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The Magazine of the Guild of Church Musicians ISSN 2633-9528 Possibly the first ever advertisement for our predecessor, the Guild of Organists! Laudate The Magazine of the Guild of Church Musicians Laudate is typeset by Michael Walsh HonFGCM and printed by St Richard’s Press, No 103 January 2021 Leigh Road, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8TU [email protected] 01243 782988 From the Editor of Laudate www. People beginning new jobs often refer to their predecessors as ‘hard acts to follow’. As your new editor, I can use that conventional expression with sincerity and conviction. Michael Walsh has done a wonderful job over many years, and I am delighted that he is continuing as typesetter and is assisting in other ways. The first issue of 2021 has the usual varied content (see the list below). Although reference to COVID-19 is inevitable, the primary message is one of renewal and hope. Finally, a personal word or two. I have served as organist and choir director for 50 years in a Hampshire parish church a mile from my home. Many years have also been spent writing about and editing early Tudor music, in teaching, and in examining. More recently Convivium Records have released two CDs of my sacred choral music. And work for the Guild, as Patrons: Rt Revd & Rt Hon Dr Richard Chartres, former Lord Bishop of London Chairman of the Academic Board, Fellowship Director and joint editor with Roger Wilkes of Guild Publications, Professor Dr Ian Tracey, Organist Titulaire of Liverpool Cathedral Dame Patricia Routledge, internationally renowned soprano & actress currently takes care of many hours. I am married and have a daughter, son-in-law, and two young grandchildren Master: Rt Revd Dr Richard Fenwick whose singing and ‘playing’ lead me to hope that music (whether or not for the church) may continue to give Secretary General: John Balsdon Membership Secretary: Mandy Balsdon them, as it does me, great joy and fulfilment. Treasurer & Magazine Editor: Dr Michael Walsh he Guild of Musicians and Singers was formed in Oxford in June 1993 with the aim of bringing together amateur and professional musicians in working and fraternal Tways. One major aim has always been to encourage young musicians in the pursuit CONTENTS of their studies and the Guild has set up a fund with bursaries for students to help them with examination fees and other aspects of their careers in music. The Guild is non-denominational From the Acting Warden .................................................................................................................1 and covers all genres of music. From the President ........................................................................................................................... 2 The Guild has many distinguished musicians among its Hon Fellows, including Sir Mark Elder, Dr Vasily Petrenko, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Dame Patricia Routledge, Dr. From the Administrator .................................................................................................................. 3 Francis Jackson, Andrew Carwood, Benjamin Grosvenor, Rick Wakeman, and From our Patrons ............................................................................................................................. 4 sadly, all too briefly, Dame Vera Lynn. Academic Dress is available and membership is From the Treasurer ........................................................................................................................... 5 only £20 a year. A Presentation to Jonathan Buchan .............................................................................................. 5 Full details are available from the Guild’s website: www.musiciansandsingers.org.uk GCM Officers 2021 .......................................................................................................................... 6 Honorary Fellows and Members of the Guild ...........................................................................8 The Guild is proud to announce that it is working in association with: The Organ in King’s College, Cambridge: a Legend Reborn ~ Steven Benson ................10 The National College of Music & Arts, London Holier than Thou? How Sacred is the Church’s Song? ~ Ian Sharp .....................................16 The Sacred Cantatas of JS Bach: BWV 106 ~ Bernard Salter................................................ 21 he National College of Music & Arts, London was established over 125 years ago and specialises in external music St Edward’s Leek – the 700th Anniversary of its Foundation ~ Josephine Smith .............26 Texaminations and speech subjects. The College has music The Beginnings of the Church Choir Guild ~ Dr Stewart Thompson ................................ 27 examination centres throughout the United Kingdom and in various The 2020 Hymn Tune Competition ~ the winning entry by Stephen Barber ................... 31 countries overseas. Established 1894 From the GCM Newsletter in Australia ....................................................................................34 The College has recently introduced two new diplomas which Incorporated 1898 Guild Publications 2021 ................................................................................................................35 are proving of considerable interest to church musicians: Sermons – the Long and the Short ~ Hugh Benham .............................................................36 FNFCM – Fellow of the National Federation of Church Musicians Cover photo: statue of the young Johann Sebastian Bach at Mühlhausen, Germany and the higher award of AFNCollM – Associate Fellow of the National College of Music YOUR ARTICLES AND OPINIONS ARE EAGERLY SOUGHT Both these diplomas attract academic dress. Please send copy to the Editor at [email protected] or text 07765007708 for postal address. The copy deadline for the May edition is Friday 23 April. Full details may be obtained by visiting the College’s brand new website: You are welcome to contact the Editor at [email protected] www.ncm-london.co.uk Please visit our website – www.gcm.org.uk A Message from the Acting Warden was once at a conference at which a series of papers on music and theology were given. One paper in particular has stayed with me. It I was a very personal presentation, examining the disillusionment of the author after 18 years as music director of a large church. It wasn’t at first apparent that the speaker was the subject: the paper had all the academic objectivity you might expect, but the chair commented on the lack of examples and the presenter said simply, ‘I am the example: it was my 18 years’ experience that brought me to this point.’ A key point in the argument was that he had become involved and committed to the particular tradition of church music by hearing, singing and playing much of the repertoire and being moved by it. Understandably, he had a desire to share his experience with others, to enable others to be similarly moved. However, as he put it, the process of disillusionment was something already articulated by philosophers, notably Adorno who writes of the way in which a passionate desire to share something with others can be effective for them while, at the same time, emptying it of meaning for the performer, the donor. The focus of the paper, and the ensuing discussion, was on the fragility of meaning when it is too closely tied to a particular performance tradition (and when that tradition is itself too closely bound up with commercial music making). As a small personal discipline during the first lockdown, I made a point of playing the B minor Prelude and Fugue from the end of Book 1 of the 48 every day. I was not attempting to hand on a perceived meaning to anyone else; I was, in one sense, not even aware of ‘having been moved’ by the music. Each day was a new beginning, a new learning from that intense intimacy. It was, it seemed, a journey of infinite possibility. When the second lockdown came in November, I returned to the same Prelude and Fugue, but the circumstances were different. The infinite possibilities were still there, but my focus was not, and with some disappointment I had to recognise that this second attempt would be less successful. This very difficult year has made us all think again about the ways in which we discover meaning, not least as we have been deprived of so many of the spontaneous ways of communicating meaning – for instance, through touch. As church musicians there is something more. We do not make our own meaning out of music; we do not depend on others being moved by sharing the same experience that we had. Like the preacher who is so often confronted by a parishioner saying ‘Thank you for the sermon, when you talked about x I felt you were speaking directly to me’ – leaving the preacher baffled, because they hadn’t actually said that! Our experience is that meaning is both less precisely located than we might think, but also much richer and deeper. It has more the character of gift. I worry that rituals like the ‘Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols’ do, perhaps unintentionally, perpetuate a particular experience and meaning. The danger is that, once we think we know what it means, God is no longer able to open to us the new riches of the kingdom. May this coming year be for us all a new opportunity to attend to the gift of meaning God wills to give us in and through the medium of the music we are privileged to make. Fr Peter Allan CR January 2021 1 A Message from the President Dame Mary Archer ooking back on a year which has been like no other, I’d
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