, Peace be unto you…[alleluia]. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. [alleluia]” Philips was especially fond of setting responsary texts because the responds, in this case the alleluias, enabled him to repeat earlier music and make a satisfying musical shape – A (text) – B (alleluia) – C (different text)- B (same alleluia). In ‘Surgens Jesus’ the two text sections are set very differently. The first is in typical renaissance imitative style with word painting (rising five-note pattern for surgens); the words of Jesus, pax vobis, are set in very slow chords. The second text section, gavisi sunt, is largely chordal in quicker triple time.

The voluntary is Altro recercar by Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643). Frescobaldi was one of the greatest keyboard composers of the early seventeenth century and perhaps the first to be known mainly for his keyboard works. Altro recercar comes from Frescobaldi’s last newly composed publication, the fiori musicali published in Venice in 1635. The pieces in this publication are written for liturgical use in the mass, but use the standard keyboard forms of the day: toccata, canzona, capriccio and ricercar. By Frescobaldi’s time the ricercar had become a highly imitative piece and is in many ways the ancestor of the fugue. The altro recercar introduces three different themes which are combined in the final section.

Easter Evensong 2018

And now a full-time report on music listings at English Cathedrals at Evensong on Easter Day. The question was whether Stanford continued to hold sway for settings of the canticles at celebratory evensongs. Well, he does: 13 of the 44 cathedrals used his Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis settings and his nearest rival was Herbert Howells with 9. Between them they accounted for half the settings sung on this day. George Dyson (6), Charles Wood (5) and William Walton (2) were the only others with more than one listing. On individual settings Stanford also was predominant. His setting in A was listed 10 times, ahead of Dyson in D (6), and the Collegium Regale settings by Howells and Wood in F (3 each). If “Coll Reg” these days is inextricably linked with Howells, it should be noted that the Wood setting dedicated to King’s College, Cambridge is 40 years earlier and, judging from this Easter Day, has not been overtaken by Howells.

The survey has identified 20 canticle settings by 13 composers. 17 of these pieces were written by 10 of the composers in the hundred years from 1875 and Henry Smart’s setting can be only 25 years or so earlier. It seems that a powerful setting with independent organ part is what is wanted. The other two settings come from the years after the Restoration by Michael Wise and Henry Purcell. So nothing from the Renaissance and nothing from the last 40 years; and only three composers born in the 20th century, William Walton, Kenneth Leighton and William Mathias.

The anthems show a more varied range. There are works by Byrd, Gibbons and Weelkes of early composers and more recent compositions by Jonathan Dove, Richard Shephard and Matthew Owens, as well as traditional favourites. Six cathedrals programmed Wesley’s “Blessed be the God and Father”, four “Worthy is the Lamb” from Messiah, and three Byrd’s “Haec dies”. This is much as you would expect, but it is not entirely fair because other anthems were sung at morning services.

Neither is it quite fair to talk about Matins because of the accent on communion services on Easter morning, but I’m going to. Only 13 of the 44 cathedrals had a choral Matins on Easter Day and seven of them sang a Stanford Te Deum (5 Bbs and 2 Cs). Walton’s Jubilate came up three times, Britten twice (what a shame he didn’t write a Mag and Nunc), and Ireland and Vaughan Williams also twice. We went to St Peter’s where they did Stanford in B flat and jolly good it was too! So Stanford’s position is confirmed: he is the go-to composer for celebratory canticles.

So what is my reaction to this? I’m not at all surprised by the dominance of Stanford and Howells, but it is interesting that Dyson in D holds its place so well and I’m delighted that Wood continues to feature. But where are the new pieces? Is the divide between concert and church music becoming wider? And if it is, are congregations more conservative than audiences? It all comes down to the place of music in worship, but it’s important that the best composers are encouraged to write for the church.

Anyone who is not completely turned off by the “anorak” nature of all this can get a list of the full result from me.

Damian Cranmer

Choral Evensong Blog, Easter

Choral Evensong Blog: Easter Day, Sunday 1st April, 6.30pm

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Firstly a follow-up to my comments on Responses for February’s choral evensong. I found myself singing tenor in the Byrd for the March service and was surprised to find that, after the creed, the tenor part follows Merbecke’s plainsong line, as it does in Tallis and Morley. The Byrd, then, is not newly composed throughout. But William Smith’s is, and it is his setting that we sing on Easter Day. Smith (1603-1645) was attached to the cathedral in Durham for most of his life, as choirboy, minor canon and precentor, and the elaborate nature of these responses may have some connection with a feud at Durham in the 1620s between two of the prebendaries, John (later bishop) Cosin and Peter Smart. Cosin’s position on music can be construed from Smart’s attack on him: “…you have so changed the whole liturgy, that though it be not in Latin, yet by reason of the confusedness of voices of so many singers, with a multitude of melodious instruments … the greatest part of the service is no better understood, than if it were in Hebrew or in Irish…”(Grove’s Dictionary) It seems that Smith sided with Cosin. The revival of Smith’s responses has largely been the inspiration for the multitude of 20th century settings, after being almost completely neglected by composers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)

When I saw that Stanford in C had been selected for Easter Day choral evensong, I thought that it was a good and obvious choice. Stanford is the go-to man for celebratory settings. I then wondered whether this view was out of line with current thinking in cathedrals. So I trawled through the websites of the 44 members of the Association of English Cathedrals to see what they were singing at Easter evensong. (What is a cathedral is questionable at the edges, for example Westminster Abbey and St George’s Windsor, but this was a comprehensive list to start with.)   Half of them at the time of writing, 12 March, had not published their music lists for 1 April, so I am having to make do with just 22 results at the moment. So far, no Stanford in C, but five of the 22 are singing Stanford in A, and only three other settings come up more than once: two each for Howells’ St Paul’s Service and the D major services of Dyson and Wood. Howells is represented by three additional settings and Wood by two, so, at what we might call half-time, the score is Stanford and Howells 5, Wood 4, Dyson 2 and six others 1. Historically, there is some evidence that Stanford quickly established himself as a festive composer. I have been looking at some old music lists for Christ Church Oxford. In five of the seven years that I have looked at between 1883 and 1964, Stanford in B flat or in C was sung at Easter evensong. In 1883, only four years after it was written, Stanford in B flat was sung 12 times at Christ Church.

So what about the music? Stanford in C is a great piece and the opening of the Gloria with antiphonal unaccompanied choir and thunderous organ is a masterstroke. But we should do Stanford in A sometime.

Percy Whitlock

The anthem is ‘He is risen’ by Percy Whitlock, who has come up in this column on a number of occasions. The publication date of 1932 suggests that it was written while he was director of music at St Stephen’s, Bournemouth and it is written in a style that makes it eminently suitable for parish choirs. It uses straightforward harmony but has enough counterpoint to keep the interest. There are three verses, with the third verse an altered version of the music for the first. The words come from a poem by Mrs CF Alexander. It is included in some hymn books, Common Praise apparently, but the words come in various forms, most notably with He replaced by Christ, so that the opening line is ‘Christ is risen’.

The voluntary is JS Bach’s Fugue in G major BWV577. Its nickname, the Gigue Fugue, comes from the 12/8 time signature, and it rattles along at quite a pace. I remember a television series featuring the virtuoso American organist Carlo Curley, who incidentally made his home here in England until his untimely death in 2012. In the 1970s he was resident organist at the Alexandra Palace and, because of his size and showmanship, he became known as “the Pavarotti of the organ”. The final piece in one particular programme was the Gigue Fugue, and as he got on to the organ stool, he said – and you have to hear this in his native North Carolina accent – “Watch my size 12s dance!” The organist’s feet have to move as quickly as the hands and it’s quite a challenge, but a wonderful way to end the service on this special day.

Damian Cranmer

Choral Evensong Blog, Special Services, Worship

Music for Palm Sunday: The Way of the Cross, 25 March 6.30pm

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Music plays a significant part in this service. ‘Ride on’ by Grayston Ives (b1948) was commissioned for the Ash Wednesday to Easter for Choirs volume (1998) in the comprehensive OUP series of albums of choral music for all seasons. Away from composing he is Bill Ives, former tenor in the King’s Singers and more recently director of the choir at Magdalen College, Oxford (actually Informator Choristarum). In this post he was responsible for the 2003 recording of the music of Orlando Gibbons (With a Merrie Noyse) which was one of the earliest recordings of Tudor music to explore the use of lower pitch and a choir with high tenors instead of altos. (See last month’s blog.) The words are those of the hymn (HON 435) by Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868), an interesting character whose biography on Wikipedia is well worth reading. The music follows the upbeat nature of the words with prominent use of a rising 5th until “in lowly pomp ride on to die” where all becomes much softer and the choir sings on one note to the end. The organ is independent of the choir throughout and is dominated by the rhythm – crotchet, dotted minim – perhaps illustrating the inevitability of what is to come.

And this is where O vos omnes (O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see: if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow) follows on. The text is an adaptation of Lamentations 1:12 of the Latin Vulgate Bible used as a responsary for Holy Week. If the English translation does not seem quite right, as it doesn’t to me, it’s probably because of familiarity with the King James version, which starts ‘Is it nothing to you’ and which has been set by Ouseley, and Stainer in The Crucifixion. O vos omnes (I wish my computer wouldn’t “correct” my Latin!) was set by almost anyone you can think of in the sixteenth century – and many more since. Our version is by someone you might not have thought of, Giovanni Croce (c1557-1609), a Venetian priest who wrote much music including a set of 4-part motets published in 1597, which almost certainly included this piece. It is simple in style, but effective in communicating the text. Croce was described in a contemporary report as “a reliable singer of moderate quality”. Some of us might be reasonably pleased with such a comment, but I’m not sure it was intended as a compliment at the time.

With The Reproaches by John Sanders (1933-2003) we have reached Good Friday. I wrote about this remarkable piece last year. The Latin Improperia have been in the liturgy since at least the ninth century, but were deleted from the English rite at the Reformation, only to be restored at a later point. If O vos omnes has been set by numerous composers, it is surprising that the Improperia have attracted few, only Palestrina and Victoria of the sixteenth century. Sanders’ setting, in English, has three refrains, two different settings of Micah 6:3, “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me!” and the other “Holy is God, holy and strong, holy Immortal One, have mercy on us”, the text of a Greek hymn from the 5th century with references to the Sanctus (Isaiah 6:3 and/or Revelation 4:8). These multi-part refrains are contrasted with single-line plainsong verses, all in a two-part structure as in the first verse: “I led you out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom; but you led your Saviour to the cross.” The form is that of a traditional responsary, such as Allegri’s Miserere, also linked inextricably with Lent, but the slow, languid and rich harmony, often in 8 parts, is more reminiscent of Gesualdo but with 20th-century twists. The penitential mood is set by the preponderance of minor chords: there are only three major chords in the piece. This results in tonally unrelated sequences, for example, G minor-B minor-F minor-A minor at “Holy is God”.

I’m interested in the derivation of hymn tune names, and here’s a bit of obscure pub quiz information. Sir Sydney Nicholson, of whom I wrote for February’s choral evensong, composed the tune to our first hymn ‘We sing the praise of him who died’ (HON 536) and called it Bow Brickhill, which is a village near Milton Keynes. All Saints’ church had a visit from Sir Sydney and the choristers of Westminster Abbey in 1923 and this tune honours that occasion. Also, fittingly, we sing two great chorale tunes used by Bach in his Passions, though sadly HON gives only one of Bach’s matchless harmonisations.

Jonathan plays us out to JS Bach’s Fantasia in G minor BWV542. The improvisatory opening, with all the interest in the right hand and chords beneath, alternates with more rhythmic and contrapuntal sections. Bach thought in such a linear way that even the introductions to his fugues contain fugal passages. Partly because of this, these introductions (fantasias, preludes, toccatas) can stand as complete pieces in their own right.

Damian Cranmer