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The Magazine of the Guild of Church Musicians Happy choristers at Arundel Cathedral display their Archbishops’ Chorister Medals Photo by Elizabeth Stratford Laudate The Magazine of the Guild of Church Musicians Laudate is typeset by Michael Walsh HonFGCM and printed by St Richard’s Press No 101 May 2020 Leigh Road, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8TU [email protected] 01243 782988 From the Editor of Laudate www. e are living in strange and unsettling times and it is looking as if we will be very fortunate if church services are allowed to resume before the end of the year. WMany enterprising organists and choir directors are seeking ways to keep their choirs together via Zoom and other platforms, although those of you who have tried singing together in this way will have probably dissolved into fits of giggles before the end of the first line of music! Perhaps some of you will have taken this opportunity to listen to more music, perhaps exploring repertoire and performances you have been meaning to listen to but have always managed to be distracted by other things. Some may well have started to use this time to do some research, even to study for a diploma or some award. Patrons: Rt Revd & Rt Hon Dr Richard Chartres, former Lord Bishop of London The Guild has lots of avenues to explore if that is your intention and I can do no more than encourage you all to Professor Dr Ian Tracey, Organist Titulaire of Liverpool Cathedral visit our new Guild website at www.gcm.org.uk. We are indebted to Ken Cope who has worked tirelessly Dame Patricia Routledge, internationally renowned soprano & actress to get our new site up and going. There is still more to be added, especially about some of the new ventures I Master: Rt Revd Dr Richard Fenwick have written about on pages 2 and 3 of this issue. Above all, let’s see this as a golden opportunity for renewal Secretary General: John Balsdon Membership Secretary: Mandy Balsdon and for exciting new developments in the life of our Guild. Treasurer & Magazine Editor: Dr Michael Walsh I pray that you all keep safe and well. 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 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 and covers all genres of music. CONTENTS The Guild has many distinguished musicians among its Hon Fellows, including Sir Mark Elder, Dr Vasily Petrenko, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Dame Patricia Routledge, Dr. A Message of Hope from the Acting Warden .....................................................................................1 Francis Jackson, Andrew Carwood, Benjamin Grosvenor and Rick Wakeman. The Guild as we find ourselves in May 2020 ~ The General Secretary ...................................... 2 Academic Dress is available and membership is only £20 a year. This Joyful Eastertide ~ The Revd. Dr Gordon Giles ........................................................................... 4 Full details are available from the Guild’s website: All the young Organists – where are they? ~ Anna Hallett ............................................................ 7 www.musiciansandsingers.org.uk CD Review – Hugh Benham : Sacred Choral Music ......................................................................... 9 Notes from the Treasurer ~ Robert Andrews ................................................................................... 10 The Guild is proud to announce that it is working in association with: Report on the Guild meeting at Arundel on 1 February ~ Barry Williams ...............................12 Reflections on ‘Where is Church Music going?’ ~ Revd Canon Dr Mark Gretason ...............13 The National College of Cathedral Music in Troubled Times ~ Martin White .......................................................................14 Music & Arts, London Obituary: Dr Jennifer Bate ~ Barry Williams ..................................................................................17 Stephen Harrow ~ Barry Williams ................................................................................ 18 he National College of Music & Arts, London was established over 125 years ago and specialises in external Revd. Canon Alan Luff ~ Rt Revd Richard Fenwick ................................................... 18 music examinations and speech subjects. The College has Musical Affekt: A comparison of three mass settings ~ Dr William Clark ...............................21 T music examination centres throughout the United Kingdom and The new organ at the Australian Guild Church ~ Brett McKern .................................................25 in various countries overseas. Reassessing Christopher Smart and his hymns for children ~ Phillip Willatt .......................... 28 Established 1894 Incorporated 1898 The College has recently introduced two new diplomas which Obituary: Emeritus Professor Nicholas Temperley ............................................................................31 might well be of interest to Guild members: FNFCM – Fellow of the National Federation of Church Musicians and Cover image: Daffodils at Salisbury Cathedral by Ashley Mills www.ashmills.com AFNCollM – Associate Fellow of the National College of Music. YOUR ARTICLES AND OPINIONS ARE EAGERLY SOUGHT Both these diplomas attract academic dress. It would be good to receive more feedback from Guild members about what you want to see in Laudate. Full details may be obtained by visiting the College’s brand new website: You are welcome to contact the Editor by any of the following means: By post at 5 Lime Close, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 6SW Tel: 01243 788315 or at [email protected] www.ncm-london.co.uk Please visit our brand new website – www.gcm.org.uk A message of Hope from the Acting Warden ow often have we experienced that moment of transcendent bliss when, the performance over, Hthere is a poignant silence in which we are nearly overwhelmed by a flood of meaning? We do not need reminding that music is not just sound, but also silence – and, most particularly, the interaction between the two. This past month has deprived us of most of the usual ways of making live music for worship, but nothing prevents the God whom we worship from communicating with us, sharing with us the life offered to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We may not have gathered in our local churches or cathedrals this year to sing the great hymns of Passiontide, nor flocked to sing “Jesus Christ is risen today!” on Easter Day, but many of us will have found the texts of those hymns coming to the forefront of our thoughts nonetheless. And perhaps this most unexpected and unusual of times has shown to us some of the fruits of habits that are so much part of us that we no longer register them. Did we, for instance, find snatches of Mrs Alexander’s children’s hymnThere is a green hill ... running through our minds? Then, without the usual routines of singing the hymn at a Good Friday service, we might have found ourselves wondering at the cleverness of the text, the way in which each verse sets out another of the classic theories of the atonement – simply setting them before us, inviting reflection and deeper engagement with this work of God in order that ‘all may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.’ Or, Watts’ incomparable When I survey the wondrous cross may have attracted a moment of our attention. Here we may wonder at the intimacy and passion, but without any sentimentality, the ability to cast a hymn in the first person without losing objectivity. Again, we may have been given a moment to ponder the extraordinary power of some of the great Latin hymns of the Passion – Vexilla Regis or Pange lingua – mostly introduced to us through the translations of John Mason Neale and other Tractarians. We could go on: there are so many rich texts amongst the Passiontide hymns, but what of Easter? Once we reach the feast of feasts there are again many familiar and much loved texts, but surely few that achieve comparable theological sophistication. Wesley, as ever, gives us real food for thought in Love’s redeeming work is done! and one of the finest Easter hymns is surely the paraphrase of the Latin office hymn At the Lamb’s high feast we sing; and we might add another adaptation from a Latin original, Ye choirs of new Jerusalem. The majority, however, cannot bear too much scrutiny of the text. This is not altogether surprising: the mystery of the Resurrection is still beyond our grasp. Our imagination struggles to gain a foothold. Only when all our resources are harnessed and drawn together do we catch glimpses of the truth that God sets before us. Rather than pondering the texts of Easter hymns we might do better to immerse ourselves in James MacMillan’s Symphony – Vigil (1997), the third part of his response to the Triduum, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. None of us would have chosen this time, but surely there have been gifts in the midst of the darkness. Above all, may we all have renewed confidence in the God who raised Jesus from the dead and gave him glory that we might have faith and hope in him. Fr Peter Allan CR May 2020 1 The Guild as we find ourselves in May 2020 Dr Michael Walsh, General Secretary am sure that it will come as no surprise to you all to have discovered that our two I planned events for June this year have had to be postponed. I say postponed rather than cancelled, for it is my fervent hope that we will be able to mount these events on a suitable date in the future, maybe on the equivalent dates in 2021. I would also like to hope that by the time the next issue of Laudate reaches you at the start of September I will be in a stronger position to give you some better news, but as things stand as I write this at the end of April, it doesn’t look too promising for the rest of this year.
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