[Magdalen] Education.

[Cantor03 at aol.com]

I still harbor a bit of resentment that various O/C's, all well  musically
well-educated, didn't teach/inform the choirs about the music being
performed.
 
For example, I remember the puzzlement and shock visiting Scott K's
Ascension, Chicago in the early 1960's while I was singing in a Twin
Cities Anglocatholic parish.  The shock was that the Minor Chant  Proper 
didn't sound anything like the Minor Chant Proper I knew.
 
That was because the Twin Cities choir was singing the Psalm-tone
reduction of the Proper and not the full melasmatic version from the
Liber Usualis.  IMHO the Twin Cities director should have taught the  choir
ABOUT plainchant.  As it is, I've gradually picked up information 
through the years on my own.  The choir director there was head  of
a college music department (Macalaster College), and a PhD in
choral music, no less.
 
I'm thinking of this because of the wonderful blurbs in the weekly  leaflets
"The Angelus" from Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, NYC that their  new
O/C, Simon Walley, is now writing.
 
This week's is about William Byrd, occasioned by the SMV Choir
singing the Mass a Quatre.  There's more information about Byrd,
his precarious position as a Recusant Roman Catholic under Elizabeth  I
and the technicalities of his composing style, than I've ever seen  in one
location --- and the entire congregation is being educated, not just  the
choir.
 
Educated choirs/congregations are better choirs/congregations.
 
 
 
David Strang.