The Choir of King's College Cambridge stopped in Cincinnati, Ohio last week to sing a concert at Saint Peter in Chains Cathedral. Interestingly, this Roman Catholic edifice stands across the street from the Isaac M. Wise temple, which Sinden.org visited and photographed in March 2006.
Web site tangent: The cathedral website looks pretty nice on first blush but contains some pretty glaring errors. Spelling-wise "Calender" and "alter" come to mind. More to the point, I couldn't order my ticket to the concert online, because the order form was not secure
Being the most famous choir of men and boys in the world, it is not surprising that the 1,000-seat cathedral was filled to capacity. What was surprising is that the front half of the cathedral was militantly reserved for cathedral music "patrons". While this was mildly offensive at first, I soon realized that the strict ushers guarding white ribbons dividing the cabin into first-class and coach sections were simply reminding us of the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.
So, listening from about halfway down the nave in a Roman Catholic cathedral in the Midwestern United States, I heard one of my favorite choirs in person for the first time.
The concert began with Tudor works by Gibbons, Weelkes and Tompkins which were ably, but not memorably sung.
The choir then processed back out leaving Tom Kimber, the junior Organ Scholar to perform Verset pour la Fête de la Dédicace (1960). The audience, however, would have none of it -- at least not during the performance. The atmosphere during this first organ piece was one of excited chit-chat before Sunday morning church, and not that of an audience enjoying a performance at $45 a pop. I found this kind of disrespect for the organ performance reprehensible, and I hope that this kind of behavior did not manifest itself on the rest of the choir's tour.
a spoonful of Tudor makes the Messiaen go down
That being said, the Verset is perhaps not the most well known of Messiaen's music (is any of Messiaen's music really well known?), but in a centennial year (noted in the program notes) I think concert goers, especially those moving in ecclesiastical circles could expect to encounter a bit more of his music this year. Even if King's programming of this work skews toward the more "academic" approach, well, why shouldn't it? After all, a spoonful of Tudor makes the Messiaen go down, or it least it should have. Shame on the duplicitous Cincinnati audience, who essentially ignored the performance, and then applauded it heartily.
The choir returned in a Lenten mood to sing a sumptuously evocative "O vos omnes" of Pablo Casals. The peneitential motets of Poulenc, aside from fleeting uncertainties in the opening "Timor et tremor", were remarkable for their powerful dynamic range.
Intermission provided ample opportunity to gawk at another choir in the audience: the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, Terrace Park, Ohio. The trebles of that choir were clearly star-struck.
From the opening notes of Bach's motet "Lobet den Herrn", one Terrace Park treble in particular, exhibited what can only be described as a sympathetic bounciness. While he must have felt that the energy of that performance was palpable, the King's trebles at the front of the room were having a harder time feeling the beat. The culprit in this case being the organ, which was consistently behind the beat in this work. At one point toward the end of the first section the trebles, a particularly young looking group, were so confounded by the conflicting beats that they dropped all of their notes for about a bar before being able to recover.
A much more refreshing Bach was then heard from the organ alone: the hearty E-flat Major Prelude performed by Peter Stevens, the senior Organ Scholar. I can only infer that Stevens's elegant performance is a testament to the rigors of his training and daily performance at King's Chapel. The prelude was decidedly accurate and musical, a model of British refinement.
The choir redeemed their unfortunate Bach motet with powerfully resonant renditions of works by British composers. The dense harmonies of the Michael Tippet's Plebs angelica and modern rhetoric of the Britten "Antiphon" proved no match for this truly Anglican choral ensemble. The crowning achievement of this set, and the evening, was Vaughan Williams's visceral "Lord, though hast been our refuge", which sufficiently brought the house down so as to reveal Walton's intimate "Set me as a seal" as an encore.
Throughout the evening, the audience craned their necks en masse at every treble solo, endeavoring to see what innocent, angelic soul had been chosen to produce such sweet sound. It seemed that the neck-craners were, to a man, the same people who couldn't keep their mouths shut for the Messiaen, with one exception.
Remember that bouncy Terrace Park treble? He returned from intermission cradling his new, shrink-wrapped compact disc of Purcell and literally stood up on his pew to see the first treble soloist.
His wide-eyed awe and enthusiasm reminded me that he wasn't just listening to a concert, he was also listening to a tradition, one in which he does his best to take part.
As it turns out, I almost had the best seat in the house.
Labels: King's College (Cambridge), review
The first part of a new series that reviews the American Film Instute's list "100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)".
I was pretty impressed when two DVDs arrived in the mail (it's an old school epic with overture, entr'acte), but not as impressed as I was by the awesome, nine-lap chariot race. It is clearly the model for the podrace in The Phantom Menace, but that one is not nearly as good.
The rest of the movie -- and there is a lot of it -- is less impressive. Leprosy and Jesus make an appearance.
This film fell 28 places (and nearly off the list), and I can't say I am surprised. It was #72 on the original.
Herself was away last evening, so one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had read all 147 pages (double-spaced) of Daniel McGrath's doctoral thesis, The Choir School in the American Church, which is a hearty defense of men and boys choirs and an advocate for their implementation.
McGrath wisely points out the checkered past of the men & boys choir phenomenon in England: moving from monastery to cathedral and being periodically suppressed by ornery monarchs. In the U.S. choirs of men & boys enjoyed a brief golden age from the 1890s to the early 1920s when there were well over 100 such choirs in the country, many accompanied by choir schools. Now there are about 25 and one school (St Thomas, New York).
McGrath gets a lot right in his dissertation, and his keen observations on rehearsals and structure of choir programs would be well worth a look to anyone in the business.
One of the irritating facets of the dissertation, however, is McGrath's insistence that the 1979 American Prayer Book is antithetical to the notion of a men and boys' choir.
[The] development [of the 1979 Prayer Book] has had a devastating impact on American choirs of men and boys because their repertoire uses the words of the classic Anglican liturgies, and thus the content of the liturgy, rather than the shape, is of greater importance. Some choirmasters of this era argued that it was “inconceivable” that four and a half centuries of great choral repertoire would have to be abandoned just because the priest was saying some thing new at the altar. However, music and the liturgy are so closely intertwined in the Anglican tradition that it is difficult to see how there could be any other outcome.
At face value this just doesn't seem factual or logical. Choirs of men and boys still exist at 25% of their Golden Age levels, and the repertoire they sing is still drawn from those "four and a half centuries". It should be noted that some of these churches still use the 1928 book, but it simply doesn't follow that "traditional prayer book parishes" are the only ones able to support choirs of men and boys.
At times it seems like McGrath's distinction between content (1928) and shape (1979) is an artificial dichotomy he constructs to further his preference for the 1928 book. In my mind, the shape of the Gloria, and its original place in the service (not the errant place it is given in the 1928 book!) has been preserved in the 1979 book. Whether the "content" of the choral Gloria matches the book is irrelevant; no Book of Common Prayer has ever included the Gloria in Latin, yet most choirs of men and boys sing a number of settings in that language.
The 1979 version of Evensong, however, does necessitate some revision in order for the traditional versions of the Preces and Responses to be sung. But to my mind, the 1979 Prayer Book accommodates these "content" changes within the "shape" of Evensong.
And even McGrath admits that places like Grace Church, Newark perform the 1979 liturgy "tastefully".
For all that is well reasoned in the dissertation, McGrath's personal contempt for the 1979 prayer book clouds his arguments in favor of the traditional liturgy. I am not convinced that the Anglican choral tradition is a propaganda tool with which to advocate a return to the traditional liturgy. In some sense, McGrath, whom I presume identifies as an Anglican, and not an American Episcopalian, comes dangerously close to suggesting this.
Nor am I convinced that present liturgical realities will permit a large-scale return to the traditional prayer book. Those cathedrals and endowed parishes in the Episcopal Church who have or desire to have choir "schools" will likely have them with Rite II liturgical language. But how do we prepare our choirs for the next prayer book revision? How do we reconcile the tradition with the theoretical "Rite III"?
If we recognize the men and boys'/girls' choir as an outreach opportunity for the Church that edifies the moral and musical fiber of young men and women, we should seek to open that tradition to all who are interested, and not limit it to a singular understanding of the liturgy.
We limit not the truth of God
to our poor reach of mind,
by notions of our day and sect,
crude, partial, and confined.
no, let a new and better hope
within our hearts be stirred:The Lord hath yet more light and truth
to break forth from his word.George Rawson (1807-1889)
When Dallas built the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, nothing would do but equipping it with the best pipe organ money could buy. Now we're lucky to hear the big C.B. Fisk organ in a solo recital once a year.
Cantrell, Scott. "Fussiness dampens organist John Scott's power". Dallas Morning News, 1 Nov 2007.
An interesting remark, but one that doesn't really surprise me. Texas tends to be all about the show and all about the money. One might say it's a "show me the money" kind of state. The Meyerson Fisk certainly displays a great deal of money donated by the Lay's potato chip family. And don't get me wrong -- it's a great organ, but one that is better seen than heard. Texans aren't really interested in "hearing the money" after all.
I'm picking on Texas here because it's fun. Really, this is the kind of thing I imagine happens everywhere. Having an organ in a concert hall is a great idea, one grounded in the past and the future, but not the present. Concert halls have historically had nice organs in them, so concert hall designers naturally want an organ in their hall. If they don't put an organ in, they reason, they'll wish they had later when the conductor wants to sell out a concert with the Saint-Saens "Organ" Symphony, but lacks an instrument.
And certainly those concert halls built with organs do use them from time to time; mostly in big, showy "organ & orchestra" pieces like the Saint-Saens and a handful of others.
But as far as the concert hall organ as a recital instrument? This is a harder sell. Dallas is living through the Meyerson organ's first decade, and Scott Cantrell, the reviewer, is among those who are unhappy with how often the instrument is heard in a solo capacity (or maybe even with orchestra?). I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons why the organ isn't heard all that often, chief among them being hall availability/expense and the organ's unpopularity as a solo instrument. These two factors in combination set the stage for the reality of "a solo recital once a year" if we're lucky.
As if on cue, hot-shot Julliard organ professor Paul Jacobs sounds off to the Morning Call: "I've always believed that if watching people hit a golf ball around can be embraced by the public and have such a large following, surely the organ, played in an exulting manner, should be able to attract an equal audience in terms of size".
As orchestras more carefully market their programming to their audiences, they also manipulate organ programming. The organ, rather than an instrument of artistic merit, is used as another avenue to bring people into the concert hall (where they can then be sold on the halls beauty, and the affordability of other concerts held there). One such ploy, as I see it, is the accompanying of silent movies around Halloween time. There's nothing wrong with this, per se, but (hypothetically) given that the organ in the concert hall is not a theater organ, and given that this is the only time the organ is heard by itself, then yes, this is gimmicky. An improvised film accompaniment, even when done well, lacks the variety and artistry of a varied program of organ repertoire.
But then there's John Scott, who Dallas brought in to play the back 9 on the Meyerson. So, how does John Scott fair in his Dallas recital? Is he as exciting as Tiger Woods?
Mr. Scott's virtuoso technique was everywhere in evidence, and there certainly wasn't a dull moment. . . He got a standing ovation.
Good -- but is that good enough?
Stylistically, though, this was baroque playing of a kind that came and went in the United States two decades ago.. . . [I]n the 1970s and early '80s some organists tried to outdo one another in breaking up lines with fussy articulations and clipped pedal notes.
Scholarly players have long since moved beyond this kind of point-making, but not, it seems, Mr. Scott.
More freely written passages . . . were turned into extravagant taffy pulls.
This was a burlesque of historically informed performance practices, artifice choking art.
Wow. And this choked art gets a standing ovation?
. . . yes, a Sinden.org treatment of Standing Ovation Syndrome (SOS) is long overdue . . .
Even if organists can't all play up to Paul Jacobs's standards (and who can?) somehow I think that concert hall committees will continue to build organs.
But they'll be fussy about it. It's always fussiness when it comes to the organ.
Labels: John Scott, organs, Paul Jacobs, review
It seems to me that being a good soloist ultimately comes down to how you play your ensemble.
Take Augustin Hadelich, the young, Italian-born winner of the 2006 Indianapolis Violin Competition whom I heard perform Saturday. He played well, and with character, but there was a certain self-centeredness to his interpretation of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. The tempo of each phrase was seemingly chosen with regard to how Hadelcih wanted his instrument to sound -- and the tempi fluctuated wildly.
This was distracting for me, as an audience member, because it seemed random. Maybe Hadelich doesn't really believe the Tchaikovsky is a worthy concerto and that he must put his own stamp on the piece for it to be effective. Or maybe he just has to be sure that his Gingold Strad will speak optimally at all times.
Either way, it seemed that Hadelich made these changes at the expense of the orchestra. I don't mean that he didn't talk about his ideas with the conductor ahead of time, I simply mean that the accompaniment didn't figure significantly in his decisions. To my thinking, this self-centered approach is a mistake.
As an organist, a soloist with a choral ensemble, if you will, I know that I play my best when I "play the choir" and the play to the choir's needs. Now granted, in modern terms, I am a soloist, but I could be considered an accompanying "ensemble".
I know that I am still learning to play the choir, and that it's not easy, but listening to Hadelich brought this concept into focus for me. Mature players are not musically self-centered, which actually brings the focus on their playing.
Life is better when we all get along.
MyPipes.org, a website selling organ mp3s, did not impress me the first time I visited. Now that the site actually has content, my impressions haven't really changed.
The site looks cluttered, the graphics have an 80's sheen, and all the text is too small.
The photos are all poorly chosen. From the banner image at the top to the oddly cropped images of CD photography (one presumes?), everything looks sort of thrown together.
Part of the blame here must lie in the site's concept: getting away from the CD. Zarex is somehow under the misapprehension that to confuse the mp3 files available on the site with the CDs from which they come would be detrimental to sales. This is absurd. I would never have listened to these excerpts anywhere else, and was frustrated that links to the CDs from which they come are not provided.
The buttons for manipulating each product are needlessly cumbersome and redundant. "Download to cart" one button says. "Listen 30"" says another. And these appear for every file (and they don't even work well -- see below). As a site offering mp3s for sale, users are going to expect to be able to listen to exerpts of files before purchasing. This doesn't need to be explained with so much text. A few universal symbols would suffice.
I must have clicked on "Listen to 30"" about six times before I realized that my browser was blocking a popup. How annoying. And when I did hear it, I was sure it didn't play the whole way through, but then I realized that someone did a remarkably poor job of fading out the excerpt the way online music perveyors have known to do for years.
And I must have clicked on "Download to cart" about six times before I realized that on the opposite side of the screen, in a red box viewable only by scrolling down, was an indication that had "1 item" in my cart. How anti-user.
The phraseology "Download to cart" presents its own set of problems. What am I doing when I click this button? Am I actually downloading the file? Or am I just tagging that file to be downloaded later, say when I hand over my credit card information?
Occasionally, by clicking on the title bar, I was able to get the site to tell me "There are currently no tracks available. Please try again at a later date."
I would love to try again, especially if Zarex would just put these up on iTunes. They would spend a lot less on MyPipes.org, and I'll wager that a lot more of their organ music would be purchased too.
©MMVII sinden.org: a site for fun and prophet
