On the Tuesday of my visit to New York, I felt in need of a reminder of the old country and went to a service of evensong at St. Thomas’ Fifth Avenue, a church known to me from BBC evensong broadcasts (and a Mag and Nunc CD). Their choir of men and boys, directed by a former director of music at St. Paul’s Cathedral, sings evensong several times a week. The church’s own website, with a music list, is here.
The service I attended had an anthem by Purcell (O God, thou art my God) and canticles by Wise, complemented by a suitably austere psalm chant also by Wise. They shared my taste for not filling in bare fifths. The order of service was familiar, except that I’m not used to the collection being taken during the anthem!
On the Thursday I went to a recital by Dorothea Röschmann and Graham Johnson at Zankel Hall, a recital room attached to Carnegie Hall.
They performed Schubert songs sung by or about four literary heroines, three of the best-known Wunderhorn lieder, and Berg’s Seven Early Songs. There was much for me to learn from here, and I was well placed to do so being near the front. The singing was impassioned without ever being less than totally controlled. Graham Johnson’s accompaniments easily matched it, and I didn’t miss the colour of the orchestral versions of the Berg and Mahler songs. I was particularly impressed by the balance the performers achieved when melodies and counter-melodies changed places between voice and piano in several of the Seven Early Songs (offhand, I can’t think of other songs which do this). At the end of these, my neighbour all but came to blows with the man on the other side of her, who alleged that she’d turned the page of the translation booklet during the closing bars of Im Zimmer (I heard nothing myself). Perhaps he was listening to the high B flats in the piano part which are now sometimes performed (as this time), although in my score they are printed as small notes and marked as ‘not to be played; they refer to the orchestral version’. Speaking of extraneous noise, I heard a subway train only once in this subterranean venue.
Next up is a write-up of a visit to Winchester Cathedral with the Erleigh Cantors.
I went to St Thomas’s Fifth Ave earlier this year – I was thrown by having to sit during the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis!
At Bath Abbey it’s usual to sit for the Mattins canticles (or at least for the long the Te Deum) but not for the evensong ones. When in an unfamiliar place I usually avoid sitting near the front (which is where I’d naturally go otherwise) so that I can see what other people do about standing and sitting.
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The music list for the period of your visit does not seem to be there any more, but I guess the canticles were Wise in F, quite a pleasing service but not often heard (in my experience any way). The last time I heard them I was conducting because, when I was an Organ Scholar at Bristol, I put them down for our visit to Hereford – that was in 1980! We used to do them at Peterborough when I was a boy. (We also used to do Rootham in E minor which I have never heard since; this setting was one of Stanley Vann’s favourites).
Was the chant too austere for the words, or just a dreary and perfunctory affair? From what you say it seems you would have picked a better chant for the occasion!
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I’ve sung Wise in E flat/F with more than one choir, and heard other people perform it, so I think it’s holding its place in the repertoire. But Rootham in E minor is only a name to me – I don’t think it’s even on the Priory Records Mag and Nunc recordings.
Actually, in general I prefer austere chants to fruity ones, especially if the rest of the service music is early. This particular chant by Wise featured on a broadcast from St. Alban’s during the Purcell tercentenary year, coupled with a single chant attributed to Henry Purcell, and was one of the finest performances of psalms I have heard, though it would not be to everyone’s taste. I’ll be posting on another aspect of Anglican chant again fairly soon – watch this space.
Delighted to find that St Thomas 5th Avenue puts its choral services online:
http://www.saintthomaschurch.org/Stream.html