12Th January 2020

Music Notes for Epiphany 1: The Baptism of Christ – 12th January 2020 This week, we return to the music of Stanley Vann (1910–2010) at the Solemn Eucharist with his Missa Brevis in A. Vann was born in Leicester, and took to music early in his life, starting with the piano at 6 years of age, and the organ rather later, at 17. Nevertheless, by the time he was 20 he had both of the highest qualifications in the instrument already under his belt. A year later, he was Assistant Organist at Leicester Cathedral, after which he took on several sequential positions as organist in various parishes. After the Second World War, he became Organist at Chelmsford Cathedral and a Professor at Trinity College in London in 1949. Four years later, in 1953, he took up the position with which he is most associated, Master of the Music at Peterborough Cathedral. He was to remain there until he retired in 1977 – although he then remained remarkably active until after his hundredth birthday in 2010, carried off in the end by the consequences of a fall at home rather than running out of steam in any other sense. During this long life, he composed a large number of works of very great quality, and with an harmonic language that is really uniquely his. It is not so much that he does things that nobody else had done, but the characteristic way that he assembles chord progressions, and especially the sense he has for spacing the voices in a chord for maximum effect, that marks out his “voice”. There is a chant he wrote for Psalm 51, which is especially associated with Ash Wednesday, that illustrates this perfectly, the voices knotted together at the outset in a tense little cluster of sound that illustrates and communicates perfectly the tension behind the psalmist’s words: Have mercy upon me O God after they great goodness: according to the multitude of thy mercies, do away mine offences. It is an amazing miniature that in many ways sums up Vann’s language in its short span. In fact, the psalms were of especial importance in his work at Peterborough., Recordings that were made while he was there show clearly why his approach has been enormously influential on an important strand of Anglican music making. The singing of psalms tends to come in two main kinds in choral establishments: in one of these, the psalms are something to be got through –, they sound rather as though they are regarded as a necessary evil of Evensong. They are presented somewhat uniformly, and the structure of the chant tends to dominate the sense of the words. In the other – and you will have guessed already that this is the tradition that seems to have followed Vann’s example – the psalms are brought to life with drama and vividness. Dynamics and changes of pace are deployed as illustration, and the chant’s structure is never allowed to dominate the meaning of the words. The performances are deft and elegant and never remotely trivial. One can follow a line of inheritance from Vann’s approach through some of the very best psalm singing in the Anglican tradition. You can also follow the other “tradition” and hear psalms simply “gone through” in numerous establishments, with little apparent thought given to shaping their structure and illuminating the meaning. The loss here is not just musical: these are some of the greatest works of poetry the human race has produced, and bringing them to life – really communicating the sense of them – for the congregation is profoundly important. Vann himself said of this part of the service: You can get such a lot out of the psalms. We strove to bring out the colour and dramatic content, but in a restrained way, without exaggeration. If you "go to town" too much, it makes a travesty. The recordings certainly show that he knew where to draw the line. Speaking to Roderick Dunnett in 1992 in the Musical Times, he expounded on how he had tried to mould the attitude of the choir: I tried to instil into our boys the belief that they were worshipping God, singing directly to Him, rather than putting on some kind of "performance". One tried to convey a sense of reverence and get the choir to project itself wholeheartedly into the spirit of the service. Some of the best moments were in the depths of winter, perhaps with snow or high winds outside, when a candlelit service might be attended by just the choir and clergy. It gave a unique feeling that you were singing to God, and somehow brought out the whole purpose of what divine service was about. This was helped by his approach to rehearsal, which was to encourage the choir to see it as being involved in the worship of God from the moment they stepped into the cathedral precincts. This was religion taken very seriously, but not for the sake of pompous piety or play-acting, for that matter. It was saying that what we do in church is real and warrants being treated as such. When someone receives an honour from the head of state, their sense of excitement and nervous anticipation is usually very obvious. If that’s how we react for a merely mortal monarch, how curious that we are so laid back in our approach to the King of Kings each week. Vann was having none of that, and his choir was expected to behave on the basis that what they did was important and significant. This mass setting was written when Stanley had already retired and past his 80th birthday, which fell on 15th February 1990. That occasion was marked by a special Evensong using almost entirely his music at Peterborough Cathedral, and the next month, the mass was given its first performance. It is set for a normal four-part choir and organ with soprano and tenor soloists. Of course, those arranging the performances in 1990 could not have known that there was in fact still a full 20 years of composition and active music-making in Stanley’s life yet to come. It really was a century of music-making and especially of commitment to church music. His is an example well-worth studying. The motet at the Communion is by the American composer Paul Grady (b.1967). Originally from Hawaii, he and his family, who were Seventh Day Adventist missionaries, went to live in Singapore when he was just three years old. In 1985, Grady returned to the US, having the good sense to go to a college in California just near Napa Valley, the place the wine comes from. There, he joined a Catholic Church choir, an experience that introduced him for the first time to the wonders of high- quality liturgical music. This was so successful that he eventually joined the Roman Catholic church. He continued to pursue both the study of liturgical music and his own involvement with it over many years. In due course, he found himself living in Seattle, and working at the Parish of the North American Martyrs, where he developed a remarkable choir over a nine-year period. This was a parish first established in 2008, following Pope Benedict’s declaration the previous year that had permitted once again the general celebration of the pre-Vatican II liturgy. Inevitably, this kind of liturgy also implies the musical tradition that goes with it. The motet, Vidi Aquam, dates from this period of Grady’s life. He now lives in Post Falls, Idaho, where he is Chant Schola Director at the Parish of St Joan of Arc, which describes itself as “a traditional Latin Mass Parish in the Diocese of Boise. Quite a chunk of our liturgy would doubtless seem rather familiar to him. The text is the antiphon used during the sprinkling of water during Easter. We use it (generally to chant) as the altar party returns from the font after the renewal of baptismal vows on Easter Day – or, if that is what has happened, any baptisms that have been undertaken – and the Celebrant sprinkles the congregation during the procession. I saw water flowing from the temple, on the right side, alleluia: And all to whom that water came have been saved, and they will say, alleluia. Grady’s setting draws on the tradition of alternating plainchant with sections of choral setting. Both the responses and the canticles at Evensong are by the Yorkshire-born and bred Kenneth Leighton (1929–1988). His Preces & Responses were composed in 1964 for Dennis Townhill and the choir of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh. You may know that both Cathedral’s in Edinburgh are called “St Mary’s”, and the Anglican (Episcopal Church of Scotland) Cathedral is not to be confused with St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral. These responses were – as you might expect – composed for the Anglicans. James O’Donnell, Director of Music at Westminster Abbey since 2000, wrote in 2007 in the booklet for a recording of these Preces & Responses: “[Leighton’s] style combines astringent harmonic language with taut rhythms. Most importantly, he has a sure instinct for liturgical scale and practicality. These responses have gained a firm place in the repertory of many choirs, and include a particularly fine and expressive setting of The Lord’s Prayer.” The Canticles, also by Leighton, are known as Collegium Magdalenæ Oxoniense (Magdalen College, Oxford). They were written in 1960 and dedicated to Bernard Rose (1916–1996), with whom Leighton had studied, and who was a particularly great Informator Choristarum (or, as we would say, Director of Music) at Magdalen College.

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