seeking a genre

[Dot]

I don't think there's a satisfactory answer to the original question because new music keeps drawing from older styles. Composers' Group often brings us pieces influenced by many different earlier forms (as described in the regular M&L report).

Nor do different generations do not adhere consistently to different forms. From my recent experience, primary school children will readily sing:

Farrell (Unless a grain),
Sands (Sing of the Lord's goodness),
Taizé (Laudate Dominum),
Pachelbel Canon(as the musical inspiration for a modern Sanctus) and Traditional, drawn from ancient melody (God is love, his the care).

I'm sure they don't register the difference in styles, though they do react to the different moods of the music if they've woken up by the start of singing practice!

I like the fact that our music is a melting pot.

Dot

[VML]

Dot, I am absolutely certain your school practices and content are not in any way typical! I only wish they were. I bet your pupils have a great time and excellent example.

[nazard]

Which do they call 'Granny Music', 'Bind us together' or 'Salve Regina?'

Granny music is the "Bind us together", "Shine, Jesus, shine", "Peace is flowing like a river", "When I kneel before you" genre.

People who die here in their seventies or eighties often leave instructions for that kind of thing. Last year we had a funeral of a man of about fifty and he wanted "God of mercy and compassion", "Dear Lord and Father of mankind", "Soul of my Saviour" and "Hodie in paradisum".

[VML]

Hurray for that, Nazard.


Maybe I'm off topic, but we are discussing genre, categories and labels: Was Richard Runciman Terry ever a member of SSG? I have a copy of his 1921 collection of Shanties. He obviously had wide ranging tastes in music.

[musicus]

Maybe I'm off topic, but we are discussing genre, categories and labels: Was Richard Runciman Terry ever a member of SSG? I have a copy of his 1921 collection of Shanties. He obviously had wide ranging tastes in music.

Hmm. Not sure about that. Wikipedia says, Terry was the first Director of Music at the newly built Westminster Cathedral, a post which he held from 1901 to 1924, when he resigned after coming under significant criticism for his choice of music. Nonetheless, during this time he was able to establish a choral tradition of great merit at the Cathedral, developing a repertoire of both Gregorian chant and polyphonic music. The choir's particular focus on renaissance polyphony is believed to have had an impact on the emerging school of 20th century English composers and on the performance of church music in England. Following his resignation from Westminster Cathedral he went on to work as a musical editor, journalist and academic.

The SSG was founded in 1929, so he might not have still been in active service by then. I did not know that 'he resigned after coming under significant criticism for his choice of music', though.

[mcb]

I did not know that 'he resigned after coming under significant criticism for his choice of music', though.

Grove on-line says:

When Westminster Cathedral was built he was appointed organist and director of music, a post which he held with great distinction from 1901 until 1924, when he resigned after increasing criticism of his bold choice of works.

without saying which were the works involved and who was offended by their boldness. But there's this in his obituary in the Musical Times from 1938:

Unlike Dolmetsch,whose work in the instrumental field of the period has been compared to Terry's, he did not put a term to church music in any particular period, but encouraged contemporary composers to write for his choir. His repertoire included works by Charles Wood, Howells, Holst, Oldroyd, and, not least, Vaughan Williams's Mass for double choir, first performed at Westminster Cathedral during Terry's last year of office.

So maybe it was Vaughan Williams who caused the trouble.

The obituary also says:

With Terry's resignation in 1924 from a choir starved in numbers and hampered with difficulties the spirit that had made the music at Westminster Cathedral second to none in the world burnt fitfully; and it is not to disparage the brave efforts made by his successor, under impossible conditions, to say that it still awaits revival.

As for SSG membership, well, the obituary comments on his commitment to the Liturgical Movement:

Long before there had been so much maneuvering for position, before, indeed, the promulgation of the Motu Proprio, Terry had begun the liturgical movement at Westminster Cathedral, from the first, by putting the right things in the right places.

so it's not out of the question, I suppose! He evidently had strong views about chant:

What he rightly loathed and fought against was the obscurantism, fanaticism, and half-educated musicianship of the neo-Solesmes school, which were a drag on the liturgical movement that he had so much at heart.

I once heard it claimed that the trigger for his resignation was an outburst on his part during a Mass at Westminster, prompted by the half-hearted attempts of some member of the clergy to sing his proper part. No idea whether there's any truth in that. But I expect some of us can sympathise. (Not me, I hasten to add - the clergy at my place of worship are paragons. )

M.

[Reginald]

Returning to the topic, and turning away from what looks like developing into an intellectual discussion - I vote for 'TUC' as the description. I conceived it first as an acronym for The Usual Rubbish, but have since discovered other possibilities (more welcome). The Usual Chords, Three Unimaginative Chords. It has the added benefit of implying cheesiness (thanks to the biscuits of the same name).

Also considered referring to 'bad' hymns of all generations euphemistically as Hummers. The uninitiated will assume that you mean 'catchy', when you're in fact using 'to hum' in the sense of 'to stink'. It could be an acronym for Harmonically Useless Music - and possibly other things too like Hymns Unwelcome at Mass

[musicus]

Returning to the topic, and turning away from what looks like developing into an intellectual discussion...

Oh, and I was enjoying that. But your acronymns, Reginald, tell us more about you than about the music. Fair enough, but how about something less 'loaded'? The Americans talk about music 'for contemporary ensemble', but I don't care for that either. This is difficult!

[Reginald]

I know it's difficult - otherwise I wouldn't (unsuccessfully) have tried to play it for laughs!

For what it's worth I don't think there's a clear enough line between the two genres. I regularly try to get people to let me play (good) modern hymns on the organ when they'd rather hear them on a keyboard. On the rare occasion that I get my own way it blurs the lines still further (I'll be pleading the case for "Take the Word of God" this weekend)...I'm reminded of Oscar Wilde saying words to the effect that books are neither moral nor immoral. Perhaps hymns are neither folk nor trad, just well written or not.

Is it fair to say that the best of both school translate from organ to ensemble and vice versa? Allowing possibly for a more Reginald Dixon approach to the organ in some cases?

[John Ainslie]

Is it fair to say that the best of both school translate from organ to ensemble and vice versa? Allowing possibly for a more Reginald Dixon approach to the organ in some cases?

Please explain. To which Reginald Dixon do you refer: Reginald Dixon MBE, the Blackpool Tower organist, or J. H. Reginald Dixon FRCO, down the road at Lancaster at the same time (1920s), who was one of the original committee members of the SSG in 1929?

[presbyter]

To which Reginald Dixon do you refer: Reginald Dixon MBE, the Blackpool Tower organist, or J. H. Reginald Dixon FRCO, down the road at Lancaster at the same time (1920s), who was one of the original committee members of the SSG in 1929?

And at the opening recital on the new organ in the Sacred Heart Church, Talbot Road, Blackpool, hundreds of townsfolk and holidaymakers came to listen to what they thought might be Tower Ballroom light music - only to find they had confused Dixons and were not going to dance the night away in church.

[docmattc]

Is it fair to say that the best of both school translate from organ to ensemble and vice versa?

Apologies for missing the 'playing it for laughs' tone!

I certainly think its fair to say that the best of the 'more modern' genre translates to organ, but, as a (poor) organist, is that because I define 'the best' as 'that which translates to organ'?? I don't know.
I don't find that the translation in the opposite direction always works if the ensemble is guitar based.

While there undoubtedly is a certain 'je ne sais quoi' between the two genres, I don't know what it is and I'm not convinced that a classification is either helpful or necessary

[Reginald]

Definitely Reginald H Dixon MBE - I can't play in heels, but I do a nice line in dangling my left foot and wobbling it in between the tonic and dominant of any given chord!!!!!

I agree on the subject of guitar based ensembles, but a couple of guitars in amongst a range of other instruments should carry the day. And likewise, the organist - if he's thinking like a theatre organist rather than a straight organist - should be able to slip into an ensemble and add to its textures rather than dominating it.

Incidentally, lost the battle for Take the Word...am I the only person who hears an 8' trumpet fanfare in the introduction and in the alternating Dm7 and G chords between verses? Worse still, we are to do "Father into your hands" next time and I can't shake the notion of playing it as a foxtrot and inserting 'nicky-nacky-noo-type music' at the end of each phrase

Can we not use the TUC category to define Father into Your Hands, Bind Us With Colours of Watching the Sunrise Vaster Far Than Any Bread We Bring You? Aw go on...just between us...I won't tell if you don't!

Incidentally - before anyone's tempted to look down on Reginald H, he was a church organist in his youth and used to work his way through Bach's fugues as his morning practice at that little fishing village near Fleetwood. The only good thing to come out of that whole Daily Telegraph debacle is that I was able to use the Dixon avatar that I can't get onto this site!

[docmattc]

Incidentally, lost the battle for Take the Word...am I the only person who hears an 8' trumpet fanfare in the introduction and in the alternating Dm7 and G chords between verses?

Just looked at the music- I can hear an 8' trumpet fanfare too. If it was in our repertoire it would get one.

[Benevenio]

Incidentally, lost the battle for Take the Word...am I the only person who hears an 8' trumpet fanfare in the introduction and in the alternating Dm7 and G chords between verses?

Chris Walker certainly did - the two trumpet descants are in his collection Calling the Children