I got away for a weekend singing in Llandaff Cathedral with the Erleigh Cantors: a new venue for them, though one I’d sung in a couple of times before. This time there was a very new organ – we must have been one of the first visiting choirs to sing with it – which made a nice sound though it is still short of a few stops at the moment. My only quibble about its appearance was the heavy black metal grilles on the western parts of the case – unlike the console and the pipes nearest the high altar, there is no need for a safety barrier there and they only obscure the woodwork.<\/p>\n
Most of the music was well known to me. We had a lightish Saturday evensong: Wise’s Canticles in F and for introit Weelkes’ Alleluia – I heard a voice<\/i> which I find one of the hardest pieces in the Oxford Tudor Anthem book, although the difficulty is really with the high tessiatura. The anthem was O Lord look down from heaven<\/i> by Battishill; for those who know this piece, we sang ‘The yearning of thy heart’!<\/p>\n
On Sunday morning I revisited an old Priory Voices favourite, Rheinberger’s Mass for double choir in E flat. This time it included the Kyrie, which I hadn’t sung before. The anthem was O Saviour of the world<\/i> by Ouseley, which makes three composers whom I know mainly through their chants rather than their anthems. (We had a generous amount of psalmody and sang one of Battishill’s chants. If anyone has a copy of the beautiful single chant by Wise – in D minor? – I would like to have it!)<\/p>\n
At Evensong we moved on to later music – Leighton responses as on Saturday, Hadley’s My beloved spake<\/i>, Howells’ St. John’s College canticles, which I’ve only sung once before (we did the ‘alternative’ ending to the Nunc as now seems to be standard), and a new piece for me, Philip Moore’s It is a thing most wonderful<\/i>, which some of us found very affecting. I look forward to singing more of his music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I got away for a weekend singing in Llandaff Cathedral with the Erleigh Cantors: a new venue for them, though one I’d sung in a couple of times before. This time there was a very new organ – we must … Continue reading