Upbeat No.15 December 2016

Doctor’s Notes….. by Francis Roads

On 17th July I attended an evening concert at St

Peter’s Church, Vauxhall. It was given by two

members of London Gallery Quire, Jo Lewis and

Kathryn Rose, and non-member Clive Richards. They

sang unaccompanied, except for the occasional

support from Kathryn’s serpent or Jo’s recorder. The

programme, which was built around the theme of

pilgrimage, included two of Kathryn’s compositions;

a mediaeval hymn; three songs by John Dowland;

five West Gallery pieces, four more from the

American Shape note repertoire, and a poem. Some

of the West Gallery pieces were from London Gallery

Quire’s repertoire. And some of the others, which

had clearly been downloaded from the three–part

section of my website, I heard performed live for the

first time.

I can hardly write too favourably about the standard

of performance. Their intonation, ensemble and

diction were all faultless. They made a pure vibrato-

free blend of sound, which was highly suitable for

their chosen repertoire. I have heard professional

singers sing this sort of music in a less appropriate

style, with their vibrato and “produced” voices,

which for me don’t make the right kind of sound for

such music.

And what also pleased me so much was that this was

an ordinary, mainstream concert which happened to

include some West Gallery music. This represents the

goal towards which I have been striving for two

decades or more. A few mainstream church choirs,

choral societies, and even congregations have taken

up the idea of using the West Gallery music as part of

their general repertoire. But only a few. Honourable

mention goes to the Hayes Philharmonic Choir, who

now usually include a couple of West Gallery pieces

in their concert programmes.

In some churches I encounter what I call “sniffy

organist syndrome”. “This isn’t what we are used

to,” they say, when I show them a rousing metrical

psalm setting by Thomas Clark or someone similar.

Nobody said that it was. But so many church choirs

nowadays attempt music which is really rather too

challenging for them, often because the choir leader

is a cathedral organist manqué. If only they would

sing this music which was specifically composed for

amateur choirs, and does not present the technical

challenges of cathedral music!

So, well done Jo, Kathryn and Clive. Let’s have more

of the same!

Continued page 2

The Newsletter of the London Gallery Quire

The Thomas Hardy Tree

at St. Pancras Old Church by Alan Franks

Talking of Thomas Hardy, as often happens in

West Gallery circles, have you seen his tree in the

grounds of St. Pancras Old Church? Although I had

heard about it, I had never set eyes on it until the

LGQ sang at the church, now an astonishingly cool

concert venue, on the hottest day of last year.

Although it is common knowledge that Thomas

came from an intensely musical Wessex family and

played the fiddle excellently from a young age, the

time he spent in London during his twenties is less

well-known. One reason for this is that he had yet

to make his name as a novelist and poet. But here

he was, working as an assistant architect for the

practice of Arthur Blomfield.

In the mid-1860s he was given responsibility for

the excavation of a section of the church’s

graveyard. Given the recent controversy a few

hundred yards to the west over the possible

removal of some 30,000 graves from the eighteenth

century burial ground of St. James’ Gardens to

make way for the proposed HS2 rail link, this

chapter in Hardy’s life acquires a thoroughly

modern relevance. It was a period of enormous

railway expansion, with land-hungry lines carving

a passage through country and town alike. From the

proximity of the Old Church’s grounds to the line

out of Kings Cross, you can still sense the tight,

grudging neighbourliness of the ancient church and

the modern means of travel as the new Midland

Company forged ahead.

BUMPER CHRISTMAS ISSUE

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Hardy’s job was to oversee the relocation

of the human remains beneath a young ash

tree close to the church. More than a century

and a half later you can see the legacy of his

labours, and very dramatic it is too. The

gravestones have been reassembled as tight

as playing cards. The tree’s roots have

gnarled their way among them and the

whole strange scene has the look of a frozen

congregation huddled together – a little late

– for safety. There is also a memorial aspect

to it as the site is encircled by a well-kept

and rather formal hedge with barred gates.

What would Hardy have made of it all? It is

tempting, as always, to find evidence of the

life’s experience in the work. In this case it

may not be entirely fanciful to find clues to

his famous lugubriousness in the trauma of

this early task. Perhaps he is even signalling

us in this direction with an early poem, The

Levelled Churchyard, clearly inspired by

what happened here:

O passenger, pray list and catch

Our sighs and piteous groans,

Half stifled in this jumbled patch

Of wrenched memorial stones!

We late-lamented, resting here,

Are mixed to human jam,

And each to each exclaims in fear,

‘I know not which I am!’

Review: Rotherhithe Continued

Reviews: Barn Church, Kew Saturday 1st October

By Alan Franks

There were grounds for anxiety over this

LGQ engagement. Here are some of them,

listed at random. First, the building, a

gloriously unusual transplant from a Surrey

farm in 1929. As a barn, it had not been

constructed with the audibility of hymns as

a main priority. In fact, when the LGQ

founder and director made a reconnaissance

trip there earlier in the year, his view was

that the Quire might struggle to make itself

heard properly.

This is not a common prognosis from Dr.

Roads, who pronounced The Barn “pretty

dead, actually.” This could not have been

acoustically further from the Quire’s

previous performance, in the ringing spaces

of St. George’s Bloomsbury, the LGQ’s fourth

and final stop on a memorable Church Crawl. We

could still hear those echoes in our heads.

Second, weekend public transport to the far

western reaches of the London Overground and

ever-trundling District Line cannot be taken for

granted.

Third – and this is personal – I was due to a read a

poem of mine about the posthumous return of

Thomas Hardy, as keen a Wessex fiddler as a

fiction writer, on hearing the sound of a West

Gallery Quire from outside a church. I had never

read it in anything resembling public, so I was

looking at nothing less than a world premiere.

Fourth, this was my wife Ruth’s first appearance

with the Quire as a clarinettist, and what she

lacked in the way of anxiety I more than made up

for with tiresome inquiries about her nerves.

Needless ones too, as she blew her way fluently

through a programme of great variety as if not a

day had passed between Grade Five and the

present.

What’s more, the recital was a well attended one,

far in excess of expectations, given its timing in

the middle of a Saturday afternoon. A barn of a

place? No, the cliché would have been inaccurate.

The majority of the audience – even the musically

literate – admitted to an almost perfect ignorance

about West Gallery music. You could see it

drawing them in with that sprightly humanity

which never seems to fail.

We kicked off with one of the Quire’s earliest –

and yes, most sprightly – pieces, Joseph Key’s

Jubilate, followed by the gentler ruminations of

James Leach’s Lord, Hear My Supplicating

Voice, from Psalm 119. The rest of the

programme included a setting of Samuel

Crossman’s My Life’s A Shade, by William

Knapp, one of the LGQ’s most popular

composers; Samuel Chapple’s irresistible I’ll

Wash My Hands in Innocency; two sets of words

to Anon’s Rineton, conducted by Phil Price;

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One of the (many) things I enjoy

about singing with LGQ is that we perform at

beautiful and fascinating churches that I would

otherwise never have visited. All Saints’, West

Ham - like St Mary Magdalene’s, East Ham

where we sang evensong in the summer - has the

feel of a large country church which has been

surrounded by the city as London has expanded.

That’s exactly what it is. The church once

belonged to Stratford Langthorne Abbey, one of

the largest Cistercian abbeys in England before

the reformation and the keystone of the abbey’s

charnel house door, depicting five skulls, is

displayed on the church wall, near the entrance.

LGQ arrived in drizzly November darkness – in

my case, via an East-end-atmospheric walk past

blue flashing lights, a high brick wall separating

housing from the main road, and a boarded-up

pub – to a large church and a churchyard full of

damp fallen leaves. We found the front door. The

church was spacious, light (and warm and dry)

and Francis was at the door.

Reviews: All Saints, West Ham

Saturday 12th November By Joanna Lewis

The performance itself had its shaky moments

and one or two moderately good starts, but we

conveyed the energetic spirit of West Gallery,

and the appeal of its distinctive style, well.

Some highlights included a tempestuous mood

to match the words of Psalm 107 (LGQ 197;

They that in ships) as well as the weather

outside; the alto solo in I will bless the Lord

(LGQ 151); the good contrast in texture

between sections in The heavens declare thy

glory, Lord (LGQ 46); and the lightness of the

duet sections of How beautiful upon the

mountains (LGQ 113).

The audience were very appreciative (as well as

encouragingly numerous): there was a special

round of applause for Jon Cullen, who was

manning the door, for his tune to Ye servants of

God (LGQ 537), and the excellent reading of

Hardy’s Absentmindedness in the Parish Choir

by David Bidwell raised several laughs.

A few shape note singers in the audience will I

hope have enjoyed our interpretation of All Hail

the Power of Jesus’ Name to Green Street

(LGQ 169), which appears in the Sacred Harp.

The joyful chorus of O all you nations, praise

the Lord (LGQ 536) made a strong end,

followed by generous applause and a rare

encore.

To summarise the evening, in the words of a

member of the alto section, “Good audience,

good tea and good loos: what more can you ask

for?”

William Croft’s enigmatic setting of Like As

The Hart Desireth The Waterbrooks, written

in the earliest years of West Gallery; and our

deputy director Kathryn Rose’s elegantly

melancholy setting of William Cooper’s The

Contrite Heart.

As for the poem about Thomas Hardy, well,

it happened. For this I am eternally grateful to

the famous novelist, who turned up and spoke,

in rhyme, and I could not have done any of

these things without the declamatory skills of

my fellow tenor David Bidwell.

We have more in common, the Barn and our

music, than we may have known. It was busy

and much used in the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries, before a period of

neglect and subsequent renaissance. With its

beams believed to have been taken from

ships’ timbers, it too knows all about the fresh

use of traditional material.

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Read Alan’s poem in full at the back of Upbeat

From this…. ...to this.

Barry Lloyd, Quire

singer, player and

musical instrument

maker, explains

how.

When I first started making musical instruments, I was told

"It's quite simple: you just take a piece of wood and remove all the

bits that don't look like a recorder". This is almost true of early re-

corders or flutes where there are only two pieces of wood, slightly

less true of baroque recorders or bassoons (3 or 4 pieces and some

metal too) and certainly not true of the violin where there 40 or so

pieces of wood. As for modern instruments, bristling with keys, the

amount of metalworking makes it a job for specialists.

Going back to the recorder, first, take a piece of wood, per-

haps maple (A). The first job (B) it to put it on a lathe, and make it

round – although, if you haven't got a lathe, don't despair – I once

made a recorder from a Sainsbury's rolling pin. Next, we need a hole

down the middle, using a long drill. It's possible to do this in the

normal way, but if the hole is not to be too far off-centre when the

drill comes our (or comes out of the side!) it is better to have the

wood in the lathe and go in with a stationary drill (C). Then turn the

outside to get it the right size (D).

Now we have a nice wooden tube. Mark where the window

is going and drill a few holes and then with a scalpel, chisel, small

files and sandpaper remove the rest of the unwanted bits (E, F, G).

The top end of the tube will be plugged and then cut into a

comfortable shape for blowing into (H), but first a special cutter is

used to scrape away a channel in the inside of the tube, making a

windway for the air to go in (I).

Then drill some fingerholes (J) (the picture is actually of a

tabor pipe, with only three – for a recorder there seven). That's about

it really, though there's a bit of work to remove wispy bits and

smooth the surfaces. It's wise to check the tuning and make any ad-

justments: and then seal it with oil. Linseed is fine though it takes

ages to dry, but there are modern oils with additives to speed drying

if you are impatient to get playing.

Next time we'll look at the instrument that no West Gallery

band should be without – the fiddle.

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The rehearsal dates for next term will be:-

January 4 & 18 February 1 & 15 March 1, 15 & 29 April 12

For your 2017 Diary:

Epiphany Party Afternoon Sunday 8th January—venue tbc

Accession service Evensong St Mary's Rotherhithe 5th February

Evensong Stapleford Abbotts 30th April

Evensong St Mary's Bromley 21st May

Summer Concert St George's Ailie Street Wed 7th June

We are likely to be recording our second CD, or at least rehearsing for it, during the first half

of 2017, and this may require some additional rehearsals pus probably two Saturdays for

the actual recording sessions. Details will be announced in due course!

LGQ Christmas Anagram Challenge

Here is a list of twelve of our most popular West Gallery composers and

authors. However, due to one of the legendary LGQ ‘computer errors’, the letters seem to have become rather

jumbled. Can you sort them out?

Joky Sheep

Nice holy phone

Cellar sees why

Awaits cats

Smack harlot

Pain Walk Limp

Finds Car Oars

Somewhat hit

Nth Jew Noon

Arch Email Jerk

Job Dip re Horn

Clip evil humours

From All Saints West Ham

Church, place of our last con-

cert on Saturday 12th Novem-

ber 2016

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TOM HARDY’S REPRISE By Alan Franks

Memorably Performed by Alan Franks and David Bidwell at the Barn Church on Saturday1st October

The strangest thing occurred last night

Though it was no more strange than true;

Thomas Hardy came to light

Beside the spreading churchyard yew.

I saw him with my own eyes there,

He wished me happy Eastertide,

Inclined his head and cupped his ear

To hear the music from inside,

Which caused his face to light with joy

For sure it was a merry noise,

But since I am a Surrey boy

I shan’t attempt to do his voice.

“Unless I’m fearful wrong,” said he,

“I recognise the melody.

“I’d say they’re using Tate and Brady

“And they’re playing in the gallery.”

It was that dusking, insect hour

When doors and thresholds seem to stand

Upon the air and bear us through –

Travellers in a time-drawn land.

A flute was winging up the score

Above the cello’s mellow tone,

Then, like a ghost beneath the floor,

The serpent dancing all a-drone.

His weight began to shift, I swear,

From toe to heel and heel to toe,

And then, as if to play the air,

His bowing arm began to bow,

And notes all strung and slung as if

Beneath a gaily rising kite

Contrived to make the measures lift

Into the rosin-scented night.

The gladsome strain, progressing further,

Quickly thickened with another.

Sure enough, there stood his father,

Next to him his father’s brother.

“Be not afraid of us,” says Tom,

“Least of all at Eastertide

“When hearts and minds so dwell upon

“A native son returned to bide.”

The old ones tutted him for shame

As if perceiving disrespect,

But Thomas, doubtful of his blame,

Said “ ‘Tis the hymns we resurrect.

“Now mind you all how we despaired

“To see the organ ushered in

“And how we trudgingly repaired

“Down to the ale-house for our sins.

“And mind you well and once again

“The passing of our last Amen

“And how we all were cast out then

“By sombre Oxford clergymen

“Unhomely in their Romeliness

“And caring less for tune than tone,

“Who loathed our lack of seemliness

“And liked us best when we were gone.”

On ran rhythm, through the reverance,

Old hymns cradling in the new,

Moonlike in their round of revenance,

Burnished by the LGQ

Whose creator, Dr. Roads,

Did both rescue tunes and write them

Till he saw the number grow

To more than half a thousand items.

LGQ Upbeat—The Newsletter of the London Gallery Quire Edited by Phil Price

If you have news, a viewpoint, or an interesting musical activity or story, your contribution is very welcome.

contactphilprice@yahoo.co.uk. Non electronic submissions also welcome on paper at any rehearsal.

TOM HARDY’S REPRISE (continued)

While hours – or were they ages? – went

Between the last light and the lark,

Their repertoire remained unspent –

The William Knapp, the Thomas Clark,

Both Broderips and Joseph Key

And sundry craftsmen, on and on,

The long mislaid identity

Of those who ghost the great Anon,

And grace his all-embracing name

With variety which at best

Well earns his composite acclaim

And matches whole scores of the rest,

Until, with breaking day, they seemed

To fade as fast as they’d appeared,

As much a day-dismantled dream

As flesh and blood late-passing there.

So I can’t say which one of us

Had strayed into the other’s year

And frankly I don’t give a cuss

For I saw Thomas Hardy here.

Alan Franks

Anagram Answers 1. Joseph Key 2.Phocion Henley 3.Charles Wesley 4.Isaac Watts 5. Thomas Clark 6.William Knapp 7.Francis Roads 8.Thomas White 9.John Newton 10.Jeremiah Clark 11. John Broderip 12. Melchior Vulpius

More pictures of Hardy’s tree

at St Pancras Old Church

The Quire in action in the impressive nave

of All Saints West Ham.

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