Psalms

[Martin Cooke]

Hmm. Did anyone else feel that the chant really didn't do anything for the psalm?

I agree - I tried to work out why psalm and chant were paired in the context and indeed the purpose of the chant 'doing what it did' musically....but in the end did not managed to!

 

A

 

Come on - we all know - the chant was ghastly. No accounting for taste.

[Guest Patrick Coleman]

Come on - we all know - the chant was ghastly. No accounting for taste.

 

[Alistair McEwan]

Hmm. Did anyone else feel that the chant really didn't do anything for the psalm?

I agree - I tried to work out why psalm and chant were paired in the context and indeed the purpose of the chant 'doing what it did' musically....but in the end did not managed to!

 

A

An odd pairing indeed.

This chant would be more effective allied to secular words and sung by The Swingle Singers!

A

[sbarber49]

I agree with this, but only up to a point. It's the word "wellie" that makes me feel uncomfortable. There is a breed of organist that treats the psalms as an organ recital with choir obbligato and it's a very unedifying experience. Mind you, with such people it's not just the psalms they tend to treat in this way! At the end of the day it's the choir's job to "deliver" the message of the psalms. Certainly the organist should complement and enhance that message, but the choir must always remain the focus of attention and the organist must not usurp that. I remember attending a cathedral evensong last year which was accompanied by an organ scholar. He played really excellently, but used far too much of the (rather beefy) organ in the psalms (e.g. a Gt Open when the choir was singing antiphonally). You could still hear the choir above the organ, but he was frequently drowning their consonants. The consonants are always the first thing to go and since they are essential for comprehension the psalm was ruined.

 

Lastly, I cannot resist quoting a passage on psalm accompaniment from J. Frederick Bridge's Organ Accompaniment of the Choral Service (London & New York, c.1885):

 

"While dealing with the expression of the words in the Psalms, a timely warning must be given against exaggeration in the direction of 'word painting'. No doubt many of those who read this little book may have heard organists attempt to portray 'birds singing among the branches' (generally depicted by means of the shrillest flute in the organ), and the author has a vivid recollection of attempts to represent 'the Heavens dropping' and the 'word running very swiftly,' the former by a startling staccato chord on the lowest octave of the great organ, while the right hand sustained the harmony on the swell, and the latter by a run up the keyboard of surprising rapidity. Ideas such as these would not, it is believed, occur to an organist of refined taste."

Hear, hear. Organ accompaniment in Psalms needs to be, in general, gentle. I hate all the talk of big tuba chords and the like to "illustrate" the words. I prefer the organ to enhance the mood rather than imitate birds and water pipes etc. (though none of us is immune to temptation). My ideal is probably Willcocks on the 1st Cd from King's (actually Trinity, of course). The organ (i.e.organist) should not be drawing attention to itself but accompanying.

[Murton]

Hear, hear. Organ accompaniment in Psalms needs to be, in general, gentle. I hate all the talk of big tuba chords and the like to "illustrate" the words. I prefer the organ to enhance the mood rather than imitate birds and water pipes etc. (though none of us is immune to temptation). My ideal is probably Willcocks on the 1st Cd from King's (actually Trinity, of course). The organ (i.e.organist) should not be drawing attention to itself but accompanying.

 

Lots of gentle accomp on Wed in the Canterbury archive recording...some fine psalm singing...what did others think?

[MusingMuso]

This is how to do it. Absolutely unsurpassed in the history of chant.

 

 

 

 

 

MM

[Vox Humana]

Lots of gentle accomp on Wed in the Canterbury archive recording...some fine psalm singing...what did others think?

Nice balance between organ and choir. I thought the chanting too fast for the acoustic as I couldn't hear the words, but maybe that was just a microphone placement issue; I suspect it might have been clearer in the quire stalls.

 

I liked Ridout's Litany.

 

One of my pet irritations: Why do people persist in the inanity of calling any old hymn before the Magnificat (or, sometimes, the psalms) the "office hymn"? In no way was the hymn sung at this service an office hymn (and they hardly ever are). It was just a hymn, so why not call it that? No doubt you're all thinking, "Who cares?" but, really, it's the liturgical equivalent of slurping your soup. One must uphold standards, you know.

[innate]

Nice balance between organ and choir. I thought the chanting too fast for the acoustic as I couldn't hear the words, but maybe that was just a microphone placement issue; I suspect it might have been clearer in the quire stalls.

 

I liked Ridout's Litany.

 

One of my pet irritations: Why do people persist in the inanity of calling any old hymn before the Magnificat (or, sometimes, the psalms) the "office hymn"? In no way was the hymn sung at this service an office hymn (and they hardly ever are). It was just a hymn, so why not call it that? No doubt you're all thinking, "Who cares?" but, really, it's the liturgical equivalent of slurping your soup. One must uphold standards, you know.

I remember getting annoyed many years ago by the announcement of the usual psalms for the evening as "the Proper Psalms".

[wolsey]

One of my pet irritations: Why do people persist in the inanity of calling any old hymn before the Magnificat (or, sometimes, the psalms) the "office hymn"? In no way was the hymn sung at this service an office hymn (and they hardly ever are). It was just a hymn, so why not call it that? No doubt you're all thinking, "Who cares?" but, really, it's the liturgical equivalent of slurping your soup. One must uphold standards, you know.

 

Liturgical precedent for the Office Hymn is mentioned here as well as elsewhere. It is true that in most instances, the text of the hymns sung at the places you mention are not true Office Hymns. An excellent source of them is the English Hymnal - NB not NEH.

[Vox Humana]

*** OFF TOPIC ***

 

Indeed, my Lord Cardinal. The trouble is that, in the context of Anglican Evensong, the singing of an office hymn before the Magnificat both conforms to liturgical precedent and violates it at the same time.

 

As is well known, the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) Evensong was formed by combining and compressing the old services of Vespers and Compline (which were sung back-to-back as a single observance; they were referred to as "Evensong" well before the BCP came into being), chucking out various things in the process, especially anything non-biblical. Similarly Matins replaced the former Matins and Lauds, which had also been sung in tandem.

 

The order at Vespers in the Use of Salisbury was:

 

1. Versicles and responses

2. Psalms with antiphon(s)

3. Chapter ("capitulum"; a short sentence from scripture)

4. (At the more important services), a respond

5. Hymn

6. Versicle and response

7. Magnificat with antiphon

8. Collect

9. Memorials (miniature services consisting of antiphon, versicle, response and collect)

 

So, according to this sequence, the first lesson at an Anglican Evensong is the equivalent of the capitulum and an "office hymn" would appear to belong correctly between the lesson and the Magnificat. Unfortunately it is not that simple. One (no doubt intentional) outcome of compressing the old services was that Matins and Evensong ended up having essentially the same form - notably two lessons, each followed by a canticle. It is Matins that throws a spanner in the works.

 

In the pre-Reformation secular uses Matins ordinarily had three lessons, but nine on feast days (and often 12 in the monastic uses). Each lesson was followed by a respond (to use the BCP term, or "responsory" if you prefer). So at Matins there was an alternation between lessons and responds (in fact it wasn't quite that plain, but the basic premiss is valid). The BCP, having "cut off Anthems, Responds, Invitatories, and such like things" nevertheless retained this traditional format by substituting biblical canticles for responds. Interposing an "office" hymn between the first lesson and the Magnificat at Evensong disrupts this flow. A more logical place for modern so-called "office" hymn would be before the psalms. There are churches where this is done. However, if one has to have a hymn, my personal preference is to have it at the end of the service.

 

Cranmer obviously intended hymns to be among the non-biblical "such like things" that were "cut off" in the BCP. I wonder how the church would have responded had the BCP used a slightly different wording and "cut off Anthems, Responds, Hymns and such like things". Would we be confined to a diet of metrical psalms instead?