The Church Music Society
Registered Charity No. 290309
Church Music Society: February 2010
From the Chairman
It is my pleasure to introduce the February edition of the newsletter, featuring short articles by our long-standing member, David Patrick, and Emily Beahan, a young professional soprano working in London.
Since our successful Annual General Meeting in Cambridge the Officers and Committee have been busy promoting the Society – its publications in particular – and refining the website, which is now in a more attractive and user-friendly format. Please take a few minutes to visit the site and let the Hon. Secretary have your comments.
With all best wishes for the year ahead,
Ian Curror
Chairman
"Music Research - You never know what you will find"
- David Patrick
Research as a Music Reader at the British Library for 33 years has been a fascinating experience for me. To have handled original manuscripts by, amongst others, Henry Purcell, Mozart, Elgar and those in the Thomas Tudway collection has been a great privilege.
My early research was into music for soprano solo and organ/harpsichord continuo. This was for my wife, Prudence Lloyd, and me to use in our concerts in Europe. Many of these new editions have since been published by Boosey & Hawkes in my collections “Sacred Songs for the Soloist” - 2 volumes of vocal solos, one for High Voice and the other for Medium High Voice each volume containing different material.
There is much music of quality which is in the public domain that is well worth rediscovering. For one reason or another the passage of time has allowed such music to become overlooked.
At times, when researching music by a particular composer which is contained within a volume of very mixed repertoire one stumbles across the unexpected. Did you know for instance that Gounod wrote a second setting of the words “Ave Maria”? This was composed in 1889, thirty years after his first setting was written. In this second setting Gounod uses J.S. Bach's well known Prelude for the Lute (BWV 999) as the piano/organ accompaniment.
An unexpected financial windfall in 1994 enabled me to buy one of the first Sibelius music processing systems and, as a result, I set up Fitzjohn Music Publications in 1998. All the music published is from the 17th,18th,19th,and early 20th centuries in new and revised editions. I am especially interested in 18th century English organ music and today Fitzjohn Music Publications is the largest publisher of this genre. The Romantic organ repertoire is not neglected in the catalogue in that Toccatas and Scherzi by French and Belgian composers are represented. Included in the Vocal Catalogue is Vivaldi's “Nulla in mundo pax sincera” which was featured in the film “Shine” and performed at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts in recent years. To complement the two Boosey & Hawkes volumes mentioned above, Fitzjohn Music Publications publishes 3 Volumes of “English Sacred Solos” each consisting of 12 solos by composers of the 18th and 19th centuries. These collections came about when I was researching Henry Purcell's verse anthems for a collection I was commissioned to arrange and edit for the Royal School of Church Music for the Purcell tercentenary in 1995 entitled “The Purcell Selection”. My research at the time led me down various avenues and byways and, on looking at various verse anthems of the period, I was able to extract some wonderful verse solos worthy of new editions.
My approach to editing and publishing has always been to be faithful to the composer by consulting the earliest printed editions, or original manuscripts if available, in libraries in this country or abroad. Of importance is the correction of printing errors in the original editions as well as making phrasing and articulation more consistent. Some early publishers were somewhat careless with regard to the setting of 18th century English Organ Music! I aim to provide complete modern performing editions with notes on performance practice. For example Jonas Blewitt's Twelve Voluntaries Op.4 includes the composer's important treatise “On the Organ”, and Francis Linley's Eight Voluntaries includes a similar treatise by Linley. I feel passionately that today's organists need to explore fully our national heritage of 18th century organ music. There is so much more to discover beyond the Voluntaries of John Stanley, and a few other composers who are merely represented in modern collections by a few representative works.
Girl Chorister to Professional Singer
– Emily Beahan
As a child, the image I had of choristers was a group of small boys wearing what I would soon learn to be cassocks and holding candles singing ‘fa la la’ around a Christmas tree. I never knew girl choristers existed. I was still at junior school when the first girls’ cathedral choir was formed in 1991 at Salisbury Cathedral.
Unlike many children who took up playing a musical instrument at a young age, I had no formal musical training at school. My experience of classical music was through dance lessons, which I attended five nights a week from the age of 7. I remember the first time I heard proper cathedral choral music. It was on an ITV adaptation of Joanna Trollope’s ‘The Choir’, starring Anthony Way and the choristers of St Paul’s Cathedral. The incidental music included Stanford’s Magnificat in G, Mendelssohn’s Hear my Prayer and Tallis’s Salvator Mundi. These pieces moved me so much that I spent hours in the library searching out CDs of different cathedral choirs.
In 1994, the Master of the Music from Sheffield Cathedral came to our school to audition for the newly formed girl’s choir, of which there were only a few in existence. Although I didn’t know how to read music, I was chosen because I had an ear for the music, could project my voice well and had a good natural tone.
The choir developed my sight reading, breathing and support as well as teaching me musicality and the ability to perform music stylistically. It encouraged good practice such as dedication, reliability, loyalty and consistency. We were given valuable experiences including regular tours, concerts & services in different cathedrals, networking with other choirs, recordings, live broadcasts and even appearances on BBC ‘Songs of Praise’.
At times members of the congregation would approach me and give feedback on our performances. Listening to and accepting praise and criticism from members of the public became second nature to the girls in the choir as so many people were undecided about the notion of girls’ cathedral choirs. Developing a thick skin was imperative otherwise you would feel down hearted many times after comments from traditionalists.
The desire to learn more repertoire led me to join the Sheffield Oratorio Chorus, to step in for performances with Sheffield University Chamber Choir and eventually join the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, which was a great place to network with my peers and sing with huge forces of singers and multiple choirs.
Another opportunity I was given was to attend the Eton Choral Courses, singing services in Oxbridge colleges as well as doing Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3. By this time I was studying for my A levels. The choral courses also gave me an opportunity to sing solo repertoire and be coached by the resident singing teachers.
Without the training I received as a chorister, I know I wouldn’t be singing professionally today. The stamina I have built up, discipline and good work ethic I have maintained, networking skills I have cultivated and general ability to ‘get the dots right’ has led people to rely on me and thus give me more work time and again.
