Happy
New Year!
Apologies
in advance for the length of this musing, but I did
threaten
to write a review of the year a while ago, and unlike other
organisations who insist on doing this sort of thing whilst we're
still only halfway through December, decided to actually wait until
2018 was officially over!
Let's
start at (almost) the very beginning. A very good place to start!
In
January for the Epiphany weekend, I sang with the excellent St
Austin's parish choir from Wakefield for an Extraordinary Form
Mass in Wakefield, and then on the Sunday, joined them again to sing
an Ordinary Form Solemn Mass in Leeds Cathedral, the first of a few visits
to my old musical hunting-ground of the year. Later that month, a
small group of Rudgates met in York to sing an Ordinariate Use Mass
at our base (which is also now the base of the York Ordinariate Mission) in St Mary's Church,
Bishophill Junior.
February
brought me back to St Austin's for an EF Solemn Mass for the
Purification of the BVM (Candlemas) and later on, for the Parish Mass
of Ash Wednesday. For the first weekend of Lent I was in Ripon
Cathedral singing the choral services there with the Middlesbrough
Cathedral Consort. At the end of the month, I was over in Manchester
visiting the new home of the Manchester
Ordinariate Mission, singing a Pontifical Mass and then having
lunch with their wonderful priest (Fr. Andrew Starkie) and his family
and the Ordinary (Mgr. Keith Newton) too.
Catholic
readers, especially those who prefer traditional Forms, will know
that you can request a Requiem Mass in the Traditional Latin Rite for
your funeral. This was so for the late Frank Marshall and so in early
March, (being a rare example of an experienced singer who can handle
the entire Officium Defunctorum by himself without assistance from
anyone else) I journeyed to the small Catholic church of St Mary &
St Joseph in Hedon in the East Riding of Yorkshire to sing Frank's
Requiem. Later in the month I was back at St Austin's in Wakefield
helping out with the arrangements for (and singing naturally!)
Extraordinary Form Vespers of Passion Sunday with the added
complication of a commemoration of St Joseph, whose Feast Day was the
day afterwards. Someone was heard to remark to the clergy afterwards
“can we have this every week?” Now that's the kind of feedback I
like. :-)
Digressing
slightly, a big pastime of mine is visiting churches, cathedrals and
other places of historical interest. One of the items on my own
personal “bucket list” is to visit all the Catholic &
Anglican cathedrals in England & Wales (others too on an ad-hoc
basis) and I finally ticked Guildford off the list leaving me with
what I thought was just Truro to do. I've now discovered that there's
a Catholic cathedral in Aldershot where the Bishop of HM Armed Forces
is based, and a Syro-Malabar (Indian) cathedral in Preston, so I've
still some way to go before the list is complete!
Also
in March was my first trip up to Ushaw College just outside Durham.
Many of you will know that I'm a paid-up 'Friend of Ushaw' and as
such, am supposed to hear in advance of special occasions and
services (this was the St Cuthbert's Day Mass) I shall expand on my
thoughts about their poor publicity when it comes to actual services
(as opposed to other Events/Concerts/recitals etc which are well
advertised on their website) as I
go on through the year – stay tuned! Needless to say, for such an
important occasion as this, I only got to hear about it with less
than 48 hrs notice, which I mentioned in passing to the Bishop-elect
(now Bishop) of Lancaster who was there along with most of the
Hierarchy of the Northern Province.
I
do like to listen to other choirs (preferably in a liturgical
setting) as well as singing myself, and towards the end of March was
able to hear the excellent Sunderland-based Westland
Singers, and the equally excellent Clerkes
of All Saints back in Yorkshire.
After
Easter, I joined up again with St Austin's for their mini-tour of
Norfolk, which consisted of a well-received recital in the delightful
church of St Joseph the Worker in Sheringham, followed by Solemn Mass
of the 2nd
Sunday of Easter in the Catholic Cathedral of St John the Baptist in
Norwich. Later on that month, I was back in Leeds Cathedral, again
with St Austin's for a recital during one of the regular series of
'Nightfever' events. Nothing to do with the Bee Gees I assure you! To
find out more about it, just click on this link.
One
of the highlights of the year for me was in May, with what is
believed to be the first ever
Pontifical Catholic Mass (in any Form or Rite) to take place in St
Mary's, Bishophill. Nothing is known about what took place before the
Reformation, but it's highly unlikely that a Bishop would have
visited the place – if anyone reading this knows for sure, do
please get in touch! This was on behalf of the York Ordinariate
Mission, and took months to plan for! It was a full Rudgate Choral
Service (the first of the year) and I'd planned it to be a
Tallis-fest with lip-service being paid to other composers. :-) What
particularly pleased me was that we had enough people in the main
choir to actually have the Schola set up as an entirely separate
group and sing the Proper of the Mass from the stalls in the
Sanctuary. Being an Ordinariate Mass, you might expect the Proper to
be sung in English from the English Gradual, but I prefer my
own
patrimony
and, whenever possible, use the full Proper from the Graduale
Romanum! If you ever go to a sung Ordinariate Use Mass in York in the
future, you know what you're going to get from me. ;-)
Later
in May, along with regular parters-in-crime Michael and Lloyd (more
about Lloyd later) we went on one of our fairly regular European Road
Trips, slightly conservative this time around with only 4 countries
(Slovenia, Austria, Italy and Croatia) being visited. A wonderful
time with unseasonably hot weather and fermented 'fruit juice' of
many varieties including Slovenian cider. You'll have to believe me
on this as I disposed of all the evidence whilst I was there! One
lesson I learned from this particular trip is that I'm NEVER getting
into a small boat again!
In
June, I was back with St Austin's to sing for a Solemn EF Mass at St
Ignatius' Church in Ossett. Later that month I made one of my
semi-regular trips up to my own Diocesan Cathedral in Middlesbrough
to sing Vespers with the Cathedral Consort. I also managed to catch
up with another choir I like to listen to whenever I can, Caelestis,
the student-based and led choir who sing on Sunday evenings at St
Lawrence's church in York. Highlight of the year for some I'm sure
was their superb liturgical performance of Vaughan Williams' Mass in
G minor.
At
the end of June, I was in Bordeaux on the afore-mentioned Lloyd's
stag do. A fairly restrained affair considering what you see in York
most weekends, but it was still accompanied by ample quantities of
excellent local food and (particularly) drink! A particular highlight
of this trip was of 3 of us attending Sunday Vespers in the church of
St Eloi and the startled look on the faces of the Schola (akin to
rabbits being caught in car headlights – and not the first time
I've observed this in France) You can imagine the conversation they
were having amongst themselves along the lines of “Mon Dieu, there
are people in the congregation who actually know what they're doing!”
One of the singers actually walked down the church and presented me
with a copy of their choir-book opened at the pages they were using.
:-)
July
was the one month of the year I think when I didn't have any
'official' singing to do outside of one Ordinariate-Use Mass in York
and Compline which continued more or less weekly throughout the year
sung by a group of Rudgates and friends, so I was able to take in
some other services and events elsewhere.
One
of these, at Ushaw College, annoyed me intensely. Billed as Gregorian
Chant Vespers, whilst sung well, it turned out to be (as far as I'm
concerned) an arty-farty reconstruction/recital which had been made
up for that particular performance. It *was* sung well mind, but to
call it Vespers was to my mind a great deception, being that it was
sung in a Catholic chapel. It was disturbing enough to have the
antiphons sung in Latin from the Roman Breviary but the psalms sung
in English from the Book of Common Prayer! It got worse. There were
readings, two of them, from the Gospel of James – not even
officially sanctioned scripture! There were other things included to
make it look like an actual service, which it couldn't possibly have
been. I got the feeling that is was designed to look like a service
and that no-one would be able to tell that it wasn't – well I
certainly could! I'd go so far as to say that this kind of
performance (albeit well sung) shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a
Catholic place of worship, or indeed an Anglican church/chapel too
for that matter.
What
I find particularly upsetting about this, is that the Rudgates having
sung Gregorian chant Vespers of the Blessed Virgin Mary in October
2017 (the real deal, not an artificial reconstruction!) hadn't been
invited back to Ushaw despite initially positive email correspondence
suggesting that we could possibly have a minor role in singing a
service sometime in 2018 as part of the 450th
Anniversary celebrations of the original founding of the College.
Despite speaking to one of the event organisers, as well as a couple
of follow-up emails and also contact via their social media page we heard nothing else about it. To
say that I'm disappointed is the understatement of the year so far!
On
a more positive note, the arrival of August meant the wedding of the
year, that of Lloyd and his lovely wife, Katie, in Hexham. Despite
11th
hour planning trying to find (successfully) extra singers for the
main choir as well as a sub-deacon for the Nuptial Mass, everything
proceeded without a hitch. On the day itself, I had three different
'hats' to wear being one of the Ushers, the Sound & Video
Technician and also Director of the Schola, complete with costume
change from Ushers Morning dress for before the service and the
Wedding itself, into choir robes for the Nuptial Mass which followed,
and then back into Morning dress for the reception! A lovely time in
Northumberland, marred (only slightly) by the torrential rain on the
Saturday night which obscured what would have been a wonderful
sighting of the Perseid meteor shower.
The
weekend after the wedding took me to Derby, where I was part of the
Eldon Singers who sang all the cathedral services that weekend. The
Eldon Singers are a group who come together each year to sing in a
cathedral (Anglican, so far) during the month of August. Under the
direction of Tim Knight, who is a very fine fellow – despite what
he jokingly calls me from time to time (!) the weekend consists of
high quality singing, good food, drink and company, and is well worth
going to either as a singer, or just to support those who are
singing. On top of all that my overnight accommodation was in a Real
Ale/Cider pub just a few hundred yards away from Derby Cathedral. :-D
To
finish August off, I had 3 different services in three different
locations across Northern England over the Bank Holiday weekend.
First off was singing Vespers from the Little Office of the Blessed
Virgin Mary in St Mary's Bishophill as part of the Yorkshire Medieval
Churches Festival in conjunction with Church Explorers. This is an
event that I've supported for two or three years now, and long may it
continue. Event two, was driving over to Blackburn Cathedral (via
Manchester) to sing Evensong with the Northern Cathedral Consort, and
finally, back on the right side of the Pennines, reprising BVM
Vespers in Castle Howard Chapel. I'm willing to bet that it's
(probably) the first ever time that a Catholic Office has been sung
there!
September
brought me back to St Austin's in Wakefield for the wedding of one of
the choir members Thomas and his wife Rosalind, swiftly followed the
following weekend by the first Ordinariate Use High Mass to take
place in Leeds Cathedral, for which the Rudgates provided 4 singers
to sing Merbecke, the Proper and some quality hymns. I was told
afterwards that the standard of singing (aided by a very enthusiastic
congregation) was so good that nobody had realised that we didn't
have an organist...
Then
it was off to Manchester on the 23rd
to sing Choral Evensong followed by Benediction with the community
there in honour of Our Lady of Walsingham. The party which followed
in the newly refurbished church hall was super. Plenty of food &
drink, a band hired for the occasion and also being treated to a
'clerical' rendition of some classic Bob Dylan songs. I'm sure
there'll be at least one video of 'the evidence' floating around the
cybersphere somewhere, so go and look for it! A truly wonderful
community and if I lived in the north Manchester area, I wouldn't go
anywhere else.
At
the end of September, Michaelmas day dawned, and despite having been
in our calendar for ages, too many singers not being available, or
pulling out at the last minute meant a complete change of programme
for the Rudgate's Sung Mass in Wakefield. Fortunately I had a Plan
'B'. (Plan 'B' is always very useful to have – don't leave home
without one!) and had prepared a chant only alternative which saved
the day. I know one or two people were disappointed (as was I) at the
lack of a full polyphonic Rudgate turnout, but in the end the quality
didn't suffer apart from one minor blip during the Gloria of the mass
which changed key, Eurovision style, towards the end!
In
October, a few of the Rudgates were back in Manchester again to sing
Byrd's Mass for 3 voices for the Patronal feast of St Margaret Mary
Alacoque – another splendid evening. I sang the Proper for this
Mass from the Plainchant Gradual, which is essentially based on the
Graduale Romanum, but sung in English. A very weird experience as
most of the music was familiar with just a few minor tweaks here &
there, the text and subsequent word pointing was very different. It's
a good exercise to do this occasionally (where circumstances permit)
as it definitely keeps you on your toes..
At
the end of October, I was at Ampleforth Abbey, swapping one chant
(Gregorian) for another (Carpatho-Rusyn) for the bi-annual Orthodox
Liturgy that takes place there. For some time now, I've gone
specifically to chant the Epistle while the rest of the Liturgy is
fully choral, provided by local Ryedale choirs under the Direction of
the Monastic choir master Fr Alexander, who has (directly &
indirectly) taught me so much about Gregorian Chant. As for the
Carpatho-Rusyn, I have my Ukrainian friends to thank for that. I'm
obviously doing something right, because immediately after this
service, I was booked for the next one which takes place later this
month on the 26th
January (The Saturday during the octave of Christian Unity.) Another
good reason for going is that the after-service sherry and subsequent
lunch is legendary!
If
you're Catholic, you'll know that November is the month of the Holy
Souls, and on the 2nd,
All Souls' Day, I was in Wakefield singing a Solemn EF Requiem Mass
with St Austin's choir. Gregorian chant and Victoria's Requiem for 4
voices. The following day, I was back at Ushaw College, for the
corner-stone event of their 450th
anniversary celebrations. Now, for such an important event, whose
Principal Celebrant was no less then the Cardinal Archbishop of
Westminster, you'd have thought there would be a blaze of advance
publicity on their website and beyond wouldn't you? Wrong! At less
than 48 hours notice before said event, I did at least get an email
telling me it was happening, which was just enough time for me to
re-arrange my plans for the 3rd
of November. I had a very good conversation about this with my own
Bishop (+Middlesbrough) who was astonished, as it had been in his
diary for months! And this, don't forget, comes to you from a paid-up
Friend of Ushaw, who at the very least, should be receiving advance
notice of important events such as these. Well, it simply isn't
happening! The only services I saw outside of the weekly said Mass
given proper publicity were the Remembrance Service and Carol
Services in December. I'm coming around to the opinion that the
organisers would like to turn it into just another Ecclesiastical
Theme Park. If anyone from Ushaw College sees this and would like to
contact me to reassure me that this is not the case, I'd be delighted
to hear from them.
Mini-rant
over, on Remembrance Day itself (the centenary of the Armistice of
course) I was back in Bishophill Jnr, but this time listening to a
Concert of Remembrance performed by the Heritage
Singers directed by Tim Knight, with readings about some of the
local people from that area of York who died during the conflict,
including the last known fatality of the war who was killed just 90
minutes before the ceasefire. A very sobering experience and a lovely
concert. The Heritage Singers, are, like the Rudgates, a choir whose
primary focus is liturgical performance, and so are very dear to my
heart. Tim reminded me afterwards that he would like to collaborate
with the Rudgates at some point in the future, so we'll see if we can
make it happen this year!
On
the 20th,
two of us (thank you Nicola!) made the trek to Markenfield
Hall near Ripon to provide the music for the Annual Pilgrimage
and Mass to commemorate the Rising of the North. To find out more
about this moment of our history, and Markenfield's place in it and
why this event is always
held on the 20th
November without exception, then follow
this link. It will tell you everything you need to know. :-) This
year is the 450th
Anniversary of the Rising, so I hope we could do a bit more to help.
Given enough notice, we might even get a full choir there.
And
so we arrive in December, the 1st
seeing a small but hardy group of Rudgates back in Manchester singing
for the Manchester Ordinariate Mission's Advent Procession. This is
the third time we've been involved with this, and it's always a
lovely occasion, one that is now well and truly established on our
calendar! Following a Solemn Ordinariate-Use High Mass at Bishophill on the 8th, I dashed up to Middlesbrough Cathedral the day after to provide the Bass voice for a Charpentier Magnificat sung during Vespers by the Cathedral Consort. Later in the month, The Rudgates (albeit severely depleted
from last year) sang for the annual Traditional Carol Service for the
Parish and Community of St Mary's Bishophill, something we've done
now for well over 10 years. Although depleted this time, for various
reasons, we were still able to have a fully choral Carol Service
which was very well received by the congregation. One person told me
afterwards that he couldn't believe how we could be so consistently
excellent each year – so I'll quite happily settle for that! The
Carol Service is always a wonderful way to end the Rudgates year,
although I wasn't quite done as I ended up being proto-psaltis
(principal cantor) for the Greek Orthodox Liturgy (also held at St
Mary's) on Christmas Day Morning!
This
brings me back to DOH – sorry Epiphany – from where we began this
time last year. This time I'm not venturing too far, as I'm chanting
1st
Vespers of the Epiphany on Saturday at St Mary's BHJ here in York. I
have secured the services of a priest Celebrant though, so I don't
have to wear two hats and officiate at the same time. :-) I'm sure
there will be more to come from the Rudgates as 2019 progresses, but
if you're at a loose end on Saturday, do come along to St Mary's at
6.30pm. It would be lovely to see you! Meanwhile, can I take this
opportunity to once again wish you all a very Happy New Year!
