Lichfield Cathedral's Choral Foundation: broadcasting to the nation since 1934

While I was trying to check the (fairly obscure) details of a piece of music that Lichfield Cathedral Choir has broadcast on BBC radio in the distant past, as is sometimes the way with the Internet, I serendipitously stumbled across an online archive of all the copies of the RadioTimes from 1923 to 2009 that the BBC has made available which I had not previously encountered. Having been scanned and optical character recognised (the processes whereby the computer turns a scanned image into searchable text, rather than just a picture), the data is not perfect. However, it provides a remarkable resource to explore all sorts of things.

From a broadcasting perspective, seeing how the BBC's radio stations developed from just a National and Regional service to the genre-based stations to the more recognisable Radios 1 to 5 we have today is interesting. But coupling this with the geekily written historical detail of the stations on Wikipedia and being able to see how their output changed in response to moments of historical significance is fascinating.

In the musical world, it is possible to track the career of individuals: one particular example I found was seeing a cathedral organist move from Oxbridge organ scholar to organist of one of the country's more notable cathedrals via various other abbeys and cathedrals through their appearances on broadcast choral evensongs. Alongside this, it also showed their involvement with other groups over the course of their career.

Having clarified the tiny detail for which I was originally looking, I ended up searching for 'Lichfield Cathedral', and this resulted in a whole range of programmes - on both radio and television - over the past ninety years. Because of this, I felt it was worth updating the details of broadcasts which I maintain on Lichfield Cathedral Choir's website.

Firstly, I was able to fill in a couple of blanks and add details about original broadcast times and stations to the existing list of broadcast choral evensongs. Gratifyingly, there were no additional broadcasts to add to this list (wading through past music lists 15 years ago clearly paid off), but I did remove some as the BBC's listings showed that the broadcasts were not always of the Cathedral Choir singing on them. In this list, it is interesting to see that in days gone by, the BBC seemed to install themselves in the Cathedral for a stretch at a time, as between the 1940s and 1960s there are runs of two or three weeks in a row when the service was broadcast from Lichfield, but then there are years between such runs.

Secondly, the list of other radio broadcasts was significantly fleshed out. This had not been something I had been collecting details for, but odd editions of Sunday Worship had crept into the audio archive, so I had included them. Thanks to the RadioTimes archive, I think the listing in now complete. From this, it is clear that the broadcasting of a matins-based service antedate the broadcasts of evensong (1937 as opposed to 1939), but acts of worship from Lichfield are trumped by a broadcast of an organ recital from 1934 (and a documentary style programme gloriously described as a 'microphone impression' of the Cathedral from the same year).

Thirdly, because of the amount of data involved in keeping copies of television broadcasts, these had never featured highly in the archives. However, having this information to hand, means this listing has also been completed. This list is not so extensive, and the majority of entries are from the past twenty years; nevertheless, it is nice to know there was a broadcast of Songs of Praise from Lichfield in November 1972.

Finally, the wealth of details that I discovered meant that I did not want to miss anything out, or be left confused when people offered a broadcast of choral evensong from Lichfield from the 1940s, as someone did some years ago, subsequently telling me it was an RSCM course. I have therefore created the supplementary broadcasts page which is where everything which has a musical connection broadcast from Lichfield is detailed. This includes broadcasts made by the Cathedral's chamber choir, recitals by organists visiting the Cathedral (and therefore not a part of the Foundation), the broadcasts of evensongs sung by other choirs, including an Eton Choral Course, the RSCM Festivals, and the BBC Singers directed by George Thalben Ball. The evensongs with the BBC Singers seem to be in addition to those broadcast as part of the 'standard' choral evensongs as they are on Sundays, not Tuesdays or Wednesdays: maybe there was a greater appetite for broadcast religion in the post-war years.

Overall, this is fortuitous timing as the choir's #LentQuiz which is currently running is based on recordings made of the Cathedral Choir over the past fifty years (the extent of the audio archive), and it is nice to have the records as complete as possible as the Foundation's 700th anniversary celebrations start on Easter Monday. However, there is still scope for development: ultimately, it would be nice to link all of the entries back to the RadioTimes original data so the complete records can be seen (I have necessarily cut some repeated details to save space). Also, as the OCR process is not entirely accurate, if 'Lichfield Cathedral' has not be recognised, my searches would not have found the records, so there could be some other programmes which may need adding at some point.

As with all such research, it is inevitably ongoing, there will be more to add, and there will doubtless be corrections. However, more excitingly, as this information is now available, it is my hope that we might find some of the recordings still exist and that the audio (and visual) archives can be expanded.

Tweeted BCP Evening Prayer

As promised yesterday, the tweeted Evensong – or TwEvensong – happened. As a result of having a very public first attempt at something like this, there are things which need refining both for the producers and consumers (or ‘foundation’ and congregation) of the event (or service). I have compiled and sorted all the feedback that I received both personally and via the choir's Twitter feed to provide a record of the event and to help me - and others - in such an endeavour in future.

The way in which Twitter handles multiple connected tweets needs to be considered. I had found that two or three replies to one’s self without the @ name at the start got linked, but beyond three verses of the psalm this got confusing. As someone tweeted

@AliDebsP
sorry but you lost me at Isaiah.

and what appeared on people’s timelines seemed confusing (I also glanced some instances of this on a separate computer and account I set up just to watch the event while tweeting)

@mariantone
....and repetition of out-of-order verses ( tho' not in 2nd lesson?)

As @davidbartonmus commented

Yes, very entertaining (!) - could work well with a hashtag

and this is something that I did explore but felt tagging each tweet ate into the available characters too much which would have meant more verses of psalms and readings needed splitting. However, I do accept this would be necessary next time; indeed, there is a competition in the making with @AnnetteRubery suggesting

@LichfieldChoir Ah yes, bit of a challenge; you need to crowdsource a short hashtag via a Twitter competition ;) 

A private message on Facebook also got as far as the first reading but ‘then it seemed to stop’. I guess it is possible that Twitter though so many posts were spam and therefore blocked some of them. This needs investigating.

From a production perspective, it was difficult to try and keep tabs on the whole thing and know when to tweet your portion. As the Dean of Birmingham and Bishop of Cork tweeted at the end

@CatherineOgle
Of course Evensong is always exciting, but rarely that nerve-wracking

@b2dac
nerve-wracking indeed!

This could probably be resolved with practice, as things did seem to calm down after the initial flurry of activity. However, this hectic beginning was apparently obvious to the consumers too:

@moirabluehands
Bravo! Team Evensong!  (just a tiny bit stressful at the start)@WealandsBell @LichfieldChoir @RevRichardColes @CatherineOgle @b2dac

As the Cathedral Choir’s Twitter account is linked to Facebook (to save having to create posts for each manually on a day to day basis), all of our contributions were also sent to Facebook without any of the other participants' tweets appearing. It would have been sensible to disconnect them for the duration of the event as highlighted:

Les Robertson
Actually it was bloody irritating and just clogged up the facebook timeline! Keep it to twitter if you must but somewhat loses its impact some hours later on fb for those of us who have been at work all day. You clearly have too much time on your hands!

@rogbi200
Only downside of #Evensong via Twitter- it dominates my FB stream, surreally jumbled!

In order to keep things tidy, the Facebook posts have duly been deleted manually.

Whether Twitter is the best medium for such an event is something that needs further consideration, but what an alternative which is so widely used and easily accessible would be, I don’t know. Nevertheless, from the three hours following the TwEvensong, this is a compilation of the rest of the feedback received with the most recent first:

@blair_radford
Very well done everyone ! Thank you

@charlottepochin
Kudos to @LichfieldChoir @WealandsBell @b2dac @CatherineOgle @RevRichardColes for the TwEvensong earlier. Loved it! When's the next one?

@jones_swka
thank you, such a good idea, I normally avoid Evensong but found that lovely.

@DerekL03
much enjoyed. Thank you

@clinacre
What a great idea! Please do it again and I'll have fresh coffee ready to remind me of Evensong at York.

@sherbetlemon1
How lovely.

@Kate_NW11
...and I translated the bits common to our liturgies into Hebrew. Thanks again

@KatieEthers
I liked that it came from multiple accounts, and found other juxtaposing mid-office tweets rather amusing!

@benphillips88
thank you for an enjoyable evensong! Made my day!

@rachywakey
God-botherers...read the tweets of @WealandsBell @RevRichardColes @LichfieldChoir @CatherineOgle @b2dac since 5.30. Ace Twitter evensong #fb

@revdchris
it was stunning thank you

@rachywakey
should add that my chorister daughter enjoyed her own private game of "guess the next tweet". Great service!

@rachywakey
really wonderful idea. Brilliant. Thank you. Well done

@Kate_NW11
Thank you. The traditional Anglican liturgy is profoundly beautiful.

@sherbetlemon1
So, what time is Morning Prayer?

@rachywakey
 *shakes hand* wonderful service, thank you :-)

@susancox1955
pretty good for a first go, bravo

@andrewnlhill
thank you for this evenings worship, nicely done, God bless

@sarahdlarkin
Thank you!

@davidbartonmus
 *shakes your hands on the way out* Nice not to have to walk a mile home

@sarahdlarkin
Thank you, that was lovely. Well done all.

@sherbetlemon1
Many thanks to you all. That was very lovely. Xxx

@janetlangan2
Thank you to everyone I enjoyed it

@rogbi200
*Shakes hands of clergy* Thank you all for a very different #Evensong.

@CatherineOgle
a little bow of the head to you all, acknowledging & appreciating your ministry.

@brileetaylor
thanks all, was interesting!

@susancox1955
that was fun. Fast typing fingers needed. Bit more practice for @RevRichardColes tho 

@petetomo01
Thanks Guys !

Louise Stewart
I found it purposeful, prayerful and innovative; thank you, Lichfield Cathedral Choir!

and during the event, @GeorgeDay27 tweeted a photo of someone on their mobile phone standing in the snow outside a chalet with the caption: 'catching Evensong on twitter in Switzerland'.

When I wrote my blog post 24 hours ago, my hope was that it was appreciated by someone somewhere. This collection of tweets suggests that my hope was met. Yes, the whole thing needs a little refinement and some people were disappointed and saw it as a waste of time, but for it to come together so quickly and to be so well received was beyond my expectations. People are already asking about the next event, and I look forward to the next one being even more successful and building on what was learnt to day. Indeed, sorting through the feedback, the question of music – something I had wondered about but decided to leave on a back burner this time – was raised:

@rogbi200
Next time a tweeted Choral Evensong? Music via Soundcloud/YouTube?

@StEverild
Didn't recognise the setting?

while @rogbi200 fully entered into the spirit of things and transported themselves to their own Evensong with their music list

@LichfieldChoir I went with Psalms from St Pauls (incl Willcocks Ps148), Howells Coll Reg, Radcliffe Resp, & your most appropriate anthem!

this is another logical step and one to consider for the future.

Watch this space.

Tweeting BCP Evening Prayer

For a while, I have been musing on the nature of the daily Evensong in which I sing being an enforced (but not in any bad sense) sacred space in my life. Apart from being a part of a centuries’ old tradition and therefore being made to feel somewhat insignificant in the grand scheme of things, part of this is inevitably down to the fact that technology – and its concomitant connectivity – are banished to pockets for the duration of the service.

This led me to think about the extent to which our connectedness through social media is preventing us from having that quiet personal time and space for religion, reflection or relaxation, as even when simply watching television or listening to the radio, we are being told to email or tweet with comments and feedback meaning that, without a great deal of self-discipline, our escape is never possible

If our connectedness is inescapable – my thinking went – I wondered how such a space could be created in our online connected world. The inevitable answer is ironic and I duly contacted a priest fried of mine and asked if he would like to lead an online Evensong with me tweeting as I do regularly on behalf of Lichfield Cathedral Choir. His enthusiasm for the idea led me to think that it was not quite as foolish as it felt.

Although this creates a lot of work for those taking part, one of the beauties of Evensong is knowing that it is happening in cathedrals up and down the country on a daily basis and while there are some people who attend regularly, there are plenty of others who just drop in for a single service or are there for just some of a single service. Another beauty of Evensong, from the congregation’s point of view, is that the majority of it is said (or sung) on their behalf by the priest and the choir, so they are able to partake as passively as they wish.

My idea of an online service is an attempt to create exactly the same thing. It will happen tomorrow – 30^th December – at 5.30pm GMT whether or not people are reading the tweets. People can choose to follow us for as much or as little as they like. The text will all be delivered in tweet-size chunks: there will be the full psalms and readings for the day, along with prayers and an anthem text to read.

The Twitter accounts to follow will be @WealandsBell, @LichfieldChoir, and @RevRichardColes.

To the best of my knowledge, there has not been a tweeted act of worship before. There are online churches and religious communities but, as far as I can tell, they do not – or have not – offered something like this before.

It is an experiment. It will happen. I am sure there will be some people who see it as a waste of time and a foolish endeavour; however, I do hope that people will find the time to take out of their day to drop in on the event, and I do hope our efforts will be appreciated by someone somewhere in the world.

If details change, I will update this post and I welcome any comments, suggestions and feedback, but I look forward to my next post being a reflection of how the first tweeted service went.

UPDATE 16:27: Having enlisted a Dean and a Bishop to help us, please also follow @CatherineOgle, and @b2dac

UPDATE 31/12: After the event I compiled all the feedback I received and it can be read, with comments, at http://richardshakeshaft.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/tweeted-bcp-evening-prayer.html

Pancakes and seventeenth-century music

Supermarkets and today’s secular culture make much of Pancake Day and it was doubtless celebrated with higher sales of sugar and lemon in the commercial world, and an array of experimental toppings in households up and down the country. I would like to think that lots of the pancake eaters know that they are really celebrating Shrove Tuesday, and that the pancakes offer them a simple way to use up foodstuffs which would not form part of the Christian’s Lenten fast that starts the following day.

Ash Wednesday now appears to be the poor relation of Pancake Day, even though there are people who continue to choose to give something up – often luxuries such as chocolate, cake or alcohol – between then and Easter in lieu of Jesus’ forty days’ fasting in the Wilderness. However, when all of the self-righteous abstemiousness is forgotten and the religious celebration of Ash Wednesday is considered, there is only one name on the lips of anyone who knows anything about cathedral music.

Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652) was a singer in the Papal Chapel for the final twenty or so years of his life, but he is only remembered for his setting of Psalm 51, the Miserere, which people know for containing a top C (two octaves above middle C) for a treble or soprano soloist. The composition is surrounded by mystique as rumour tells it was only performed in the Sistine Chapel and the ornamentation of the soloist’s part (in which the top C occurs), or abbellimenti, was never written down but passed from generation to generation of soloists. The other famous story that frequently accompanies the work is that Mozart supposedly wrote down the entire piece from memory having heard it sung at its annual performance in Rome; there is, apparently, no copy surviving in his hand though.

Although the top C is unlikely ever to have been written by Allegri, it is now firmly part of the piece’s mythology, and every year top Cs flood out of cathedral services up and down the country on Ash Wednesday. While those who know will expect to hear the Miserere sung, few are likely to give much of a thought to the soloist.

In the majority of the cathedral choirs, the top C will be sung by a young boy, probably aged around 11 or 12. Their chorister colleagues – probably numbering a further 17 at most – will speak about him doing the solo in reverent whispers, but his other contemporaries at school will have little idea what pressure has been placed upon him. The solo is technically and physically demanding and cannot readily be performed well by just anyone. To the soloist, this is equivalent to shooting the deciding penalty in a football match or a Masterchef contestant cooking a dish for a roomful or Michelin-starred chefs. But the soloist has to do it five times during the course of the piece.

A recent sound snippet of a rehearsal at Truro Cathedral indicates that their performance included a top E, and the edition we used at Lichfield Cathedral extended to a top D. The recording and I can testify that both instances were, respectively, achieved gracefully by the young singers.

Two hours before the service, the soloists would appear typical carefree youngsters, possibly out playing football, or stuck in lessons at school, but in the services they are living up to the demands of continuing a tradition and upholding the Miserere’s mystique some 400 years after it was written.

As a postscript, I must add that I know many other performances will have been given in which the soloist was a soprano. There is no way in which I want to undermine the work they will have had to put into their rendition, but I do feel there is a marked difference between a professional soprano (who has probably been an Oxbridge choral scholar and studied singing at music collage) and an eleven year old living up to the demands of the piece, and this should not be forgotten.

For people interested more detail about the Miserere, an excellent essay can be found at http://ancientgroove.co.uk/essays/AllegriBook.pdf. There is also a variety of performances available on YouTube for anyone who does not know the work.

A Week in the Life: Friday

After having turned my light off at 12.05am, it was somewhat annoying to wake at 6.06am and not be able to enjoy returning to any form of sleep before Jim Naughtie started discussing snow and football. The alarm duly went off and the morning routine fell into its usual pattern. Strange snow/ice combination on the car needed scraping, but relatively light traffic meant an 8.15am arrival at school.

8.50am - Registration: Year 12 Tutor Group. No notices today, but lovely to be able to congratulate a handful of students whose teachers felt that they had made an improvement since their report at the end of last term; thanks go to colleagues who did not just delete my e-mails asking for an update on my tutees' progress.

9.15am - Period 1: Year 11 English. The second of two lessons re-attempting another controlled assessment. During the hour I managed to mark three from last week and then collect in a further 27 to mark. I made it very clear that there was no way in which the essays would be marked by next week as my posthuman essay hangs in a Damoclean manner.

10.35am - Period 2: Year 8 English. In a moment of weakness, I had booked the hall for this lesson and the students have the opportunity to recreate an updated version of the Mechanicals' first appearance in A Midsummer Night's Dream. There were some fantastic performances (and my opinion was seconded by the Drama teacher who came in towards the end of the lesson to prepare for his next lesson).

11.35am - Period 3: Free. Marking another small sample of last week's controlled assessments. Also check with friends whether they will be arriving tonight (as was the original plan) or whether the weather has changed anything; they will now be with us for coffee tomorrow.

I manage to have lunch at 12.40pm and at 1.00pm I return to my room in an unsuccessful bid to tidy my desk. I do not refuse when offered a slice of birthday cake by one of the friends of a form member lunching there.

1.35pm - Period 4: Year 10 English Literature. We discuss a Vernon Scannell's Nettles which the group had been reviewing for homework and then spend time making connections between it and Simon Armitage's Nettles.

2.35pm - Period 5: NQT Meeting. We usually bring cakes to help us through our meeting, but my mentee is not in school this afternoon, so I take advantage of the staff (and sixth form) privilege of being able to leave at the end of period 4 and head home.

I arrive home at 3.10pm having had the second of the bi-weekly hands-free parental conversations and sit down with a cup of tea, Facebook, e-mails and little blog writing until 4.30pm when I feel compelled to open my posthuman essay and consider the next section.

I quickly realise that a Friday afternoon after work is not the best time to be trying to write. I therefore read through what I have written so far, making corrections and developing a couple of ideas which now seem to be presented in a somewhat brusque manner. My wife arrives home at 5.15pm; we have a cup of tea and then I return to the proofreading at 5.30pm.

At 5.45pm it is time to get ready to head to the Cathedral for tonight's recording instalment and I am charged with picking up fish and chips on the way home at 9.00pm.

The recording session is hard work and by 8.20pm everyone is flagging. Nevertheless, we somehow manage to get through to 9.00pm by which time we have apparently recorded enough to make a CD.

I eventually escape from the Cathedral and stop on the way home to pick up food, encountering an eight minute delay while the fish is cooked for us, and arrive home shortly before 9.30pm.

We enjoy supper and a bottle of wine to the accompaniment of some more television from weeks ago.

Washing up completed, bed calls at 11.30pm, with the tacet reminder that friends will be arriving in eleven hours' time.

Let nothing ever grieve thee

When asked what type of music I enjoy, my favourite conversation-stopping answer is ‘Renaissance choral polyphony’, and the majority of my CD collection (despite being an iPod user, I still have to purchase any tracks electronically) will bear testament to this. As with any rule, the glorious moment is finding an exception to it, and that is how I see Johannes Brahms’s Geistliches Lied.

For want of a generalisation, I object to the music of the Romantic era (not least because the label suggests anything written before about 1830 is free of emotion which is anything but true when much Renaissance music is considered) but this small scale sacred work for a mixed choir and organ cannot be overlooked. If you know it, I hope you will understand why I am choosing to write about it, if you don’t, I hope you soon will.

The text was written by the little-know German poet and medical doctor Paul Fleming (1609-1640) and is simple but moving.

Laß dich nur nichts nicht dauren
mit Trauren,
sei stille,
wie Gott es fügt,
so sei vergnügt mein Wille.

Was willst du heute sorgen
auf morgen?
Der Eine
steht allem für,
der gibt auch dir,das Deine.

Sei nur in allem Handel
ohn’ Wandel,
steh’ feste,
was Gott beschleußt,
das ist und heißt das Beste. Amen

While I am not a German speaker, a comparison of printed editions of the music, a little judicious Googling and poetic licence gives this translation for which I do, if necessary, apologise.

Let nothing ever grieve thee or oppress thee:
Be still and trust God’s good will.

Why brood all day in sorrow, worrying about tomorrow?
God stands for all and will give you grace and mercy.

Be steadfast in all that you do and stand firm;
What God decrees brings peace. Amen.

I feel Fleming offers words of hope and reassurance in what is a beautiful prayer. The sentiment is simple, but effectively moving and it struck me during Evensong this week how suitable it would be for a funeral.

Brahms (1833-1897) wrote the song in 1856 and, as might befit the earlier years of a composer’s career, it could be seen as a technical exercise as it combines, in the Grove dictionary’s words, ‘chorale-like melodies with strict canonic procedures’. However, for something that is so technically precise it retains a lyric beauty that belies its complexity.

It is the use of the canon that makes it so impressive. Non-musicians may remember singing Row, row, row your boat as a child and being delighted to discover that if one singer starts the nursery rhyme, a second singer can start singing the same tune from the beginning a bar later, a third singer can start another bar later and the parts fit together. This simplest form of canon is called a round.

Clearly writing a tune which fits with itself is a technical challenge, but in a canon this is made more difficult as the second voice comes in at a different pitch. In Geistliches Lied, the distance in pitch (or interval) between the starting notes of the two voices is an octave and one note (a ninth). Imagine playing two notes next to each other on the piano: it is always a dissonance and this is the challenge that Brahms sets himself.

However, not content with overcoming the problems of writing something musical as a canon at the ninth, Brahms writes two independent canons – both at the ninth and following the strict rules – which are sung at the same time. This means that

• Voice 1 (soprano) starts singing tune 1 on an F, then
• Voice 2 (tenor) starts singing tune 1 on an E flat four beats later.
• Voice 3 (alto) then starts singing tune 2 stating on an F two beats later, and finally
• Voice 4 (bass) starts singing tune 2 starting on an E flat four beats later

This pattern then continues for the entire piece with all four voices singing in their double canon at the ninth throughout and fitting together perfectly.

Writing a canon could be viewed as a mathematical puzzle and Brahams has given himself difficult constraints in which to solve the problem. But to solve it and in doing so write something so beautiful, blurs the boundaries between – for want of a better description – scientific precision and art.

A two hundred year old prayer, a mathematical challenge and a dash of genius: I am only sorry that after the (hopefully intelligible) description, I have to direct you to a tinny recording on YouTube of King’s College Cambridge singing it.

‘I am wiser than the aged’

I have spent what feels like much of the weekend as part of Lichfield Cathedral’s fund-raising ‘Psalmathon’ which involved the five choirs associated with the Cathedral singing all 150 psalms between Friday and Saturday evenings.

Apart from confirming that any event with the suffix ‘-athon’ is nothing but exhausting, it has introduced me to something new in a familiar setting. Even as a cathedral musician for the past 26 years, I only know about half of the book of psalms: the psalms assigned to each day’s evening worship are old friends, but the morning psalms are the newcomer that everyone regards warily. Discovering the unfamiliar in a familiar context has, for the second time in the past year, caused me to reflect on the impact of psalms on my life.

As a boy chorister, the daily round of psalm singing was part of the job and the strange language and ideas were simply accepted. While the gamut of emotions and events portrayed in the psalms is difficult for a pre-teen to grasp, details did stick out: who were Oreb, Zeb, Zeba and Salmana that princes should aspire to be like? What did God do to the Madianites, Sisera and Jabin at the brook of Kison? Why did the Philistines join Gebal, Ammon, Amalek and Assur at Tyre to help the children of Lot? And all these are just from psalm 83. Many of the names of the people and places are fantastical and would not sound out of place in the worlds of JRR Tolkien or JK Rowling; indeed, the same psalm also includes the Edomites, Ismaelites, Moabites and Hagarenes.

 

As well as providing a rich seam of people and places there is also the inevitable poetry of the psalms. As an adult this is more apparent, but there are images I remember from childhood readings and psalm 55 is one of my clearest memories:

The words of his mouth were softer than butter, having war in his heart:
His words were smoother than oil, and yet be they very swords. 

Even as a youngster, the dichotomy between what one says and does was familiar to me and the simple metaphors make a clear image. Although I can now identify and comment on the poetic devices in the texts, I was certainly aware of some of the meanings and imagery when I was younger.

Having sung psalms on a daily basis, I have never shirked away from attempting to read English texts. My students shy away from Shakespeare because the language is ‘difficult’ – some even object to the ‘thee’s, ‘thou’s and words ending in ‘-eth’ – but, having been brought up with the words of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, these have always sat comfortably with me.

There is an absolute maximum of seven hundred child choristers in England in any academic year. Through their singing of the psalms they are – unwittingly, like me – having worlds opened up to them to which many children just do not have access. The regular repetition of poetry, some dating back three thousand years, must influence the linguistic development (and possibly even subconscious ability to appreciate poetry) positively and the psalms could, perhaps, in their own small way be admired as a rare, but precious, gem in the crown of children’s literature.

Virtual or reality

In the past week I have sung at six choral services at Lichfield Cathedral and listened to a newly released CD on which I am singing as part of Birmingham Cathedral Choir. Every second of the CD was recorded at least twice and edited to produce the final product which can be listened to repeatedly, but the services took place at their allotted time and all that is left is an ephemeral memory of the occasions.

While the ultimately polished performance on the CD is an important artefact in its own right, the transitory nature of a live performance must be accorded greater respect. Turning up to a cathedral, concert hall, or theatre to see and hear a group of individuals performing for the assembled audience – be it four people at a weekday Evensong or thousands at the Albert Hall – where everything is happening at just the moment is a potentially electrifying experience for both the performers and audience.

Over the past few years, an industry whereby concert performances are recorded and CDs of the event burnt and sold to the audience as they leave has developed. While this must prove a profitable scheme for the performers, how many of the CD’s listeners will be disappointed when they attempt to relive the experience of the live concert in the comfort of their own home? The National Theatre and Metropolitan Opera have recently broadcast their performances to cinemas throughout the country so people can enjoy the experience of going to the theatre or opera more cheaply and conveniently, but how can this detached presentation of the performance offer the ‘cinema’ audiences the excitement of seeing the real performance?

When teaching drama texts, I often think how useful it would be to have a recording of a staged performance of the play (rather than television or cinematic adaptations) so the text can be shown as it is meant to be seen rather than just being read in the classroom, but these are few and far between. Ultimately, I believe this is probably a good thing; although useful, they would deprive people of the experience of seeing a live performance. If a recording of each of the RSC’s performances of Shakespeare’s 37 plays was available to watch, why would they ever have to stage another play when a DVD could simply be shown for the audience’s delectation?

While a planned, edited and published recording provides a valuable historic record of artistic performances, there is an immediacy missing in a live performance mediated through screen or amplifier. In a world where is it easy to access recordings of nearly anything through the internet – think live events, mobile phones and YouTube – the combined human effort that goes into a live performance must not be overlooked. The experience of seeing or hearing a performance live provides something infinitely more valuable for an individual’s understanding and appreciation of the world and the capabilities of people around them and must not be underestimated in our ‘on demand’ age.

Tabula rasa

When faced with a blank piece of paper, a blank canvas, a blank sheet of manuscript paper or, most likely in the twenty-first century, a blank space with a cursor flashing expectantly at the left hand side of the screen, the prospect of all the emptiness to be filled is – to me, at least – frightening. I said this to a friend recently who suggested that I should, instead, see it as an opportunity.

I can understand that it is the opportunity to write, draw or compose and the possibilities are therefore endless – and for that we should be pleased – but the question of what to write, draw or compose worries me. Choosing words to fill in blanks, or colouring in a paint-by-numbers or reharmonising a tune all appeal to me as there is a structure in which to work or at least to provide a starting point for my own attempts.

But, when faced with a blank page, I panic.

I admire the discipline of columnists and diarists who have to write a certain number of words each week for publication and this has spurred me to decide to endeavour to write a regular blog post of a fixed length. A ‘blog post’ is a somewhat nebulous term as blogs can – and often do – contain many things, but in the age of the internet it is one which we must use. In using the term I want to see it as an electronic equivalent of a diary or a column which thereby satisfies the part of Wikipedia’s definition of a blog post which includes writing commentaries or descriptions of events.

Having decided I wanted to blog (on the internet word classes seem to be interchangeable) I tried to decide what I should focus on as a subject. I have previously never successfully kept a diary – or blog – or done any regular writing on any topic; however, I realised that I do enjoy using my status updates on Facebook and the ability to post links to newspaper articles as a form of ‘micro-’ (or even ‘nano-’) blogging’. Having been doing this for some three years now, and regularly receiving comments and ‘Likes’ in the process, I feel that the wide range of topics on which I ‘microblog’ are all legitimate topics to include.

It is therefore my intention to write about things I know about and understand: this means that I would hope to write about English (both the language and literature), technology, cathedral music, and food and drink at a bare minimum. However, I do not want to prevent myself from writing about those things which I appreciate and attempt to fathom such as science, or fine art amongst many others. In order to make the whole endeavour manageable both in terms of writing and reading, I have imposed upon myself a limit of 500 carefully selected and judiciously edited words.

And with that, my screen is no longer blank and I look forward to the opportunity to try writing.