Westminster Cathedral Report published
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,460
    From Pray Tell : - https://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2020/09/27/westminster-cathedral-music-review-complete-still-some-controversy/
    The panel to review the state of music at Westminster Cathedral has reported, full text is available.
    And Cardinals Nicholls response is here .
    Choristers will now sing seven services a week instead of the proposed five, which goes some way to responding to the campaign for maintaining musical excellence. The choristers will return home on Friday as previously proposed, but the senior choristers will stay to sing at the Friday afternoon Mass. The review recommended that they return on Saturday evening in order to be rested and rehearsed before the Sunday morning Mass. The Cardinal did not accept this, and instead has maintained the return of the choristers on Sunday morning. He has achieved this by pushing back the time of the Sunday Mass from 10:30 to 12 noon, and Sunday Vespers from 3:30 to 4:30, to allow time for rehearsing on Sunday morning.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,410
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,460
    I see that the full choir, with the choristers, will sing Mass on Sunday 4th Oct for the first time since March. That gives an opportunity to hear how badly the hiatus has affected them.
  • Schönbergian
    Posts: 1,063
    Predictably, PrayTell's comment section has some of the dumbest possible reactions to the controversy, including from one individual who shall go unnamed but who should very well know better.

    I worry that maintaining continuity when a good portion of the music staff have left and any who remain seem to be at loggerheads with the Cardinal will be challenging, at best. The panel and its recommendations seem solid - there were some big names on the list. I fear it ultimately won't matter, though.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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