Some years ago, as members may recall, the BBC decided, for a trial period, to include a cheerful item at the end of the Nine O' Clock News. Viewers had been complaining that news bulletins were one long litany of depressing stories. The experiment didn't last long. It transpired there was actually little interest in good news!
Unlike BBC viewers, as members of CTCC, we are all anxious for good news, and that is why the newsletter strives to balance negative stories with positive ones. The task, however, is far from easy. Scarcely a day passes without yet more disquieting news. Indeed, there is a real sense that the choral tradition is beginning to unravel.
Are we exaggerating, as Andrew Palmer suggested in his recent editorial in Cathedral Music? The answer has to be that we are telling it as it is. When Andrew stated, for instance, that "the inclusion of women in cathedral choirs is extremely rare" he was dramatically wrong. As the recent monitoring report showed, at least one third of choral foundations currently employ women singers. And on the question of mixing boys and girls on the top line, he had this to say: "It is pleasing to note that this has not happened and there is still only one Anglican cathedral in England with a mixed top line." In fact, in addition to Manchester, to which he refers, Bradford, Derby, Exeter, Leicester and Wells all mix their top lines on a regular basis and most cathedrals with girl as well as boy choristers do so on "important occasions".
We are told that "the all-male tradition is not dying but co-existing peacefully". But what is the evidence for this? Our various monitorings tell of plummeting standards among the boys and of boys being sidelined. Of course, it may be objected that this is an anecdotal and subjective judgement. Even so, if there is a smidgen of truth in it, it ought to give thought for pause. If Andrew is right, why, for example, would the mother of two choristers at a cathedral with a high-profile girls' top line recently confide that her sons felt very undervalued and unimportant? Her older son has started saying that being a chorister is sissy and he doesn't want to be one any more. It is easy to see why he feels like this. The girls are constantly feted just about everywhere and the boys told they have been privileged for far too long.
In some cathedrals where they have introduced a female top line, the boys now sing only two or three times a week - and sometimes not at all by themselves or with the men. In those circumstances, how can standards be maintained or boys kept motivated? Then there is the dumb day, the abolition of which was trumpeted as one of the benefits of having an additional top line: it lives on almost everywhere.
Andrew also claims that the very existence of CTCC's List of Traditional Choirs belies our basic fears. How wrong he is! Our diminutive list is proof positive of the collapse of the traditional choir outside cathedrals - and every year it grows smaller and smaller.
This country has lost an empire. It has also lost out to other countries in many areas of life. In one thing, however, it leads, supreme and unchallenged - the cathedral choral tradition. So, the choice of New College, Oxford, to sing Britten's War Requiem at the recent 70th anniversary celebrations of the start of the Second World War in Gdansk before the US President and European Heads of Governments was entirely natural.
Such bravura performances have their origins in boys opting to become probationers. At a recent concert at the Temple, one such could hardly keep from jumping up and down. "I am so excited, " he said. "I want to sing in the choir. I want to sing like the other boys."
Just as moving is the report of one member attending Evensong at St James, Grimsby. He said: "There were only seven boys and no men. They were excellent; the singing was bright, confident, crystal-clear, without being in any way showy. Much of it was led by a solo boy who could have walked into any cathedral choirstall he chose to."
With such examples to inspire us, CTCC has no choice but to fight on.
A 350th Anniversary Concert will take place at St John's, Smith Square, London, on Sunday, November 22nd, to honour the memory of Henry Purcell. It will be directed by our own Grayston Burgess, and the Tiffin Boys' Choir will be singing.
Book early to avoid disappointment!
A lady living overseas who likes to catch the Daily Service on the BBC wrote in to ask if it was the girls who were singing in a recent broadcast from Chester. The Producer of the programme, Clair Jaquiss, confirmed that it was indeed the girls. She also added: "We do however use the boys from time to time." Well, that is something, though it has to be said they do not use the boys much for Broadcast Evensong from Chester, the last two or three of which have been sung by the girls and men. None of this would surprise the CTCC member who recently enquired about weekend services at Chester. He was told that the boys were currently "having a rest".
CTCC has been running ads in the parish magazines of a number of churches which have traditional choirs. Sometimes, of course, they also have other choirs. The wording of our ads, of course, is mild and not at all controversial, so we were surprised recently when the priest in charge at St Mary, Redcliffe, informed us that they have "a boys' and men's choir, a girls' choir and a mixed occasional choir, who are all important to our music. I therefore think your advert would be inappropriate in our magazine."
Our List of Traditional Choirs of Men and Boys continues to shrink. We have recently learnt that St Peter's, Prestbury and All Saints, Kingston, have lost their choirs of men and boys.
The Cambridge Cantat 800 celebration last April might have provided a wonderful opportunity for the city to showcase its proud choral heritage. Instead, just three out of sixteen concerts or services were given by the traditional choirs of King's and St John's, and none at all by the only other remaining traditional choir of Jesus College. The poster advertising the celebration showed a robed choir of adults. Happily, the Cantat 800 celebrations at this year's Proms had the choirs of King's and St John's joining in Jonathan Harvey's Come, Holy Ghost, a work and a performance of which received high praise from the critics.
This was the title of an article in the September edition of CMQ, the journal of the RSCM, by Andrew Kirk, who runs the traditional choir of St Mary's, Redcliffe. In it, he describes what he does to recruit boys to the choir and how he goes about ensuring they stay on board. A commitment to the choir involves twelve or more hours a week.
Mr Kirk acknowledges that "the sound of boy trebles has inspired many composers in the history of European church music." He goes on to say that "It is a sound that continues to be heard and treasured each week by worshippers in many places, especially cathedrals. However, as demands on young people's time increases, it is becoming more difficult to recruit and nurture boy choristers in local churches - and encourage them to carry on as adults!"
"Demands on young people's time" there undoubtedly are, yet as an explanation, it does not begin to account for the catastrophic decline in church choirboys. Neither, and the author clearly realises this, is it only a matter of keeping boys singing; you have to get them singing in the first place. In his own case, he has managed to do well by working closely with local schools. Elsewhere, as we know, schools have refused point blank to help with recruitment.
To end with, there is the usual nod at girls' choirs, which "are to be welcomed and encouraged." Perhaps so, for the RSCM now reports that girls, too, are becoming more difficult to recruit - a scenario which accords perfectly with Dr Arthur Saunders' research findings.
There is some good news, however. RSCM is now going to ring-fence money specifically for the training of boys. Like all good things, however, it will be the pudding test which will decide how successful this move is.
The Choir Schools Association has reported an increase in interest in choristerships from the parents of boys and girls. Perhaps, surprisingly, more interest is being shown by parents enquiring on behalf of their sons.
On Songs of Praise recently, we were shown male voice choirs with hundreds of men in them. Great stuff, of course - except that is was noticeable that not one of the men appeared under sixty. Is it that men don't get the urge to join such choirs until they are collecting their pensions? The writing is on the wall, but who cares to read it?
An increasing number of cathedrals have withdrawn any indication from their Music Lists of who is singing. These include Carlisle, Chester, Ely, Guildford, Liverpool (Anglican), Peterborough and Worcester.
Enquiries as to why Music Lists no longer show who is providing the treble line have elicited polite but very varied responses:
There were also quite a few "don't know", and one lady was even told by a dean: "I am aware that for some people the sight and sound of girls singing in church is so unpleasing that they would like a health warning issued to spare them unhappiness."
A year-long monitoring of Broadcast Choral Evensong has shown that the service was sung by:
This would seem to be good news for the traditional choir, but the increasing contribution to the broadcast of mixed adult choirs is a regrettable trend.
The recent get-together of the choirs of Leeds Parish Church, Ripon Cathedral and Wakefield Cathedral for a lunch-time concert was acclaimed a roaring success by a largely secular audience. Leeds Town Hall was packed, and people seemed genuinely thrilled to hear these choirs. However, there was a degree of ignorance about the whole enterprise, encapsulated in the comment of one lady, who wondered why they kept the three choirs in existence just so that they could sing one concert a year. She seemed genuinely surprised when she was told that their primary purpose was to sing religious services.
The Leeds Parish Church treble soloist at the concert was aged sixteen and a half. So much for the claims of those 'experts' who say that, after about eleven years of age, a boy should not continue singing treble!
It is not often we hear from Australia, so it was good to receive the following communication from John Rivers, the Director of Music at Wangaratta Cathedral: "We have some reasonably good news, of a minor sort. We had a thumping good evensong last night, which is hard work with my current lot. My prized tenor, (an ex treble now aged eighteen and a half; a vocal student of mine, and in his final year at school) finishes school in three days, before commencing his last ever school exams. He has been given almost all the conducting recently and is a real boost to the music. So the rafters rang with Sumsion in A, and Bullocks 'Give us the wings of faith' (a sort of homage for St Luke's day)."
"But one of my favourite things happened, (and yes, I am blowing my own trumpet). With all their faults and sins, my choir usually maintains a good sense of pitch. So, having rehearsed a bit of the psalm, I asked my young tenor to take over conducting whilst I went for a jaunt around the cathedral to listen."
"Balance quite pleasant, tone enjoyable enough, despite some slightly rushed words. But, after nine or so unaccompanied verses I had made my way back to the chancel, slid onto the organ and started accompanying: perfectly in tune!"
Why is it that when girls take up what is usually a boys' activity it is seen as enlightened and the righting of a wrong, but when boys opt to do what was previously considered a girls' thing it makes number one spot of "oddest items on ITV"? A group of boy cheerleaders from Leeds came third in a national competition. Was this "diversity" celebrated? No, the boys were made fun of.
The Daily Express recently reported that the Vienna Boys Choir, "one of the last bastions of male domination in the west", may be going mixed.
Gerald Wirth, creative director of the choir, denied this. Girls' voices sound "less clear" at the "decisive age", he said, adding that girls could force boys out in the long run as they were more self-confident than their male contemporaries: "We don't want to risk becoming a boys' choir without boys".
Congratulations to Laurence Kilsby of Tewkesbury Abbey on becoming BBC Radio 2 Boy Chorister of the Year! 2009!
The Charity Commissioners' website shows the income from the sale of concert ticket sales at the Southern Cathedrals' Festival - 2004 and 2005. It as follows:
Chichester - 2004:
Income from concert sung by girls and men: £2,286.00
Income from concerts sung by boys and men: £7,515.00 and £9,944.00
Salisbury - 2006:
Income from concert sung by girls and men: £9,790.00
Income from concerts sung by boys and men: £7,215.00 and £15,190.00
Clearly, ticket sales for a mid-afternoon, mid-week concert would be expected to be lower than those for an evening or weekend concert. None the less, these figures do make one think.
English Heritage is set to close its Cathedral Grants Scheme at the end of this year. An alarming number of cathedrals are said to be crumbling, and the Daily Telegraph has reported that parts of Canterbury Cathedral have been fenced off as unsafe. Lincoln Cathedral receives around a quarter of its income for conservation work from English Heritage, while York Minster was said by one commentator to be falling down faster than they could afford to put it back up again.
The Bishop of Wakefield said: "Cathedrals are part of the lifeblood of our culture. They are also essential parts of our heritage and of the nation's tourist industry."
Part of the nation's tourist industry? Well, if that is the case, then, like industry, they should consider carefully on what they spend their money. Industry out in the real world does not go in for duplicating its efforts - especially, when not needed.
Portsmouth Cathedral, just months after starting its new choir for teenage girls and boys, has announced a swathe of cuts, including a sizeable chunk from the music budget.
Farrell Graves, an American theological student on a six-week visit to Wakefield Cathedral, wrote in the cathedral's newsletter that "we must discern new ways to introduce people to God, new forms of evangelising." Wakefield, he declares: "stands at the beginning of a renaissance...Coffee mornings, African drumming classes, Refugee Week and midday concerts reach outside the Cathedral precinct and spread the gospel by building relationships."
Mr Graves would be well advised to pick up a history book. He might then learn to understand words like "renaissance" before throwing them around so freely. Of course, he is not alone in thinking that a clammy embrace of "relationships" and the rest is the way to win hearts and minds and gain believers. In one church recently, a Vicar put on a rock concert, followed by a sermon. The place was packed, and he was thrilled. However, when he repeated the formula, nobody turned up. It seems the young people had pitched up first time for the band, but were put off coming a second time by having to listen to matters religious.
There were other things Mr Graves might have observed during his visit. Take a recent all-night sponsored event to raise funds for the girls' tour to New York. Several of the older girls sang solos - some in high heels and short skirts and some in tracksuits. Even though there were conspicuously more girls than boys, there was a notice up saying that the Cathedral urgently needed more girl choristers. Were younger girls not applying as once they were?
After Compline, there was a recital of anthems in the quire by the choristers (at least, 16 girls and three or four boys) and the men. Some of the girls had changed into their pyjamas and some of the men were drinking pints of beer.
Wakefield is not alone in its infatuation with "different forms of worship". The growing list includes Bradford, Canterbury, Christchurch, Oxford, Coventry, Exeter, Southwark, Truro and Westminster Cathedral.
"Different" in this context embraces just about anything. At Canterbury, they have had an Elvis Presley concert. At York, they have had a "Transcendence" Eucharist ("the mixing up of old and new - plainsong chants over ambient beats, live video mixing using ancient iconography, beats and DJs working alongside Palestrina sung by the Minster's musicians") and at Westminster Cathedral they have welcomed the return of the Cardinal Vaughan Big Band.
Continuing support for traditional choirs cannot be taken for granted. At Coventry, for example, the dean is said to be no fan of robed choirs, and it is believed he would prefer to replace them with something more modern.