There is a proposal to re-tune the organ at Peterborough Cathedral down to A=440. About a third of the necessary money had been raised when Robert Quinney landed the job at New College Oxford earlier this year, but when the Erleigh Cantors visited to sing for a weekend there was no mention of it by the precentor or on the displays about forthcoming projects at the Cathedral. (I was a little sorry that these proposals did not include the development of a proper choir rehearsal room which could be used by visiting choirs, like the new ones at several other Cathedrals; we rehearsed in a long, narrow and acoustically difficult room in the education centre.) For now, one just has to mentally re-tune when singing there.
[Jan 2015: the funds to re-tune the organ have now been raised. And the next project is a ‘Cathedral and Community Music School’ which I’d hope would include somewhere for visiting choirs to base themselves while at the Cathedral.]
There was one piece that went very high – Britten’s Te Deum in E, which I prefer to his other setting. We paired it with a piece I’d never sung – Mathias’ Jubilate. Actually it isn’t a liturgical Jubilate, but simply a setting of Psalm 100 (AV rather than Coverdale) without a Gloria. Another new piece to me was Gerald Knight’s Now the God of Peace, composed at the conclusion of the Second World War.
Our Mass setting was Cecilia McDowall’s Canterbury Mass. This had some decidedly awkward vocal lines and plenty of time-signature changes. There’s a mediaeval influence underneath it all. More contemporary church music in O Sacrum Convivium by Gabriel Jackson, the first piece I’ve sung by him. My vocal line was not very interesting but the piece set a good post-Communion reflective mood, in a Gorecki-like kind of way.
A new canticle setting for me was Parsons First Service. We debated long and hard about what pitch to sing this at – written pitch sent altos (and at times sopranos) plunging into the depths, but transposing it up distressed those with perfect pitch. Then there was the pitch adjustment required when our starting note came from the organ. Our copy was edited by Magnus Williamson, whom I remember playing the organ on a College choir tour years ago, and who is rather disarming about Parsons’ occasional ineptitude in part-writing. I can see why this setting doesn’t get too many outings – it is rather thick and heavy. Rather more competent Tudor polyphony could be found in Tomkins’ setting of When David heard, our anthem on the Saturday.
We ended our weekend with a big sing – Howells’ St Paul’s Service followed by Stanford’s 23rd Psalm – an old faithful which doesn’t come round very often.