Choral Music from New Church
|THE great interest roused by the new | Church of St. James in | Lower Hutt was due | mainly to its unusual de- | sign and decoration. The Queen herself, when she | visited it during the | Royal Tour, expressed ' surprise that such a church could have been designed and built in a New Zealand parish. | Much thought was also | devoted to the church's | acoustics, which turned out to be so successful for music that the sharpest critics have been un- | stinting in their praise. ' Recently a_ recital of sacred music was given in the church by the | Schola. Cantorum, conducted by Stanley Oliver. The recital was re- | corded by the NZBS, | and will be broadcast _ from 2YC at 8.40 p.m. on Wednesday, Septem- | ber 1. The music will be preceded by a short talk | about the church based /on information supplied | by the vicar, the Rev. | Canon W. F. Bretton, | M.A. A copy of the re- | cording has *also been | sent to the ABC for broadcast in Australia. | Stanley Oliver said : /that from the point of
view of music the acoustics of the | church were very good, when discussing the programme with The Listener last week. "It has just that little bit of afterglow of sound without being an echo," he said. "That’s the same problem that they've solved so well at the Royal Festival Hall in London. One reason is that for its seating capacity the church probably has twice as much air space as any other church. It is so lofty." Mr. Oliver mentioned two works in his programme which he thought were of particular interest. First was Charles Ives’s "Setting of the 67th Psalm,"
which is scored for male voices in the key of two flats, and for the ladies in the key of C. Although this sounded a little frightening, he said, it worked out beautifully when the work was sung. The other was Edmund Rubbra’s "Credo" from Missa in Honorem Sancti Dominici, which he described as a kind of modernised plainsong, almost neo-primitive in effect. The recital will also include works by Vaughan Williams, Thomas Whythorne, Randall Thompson, Edward Bairstow and Gordon Jacob.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 788, 27 August 1954, Page 20
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360Choral Music from New Church New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 788, 27 August 1954, Page 20
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