Introit: Deep River (Tippett)
Responses: Rose
Psalms: 12, 13 (Crotch, Battishill, Hylton Stewart, Elgar)
First Lesson: Deuteronomy 15, vv12-15
Office Hymn: Our God and Father (Song 1)
Canticles: Jackson in G
Second Lesson: Colossians 3, vv1-4, 9-11
Anthem: The earth is the Lord's (Philip Wilby)
Homily: The Very Rev Robert Grimley
Final Hymn: There's a wideness in God's mercy (Corvedale)
Organ Voluntary: Choral from Symphonie No 2 (Vierne)

Director of music: Mark Lee
Assistant organist: Paul Walton


Slightly curious service. Started with great richness in the Tippett, lots of voices, nicely paced and plenty of woomph - dead right for the Year of Abolition. Then it all sort of wilted. Was there a major change in personnel or something? Or what?

Psalms OK - slightly ragged endings on one or two occasions - good men, tenors particularly. Jackson isn't a favourite of mine, but got a bit 'thin' in sound and confidence in places, thought neat and efficient enough. I quite like the Wilby, but surely is meant for a bigger mass of voices, or a cathedral choir with a lot more beef at the top than Bristol currently boast.

Yes, it was a very respectable sing all round + decent homily, though maybe a bit light on new things to say. The Vierne is usually a stunner, but again, there was just that hint of tentativeness. I cannot put my finger on it at all - the whole service seemed to quietly fade away after a pretty cracking start.

YET, all that said, it was VERY nice to have Bristol back on the circuit.

FF, did you go after all?

I too enjoyed this service - a perfectly respectable cathedral evensong which I was pleased to attend by proxy.  I thought the homily might have spared us some of the details of life aboard a slaver..... we surely know enough of the awful details without reminders from the pulpit.  Yet I accept that a Bristol preacher had to stick with that topic as we put ourselves through a strange year of national conscience-salving mixed with self-congratulation.

I'm afraid that I felt the  singing was just slightly insecure throughout.  The Tippett was indeed spirited, but weren't there moments of suspect intonation?  In both canticles and anthem (though not in the Responses) I was left with the impression that the choir was working at the outer edge of its capacity (but not that the forces changed midstream).  The result was slightly unsettling, though in practice the music came across well enough to adorn the service as it should.  I had not heard the Wilby anthem before, and liked it well enough - I didn't feel the choir was unduly overstretched here, though the style of music can only be described as Universal Anglican.

Once again I would like to suspend a question-mark over the BBC engineering.  I thought the sound was 'constipated' - the choir seemed rather too distant, yet benefited very little from any reverb the building had to offer.  I would be easily convinced that the Bristol choir is actually better than we heard.  Furthermore, this CE seriously overlapped with TV's Songs of Praise on BBC2.  Although the two programmes do not necessarily appeal to the same audience, I cannot but feel that the clash of two flagship religious broadcasts reveals a certain contempt by the BBC for its own religious content.  Even on Sunday, sport took priority.

Thanks for the reminder about St Thomas NYC - I had not realised that the full choir had returned to duty.  I much enjoyed the Howells - it sits well with their style - but the Moore anthem was also a good listen.  A full broadside from this choir packs quite a punch, though I sense that the building's acoustic rewards the treble line only in the top third of their register - top quarter, even.

Howells...... in many of his settings, it seems to me that he turns the musical screw at the words "Abraham and his seed for ever", and especially at the word "seed".  The Gloucester Mag is no exception.  I have a theory that Howells was always thinking back to his own lost son at this point - I surely don't need to labour the point.  But his settings of "for ever" always end sweetly - a major triad - as if there were some reconciliation at hand.  Any views on that theory?

Seeing the comments here and looking at biographical details on the web, set me searching to see whether, having lived in London more than fifty years and died in London, Herbert Howells has a blue plaque. It seems he doesn't as yet but maybe now would be timely to propose one. Anyone know of any of his London addresses. Maybe in the Hammersmith, Kensington,  Chiswick area? ??  Would be appropriate to join Parry and Stanford et al IMO.

bws
Chris S