Those Westminster Boys
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    So I'm listening to my Pandora Tomas Luis de Victoria channel, and on hearing two different pieces I think, "Hey, that's the Westminster Cathedral Choir!" And I'm right, because the distinct sound of the trebles is hard to confuse with anyone else. I would have to say that there is a certain freedom in their singing, a joy in the music.
  • David DeavyDavid Deavy
    Posts: 105
    I am also a Pandora fan, and you are right the Westminster Cathedral Choir has a very unique sound I love the combination of the trebles and the adult male voices together.

    I have the 2009 Midnight Mass You Tubes in my favorites file.

    Introit Dixit Dominus - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg8CQ7Klcds
    O Magnum Mysterium - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y9yM53TowA&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL.

    Clearly what angels must sound like.

    I hope to be traveling in England in 2012, this will be one of my stops while in London.
  • Heath
    Posts: 966
    Somewhat on topic, I moved over to Grooveshark after I found out that Pandora allows Planned Parenthood advertisements. Just FYI.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Actually, by being a pro-life user of Pandora, you would be siphoning off money from PP without benefiting them in any way (since their ads will not persuade you). You'd be forcing them to waste money on you.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    I like the way you think about that, Adam!
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    David,

    Did you catch that harmonization/ tone cluster in the Introit antiphon?
  • David DeavyDavid Deavy
    Posts: 105
    Kathy,

    Still very new to music and the chant, after listening very carefully are you talking about the part that begins at about Hodie genuite in the antiphon.

    That's why at this stage of my music education self inflected I can listen to piece over and over and get something out of it.

    DD
  • SamuelDorlaque
    Posts: 318
    If you're observing the Sundays after Epiphany, you can still listen to Westminster's wonderful recording "From the
    Vaults of Westminster Cathedral". It was one of my listening favorites of this Christmas-Epiphany Season. Check it out.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    So I'm listening to my Arvo Part channel, and it happens again: I hear the Westminster choristers make an ENTRANCE.

    They sound like boys to me--they have a boyish, outspoken exuberance.
  • IanWIanW
    Posts: 762
    Tucked away in the Sacred Music archives is an article from 1977 by David Bevan on the different sound-traditions in the Boy-Choir world. It contains interesting background material and thinking for those interested in the Westminster sound. David had been an assistant organist at Westminster and he new George Malcom who was formative in the development of the Westminster sound. Something of the influnece of Malcom's approach can be heard in David's choir at Holy Redeemer & St. Thomas Moore in Chelsea, which employs women rather than boys but which has that characteristically full-blooded quality.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    Thanks for the links, Ian!
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