I am 60 this year. My father died aged 74 and my target is to live as long as he did. In another 14 years I wonder what the country will be like.
[1] I am already despondent about the issue of Halal meat. How does killing animals which have not been stunned make England a better nation? What is the point of the RSPCA?
[2] House building is another cause of concern. As far as I can see new houses are being built on what used to be prime farm land. Some will say we import more of our food these days. What happens when the (fossil) fuel runs out? How will we power our ships to bring food here?
[3] Town centres. People used to live in towns. Now people want to live out of towns - hence point 2 above. Town centres are dead because shops are moving out to superstores (also built on good land). Are town centres just places where night clubs thrive?
I am a little young to think like the character in the Barnum song "Thank God I'm Old" but it is getting that way.
Monday 27 August 2018
Wednesday 15 August 2018
Peterborough Cathedral
I attended two Evensongs at Peterborough Cathedral over the weekend as my daughter was singing with the visiting choir Luceat (which is mostly Oxford based).
I had reservations about hearing the organ after the pitch change but not too many new stops have been added according to NPOR so the marvellous sounds which comes from the Hill are essentially what I knew as a boy. The main difference is that there is no action noise (although that would have been sorted out in 1981) but I really did notice that I could hear no action noise at all during the services nor did I notice any thuds when pistons were pressed and the sliders moved (I assume they are still slider chests).
Luceat sang extremely well and I found the whole experience rather emotional; but what former chorister doesn't get a tingle when they hear the Howells Coll. Reg. "Gloria"?
The Sunday voluntary was Vierne's "Carillon de Westminster" which Andrew Newberry used to play, although, oddly, I never heard him do so. As the organ got louder and louder I could not help but recall how I had heard the grand sound of the organ at Andrew's hands going at full pelt. Of course it is probably louder at full tilt than he could achieve because it now has another Great Mixture and a second Tuba! Still, in my teens - when there were precious few pistons before the 1981 rebuild - I frequently had to respond to the call for "Clarion" (Swell) and "Ophicleide" (Pedal) neither of which came out on Andrew's piston settings and had to be drawn manually. My eyes watered briefly as a wallowed in nostalgia.
Today's organists seem far more skilled than was the case 40 years ago, but I am probably wrong: they have different skills. They can play the fast stuff but I was brought up to manage a large organ carefully and not to drown the choir. The Luceat organist was having fun and who could blame him? Had he been Dr Stanley Vann's Assistant Organist he would not have let rip quite so much.
Peterborough (Andrew said) is one of the few places where one can accompany the choir with Full Swell, as long as the box is not open too far. These days organists do open it rather more but, of course, they are accompanying adults not boy trebles.
So it was great to go back to my old stamping ground and to hear that church music is in safe hands in certain quarters.
Andrew, I miss you. R. I. P.
Here he is giving it some welly back in the day.
I had reservations about hearing the organ after the pitch change but not too many new stops have been added according to NPOR so the marvellous sounds which comes from the Hill are essentially what I knew as a boy. The main difference is that there is no action noise (although that would have been sorted out in 1981) but I really did notice that I could hear no action noise at all during the services nor did I notice any thuds when pistons were pressed and the sliders moved (I assume they are still slider chests).
Luceat sang extremely well and I found the whole experience rather emotional; but what former chorister doesn't get a tingle when they hear the Howells Coll. Reg. "Gloria"?
The Sunday voluntary was Vierne's "Carillon de Westminster" which Andrew Newberry used to play, although, oddly, I never heard him do so. As the organ got louder and louder I could not help but recall how I had heard the grand sound of the organ at Andrew's hands going at full pelt. Of course it is probably louder at full tilt than he could achieve because it now has another Great Mixture and a second Tuba! Still, in my teens - when there were precious few pistons before the 1981 rebuild - I frequently had to respond to the call for "Clarion" (Swell) and "Ophicleide" (Pedal) neither of which came out on Andrew's piston settings and had to be drawn manually. My eyes watered briefly as a wallowed in nostalgia.
Today's organists seem far more skilled than was the case 40 years ago, but I am probably wrong: they have different skills. They can play the fast stuff but I was brought up to manage a large organ carefully and not to drown the choir. The Luceat organist was having fun and who could blame him? Had he been Dr Stanley Vann's Assistant Organist he would not have let rip quite so much.
Peterborough (Andrew said) is one of the few places where one can accompany the choir with Full Swell, as long as the box is not open too far. These days organists do open it rather more but, of course, they are accompanying adults not boy trebles.
So it was great to go back to my old stamping ground and to hear that church music is in safe hands in certain quarters.
Andrew, I miss you. R. I. P.
Here he is giving it some welly back in the day.
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