Chantry Singers are doing 3 pieces by John Rutter in our concert. As someone once said to me ‘We don’t have Christmas-tide any more – it’s Rutter-tide’. I’m not a huge fan (there’s only so much ‘oo’ and ‘ah’ ing accompaniment I can take), but there’s no denying he can write catchy tunes. I’ve heard a rumour that he has written jingles for BBC Radio 2 and when I first went to Japan I wondered whether he also wrote the snatches of melody which are played on bullet trains as they approach stations. There was one on the shinkansen between Sendai and Tokyo which sounded very like the introduction to the Sans Day Carol! No, it’s more likely Japanese composers who’ve been to carol concerts full of arrangements from ‘Carols for Choirs’. [2019 update: they still do this!]
Now how many people buy recordings by the Cambridge Singers thinking that the choir is something to do with Cambridge? Many of the singers have studied at Cambridge, but that’s about as far as it goes. I lived in Cambridge for six years and they never performed there; in fact I don’t know that they give concerts anywhere or do anything apart from meet in London to make recordings.
A fine cartoon in the latest Private Eye: two choirboys in the stalls, one saying to the other ‘I can’t believe it’s not Rutter…!’. I don’t expect most of the readership will get the joke though.
You hate to begrudge the man his success, there are plenty of opportunities for composers to write and arrange seasonal music with their own holiday feelings.
And yet, and yet. . . the music really does tend to sound the same after a while, a soft-focus Christmas-that-never-really-was. As if he has taken David Willcocks’ arrangements and shaved the sharp edges off.
Found this site purely by chance – must comment about John Rutter’s music – one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever heard (schmalz if you like!!) was “Look at the World” sung by Alicia King (BBC Choirgirl of the Year 2002) in ‘Songs of Praise’ October 6th 2002, with flute and harp accompaniment – I feel deprived as only two verses were sung!
Good to see a real comment getting posted – I was worried some might have been thrown away with spam. For Rutter in a rather different vein see my comments here.
No more posts since mine of November 8th, 2004?
Pity – interesting site
There haven’t been any more non-spam comments on this entry since then, but I’m still putting several new entries a month into the blog. After discounting a few entries which are closed to new comments, there’s still a choice of over 200 entries to comment on! There are at present 218 genuine comments. I estimate at least a hundred readers visit the site for every one who posts a comment on it. (I don’t mind this, as most of the genuine comments I receive have something to add, and I don’t want to be overwhelmed!)