Oxford Evensong 8/6/2006 - Anthem

Most glorious Lord of life, by Gerre Hancock, was the anthem for this Evensong at Christ Church, Oxford. This was the final Evensong of the British Tour of Trinity Choir of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, Kansas City, Missouri. The choir is directed by Canon Musician John Schaefer. John Fowler is the Organist. Regrettably, microphone placement causes the organ to be quite dominant. My apologies.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Oxford
• Evensong
• Choir
• Choral
• Hancock
• Anthem
• Anglican
• English
• Grace
• and
• Holy
• Trinity
• Cathedral
• Kansas
• City

[CoutureOrganiste]

Gotta love Gerre Hancock.  My first organ teacher was John Schaeffer incidentally. Sadly he has gone on to his crown in life.

[anglicanorganistjohn]

Hmmm. Thankfully, the John Schaefer in the video has not gone on to his crown in life. The coincidence of the names is interesting, however.

[Principaal]

Is the acoustic really so bad or...

Nice church further,, don't really enjoy the organ..

Thanks for posting:D

Yours,

Leo (organist)

[anglicanorganistjohn]

Not so much the acoustics as the microphone placement. During the week the staff at the Cathedral let me put the video camera well down the nave, which captured the sound much more effectively. For the weekends, however, they asked me to put it in the gallery, which meant right next to the organ. Consequently, the organ dominates the sound, especially the pipework on one side.

(continued in next post)

[anglicanorganistjohn]

Having said that, I'm not really a big fan of the organ anyway. It's a very German-Baroque instrument by Rieger -- completely inappropriate for English Cathedral music. It's rather harsh, with only one enclosed division. I quite enjoyed the other Cathedral instruments I played on the tour, at least for the music we were singing and I was playing.

[TVWriterGuy]

Thank you for posting this glimpse into an amazing world so very different from the one I have known. I could only dream of experiencing something like this.

The Internet is truly fantastic.

[Uruguruh]

Terribly noisy organ, appalling hymn.

[assistantorganist]

Love the Kings Chapel style conducting with the 2 conductors!

[Principaal]

What I see and love in those older organs, is the windstream that you hear. You hear the pipe pronounce the note, more or less, depending on what style you are looking to. Thats what I mis at Rieger a bit..

[Principaal]

Is it really German-Baroque? I thought it was  a bit like French baroque with an added so-called 'romantic' swell (and bombarde?).. I definetely agree that it doesn't suit the English Tradition very well, though. I actually think it's quite sad they changed their Harrison & Harrison (or?) for this Rieger.