Download Choir Notes No 17 - Bledlow Parish Church

Choir Notes A View From The Stalls. , No 17.
Notta –A- Lotta People Know That!
Our New Year’s service will be at Coventry Cathedral, we will be singing Herbert
Murrill’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimitis and we will also give it an outing at one of
the Bledlow services. The rehearsals having started, it is potentially wonderful,
although reasonably horrid at the moment. We have not as yet managed to ring
the beauty out of the piece, although clearly it is there, if only we could find it;
but hope springs eternal and we have plenty of time to go before we need to
panic!
I had never heard of Herbert Murrill and I wanted to find out something about
him. Where better to look than Wikipedia? ‘Murrill was born in London. He
studied at the Royal Academy of Music from 1925 to 1928. He was for a time
organist of Christ College Church Lancaster Gate, London and St Thomas Church,
Regent Street, London. From 1933 until his early death on 25th July 1952, he was
Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music. He also worked for the
BBC from 1936 onwards (save for a period in the Intelligence Corps between
1942 and 1946) reaching the post of Head of Music in 195O’.
The article goes on to say that ‘Murrill’s affinities were Francophile and mildly
middle-Stravinski, both tempered by an English kind of neo-classicism’. So there!
Classical music buffs always talk like that, but what the hell does it mean?!! I
thought I must do some research, I suppose it is the lawyer in me:
1. ‘Francophile’ = Someone who admires France, its people or its culture.
2. ‘Stravinski’.= A Russian composer, born 1891, died 1953 and a giant amongst
20th century composers. The bit I liked about him though was that he was great
at the witty one-liners: ‘Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end’
3. ‘Neo-classisism’ = A combination of elements from the classical period with
the new trends that were emerging in the twentieth century.
Simple really, but I am not sure that it is going to help my rehearsals much.
Going back to Stravinski, I never thought of him as a wit. Indeed I thought all
classical composers, or even neo-classical composers, would be dry, dull and
boring. I could just imagine Beethoven looking decidedly grumpy with his ear
trumpet stuck to the side of his head whilst he struggled to hear the orchestra
playing the Ninth Symphony. Not a bit of it though, after hearing an opera by
another composer he said: ‘I like your opera, I think I will set it to music’.
Groucho Marx could not have come up with anything better!
Nick Symondson.