My recent excursions to sing at Exeter Cathedral have involved rehearsing in the Chapter House, in one case while people were noisily setting up lunch next to us. I’m happy to say those days are now over, and there is a new rehearsal room which visiting choirs can use. (I can just remember the old one, because we rehearsed there when I first sang at Exeter, with my college choir). This was a great improvement for the Erleigh Cantors’ visit, although we did have to rehearse in the visitors’ centre on Saturday evening. I missed the first two days’ singing and came for the weekend services.
I’d sung all of the music before, mostly with this choir. Saturday’s music included Harris’ Strengthen ye the weak hands, a demanding sing which I would guess contains one of the last (apparently sincerely written) Handelian-style recitatives. A less familar introit was Aston’s Beloved, let us love, an unaccompanied setting of a version of 1 John, which sneaks in a top B flat for sopranos near the end. (And one of the more awkward page-turns, with a crescendo on the first page but no indication of what level you crescendo to, because it’s on the next one!)
On Sunday morning we sang For Lo, I Raise Up by Stanford, the favourite anthem of choral scholars at St. John’s Cambridge ‘He scoffeth at King’s’, and clock-repairers ‘I will stand upon my watch’. Our Eucharist setting was Mathias’ Missa Aedis Christi, which is in his usual ‘Anglican spiky’ style but carefully written with leads for the singers prepared in the accompaniment. Later at Mattins came Britten’s morning canticles in C and Lassus’ Justorum Animae.
On Sunday Evening the Magnificat was Finzi’s setting. This should really give the lie to the idea that Finzi just wrote mild, wishy-washy music. I’ve often wondered whether the multiple repetition of the word ‘Abraham’ near the end is a tribute to the composer’s Jewish descent. We paired this with Rachmaninov’s Nunc Dimittis (in English), and a relatively short anthem, Sydney Carter’s Sing we merrily.
I should like to praise Exeter for something I’ve never commented on before in writing up Cathedral visits: the comfortable and beautiful needlepoint cushions the choir sit on. Exeter clearly has a very active and skilled church needlework team.
Almost every time I go to Exeter there happens to be a visitor in the congregation who knows me. This time, it generated a blog post (the title of the blog does not reflect his opinion of the choir!)