BBC Choral Evensong: St John’s College Cambridge 1975 (John Scott)
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- Опубліковано 18 жов 2024
- Live BBC radio broadcast from the chapel of St John’s College Cambridge, Ash Wednesday 12 February 1975, with the men of the chapel choir, directed by John Scott, and Jonathan Rennert (organ). The planned service was superseded by one sung by men’s voices because many of the choristers, together with the director of music, George Guest, were indisposed.
Responses: Plainsong
Psalms 102, 130
Canticles: Evening Service (William Mundy)
Anthem: Lamentations I (Thomas Tallis)
I was the BBC's producer for this broadcast (having moved the Ash Wednesday broadcast to St.John's a couple of years earlier), and it was the very first time I met John Scott, later to become close friend and colleague at St.Paul's. One abiding memory of that afternoon was his justifiable annoyance at a couple of the Choral Scholars who were late for the balance-test ! Listening now, I'm struck not just by the way that John (then very young, and in his first few months at the College) held it all together, as well as the rather over-close balance of the choir in the Canticles - I'm sure it didn't sound as close and clinical as that over our loudspeakers in the BBC van.
In his autobiography "A Guest at Cambridge," George Guest recalls that in a Lenten term most of his choristers got stricken by the flu as big services were coming up. The organist at Kings, Philip Ledger, phoned and offered to supply for audition six boys to help the choir. Guest replied he would never dream to "audition" the King's boys but would gladly "borrow" them! The boys from King's sang most skillfully at St. John's for a few services and then returned to King's.
I love the Briggs and Frere plainchant setting. :)
This must be John Scott's radio debut as a musical director, wouldn't you say? Organ scholar stepping in because of George's illness.
Must be. He wasn't yet 19. Jonathan Rennert had finished by then, and must have been brought in specially.
Andrew Revans, thank you very much for that information. I've added a comment (please see above; thank you).
Jonathan was in his post-graduate year and still a member of the college.
Fascinating. I'm not keen on the plainsong psalms (My days are gone like a shaaaaa-dooooow) although the accompaniment is very classy. The Mundy and Tallis are superb.
Not a great fan either of plainsong psalms but these are particularly moving.. the cantor has a voice which is perfectly suited to this and as you say.. very classy accompaniment.
It's not plainsong psalms I don't like; it's the over-elongated endings, which make it all too stop-start.
@@andrewrevans8496 Quite so. In fact, in the Introduction to the Manual of Plainsong, Frere and Briggs caution against rushing the monotone portion and elongating the inflexions, and encourage the opposite tendency for reasons of breath control.
John Scott wasn't 19 when he directed that service?? Yes, I've heard of Mozart, but even so! No contest; this goes into the Like brigade! (Groan; Light Brigade, LIKE brigade...) What was the voluntary at the end, please; does anyone know?
Since he was born in June 1956, he would've been 19!
I can confirm that, as I was in my 3rd year as a choral student. The cantor in the Psalms was my tenor contemporary Hugh Hetherington.
Even at nineteen years old, you would have to be exceptional to direct a service like that to such a high standard! And John Scott, of course, was...
Yes, he would have been. He came to Southwark (I was a treble there) as assistant to Harry Bramma in 1978/9 and had just graduated. Wonderful musician.
I was the secretary of a College Music society in Another Place in 1971-72. One of my fellow students came from Yorkshire and had heard of this astonishing though very young organist at Wakefield. He was invited down to give a recital - he must have been only 15-16 years old.
The accompaniment is sublime! The plainchant would be better in Latin.