ROCHESTER COMPOSERS’ WEEKEND, 30-31 JULY 2011

Celebrating our Organists, Singers and Composers
and the Centenary of the birth of Dr Robert Ashfield
(28 July 1911 – 30 December 2006)

ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL VOLUNTARY CHOIR
And SOUTHWELL MINSTER CHORALE

Directors:
Douglas Henn-Macrae & Philip White-Jones

Organists:
Sam Rathbone, Philip White-Jones & Sam Ali

Our annual “Rochester Composers’ Weekend” grew out of our celebration of Dr Robert Ashfield’s 90^th birthday ten years ago, when he was still very much with us. Since then it has broadened out into a more general celebration of, and thanksgiving for, our own ‘home-grown’ musicians: composers, singers and organists. This year we mark another significant anniversary, and are very pleased to welcome as our guests this weekend the SOUTHWELL MINSTER CHORALE, who are the voluntary choir of the Nottinghamshire Cathedral which Robert served as Organist and Rector Chori for ten years before coming to Rochester in 1956, a position now filled since 1989 by our former Assistant Organist Paul Hale.

Robert Ashfield ("Bobby" or "Doc", as he was always affectionately known here in Rochester), was the first Cathedral Organist under whom I [DHM] sang as a very new Supernumerary Lay Clerk in the autumn of 1970, learning the job by singing alongside one of the six regular men. Several members of our Voluntary Choir (formerly the Cathedral Special Choir) also sang under Dr Ashfield’s direction in the 1950s/60s/70s.

Robert was born in Surrey on 28 July 1911, but his family moved to the village of Eynsford in Kent in 1912. His first practical musical experience was blowing the organ in the village church while his mother played - and sometimes they reversed the roles. As a teenager he attended Tonbridge School, where he excelled both at the organ and on the sports field. In 1928 he entered the Royal College of Music in London to study with Ernest Bullock (then Organist of Westminster Abbey). Having gained his ARCO diploma in 1931 and FRCO the following year, Bullock invited Robert to be his Organ Scholar at the Abbey. In 1934 he was appointed Organist of St John's, Smith Square in London (now a concert hall) and in 1936 he became Music Master at Westminster Abbey Choir School, gaining his BMus from London University the same year. He obtained his DMus in 1941, before being called up for war service. After the war, in 1946, he went to Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire as Organist & Rector Chori. He moved to Rochester Cathedral as Organist & Master of the Choristers in 1956, and the following year was also appointed a Professor for Theory and Composition at the Royal College of Music. Robert retired in 1977, but remained active as a composer and concert promoter well into his late 80s, producing a large quantity of orchestral and chamber music (mostly unpublished and as yet unperformed), and he was a regular attender at the Cathedral Eucharist on Sundays. We last saw him in church on Christmas morning 2006, just five days before his passing.

Saturday’s Introit for Evensong is dated 24 April 1954.
Let my prayer be set forth in thy sight as the incense :
And let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice.
Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth : And keep the door of my lips.
Mine eyes look unto thee, O Lord God : In thee is my trust.
Psalm 141, Vs 2, 3, 9.

The text of the Te Deum can be found in the Prayer Book order for Mattins. This setting in E flat was written in 1995, though we have so far been unable to ascertain for whom it was written, or whether it has ever been performed outside of Rochester.

His short anthem “There is a stream” was written for the choir of St John’s, Smith Square. It sets part of a hymn text by John Mason (better-known nowadays for “How shall I sing that majesty”) and is remarkable for containing not a single musical accidental (a sharp or flat sign) other than those of the E flat key-signature.

There is a stream, which issues forth from God's eternal throne,
And from the Lamb, a living stream, clear as the crystal stone.
This stream doth water paradise; it makes the angels sing;
One cordial drop revives my heart; hence all my joys do spring:
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard, from fancy 'tis concealed,
What thou, Lord, hast laid up for thine, and hast to me revealed.
John Mason (1646-1694)

Robert’s Communion Service in C is dated 12 June 1939 and sets the traditional Prayer Book text.

We conclude our weekend celebration on Sunday afternoon with Robert’s best-known anthem, written for a Diocesan Choirs' Festival at Southwell in 1949 to a text by Lionel Johnson, based on Revelation 17:

"Ah, see the fair chivalry come, the companions of Christ!
White horsemen, who ride on white horses, the Knights of God!
They, for their Lord and their Lover who sacrificed all
Save the sweetness of treading where He first trod!
These, thro' the darkness of death, the dominions of night,
Swept, and they woke in white places at morning tide:
They saw with their eyes and sang for joy at the sight,
They saw with their eyes the Eyes of the Crucified.
Now, whithersoever He goeth, with Him they go:
White horsemen, who ride on white horses, Oh, fair to see!
They ride where the rivers of paradise flash and flow,
White horsemen, with Christ their Captain, for ever He!"

Barry Ferguson (born 1942) was a boy Chorister (eventually Head Chorister) at Exeter Cathedral (and accomplished enough, by then, to play for choir practice), and later a music scholar at Clifton College in Bristol under the famous one-armed organist Douglas Fox. He read music at Cambridge, where he was organ scholar of its oldest college, Peterhouse. From there he went to be Stanley Vann’s Assistant Organist at Peterborough Cathedral, then Organist of Wimborne Minster in 1971, and from 1977 Organist & Master of the Choristers here at Rochester. In 1994 he "retired" to Dorset, where he is now active as a freelance musician and composer.

Ah, my dear Lord! What couldst thou spy in this impure rebellious clay,
That made thee thus resolve to die for those that kill thee every day?
O what strange wonders could thee move to slight thy precious blood, and breath!
Sure it was love, my Lord; for love is only stronger far than death.
From “The incarnation and Passion” – Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)

Sunday’s Introit for Evensong was composed specifically for this celebration, and is inscribed “For Mary Ashfield, in grateful memory of Dr Robert Ashfield in his birth centenary year, with love”.

To whom, Lord, should I sing but thee, the maker of my tongue?
Lo! Other lords would seize on me, but I to thee belong.
As waters haste unto their sea, and earth unto its earth.
So let my soul return to thee from whom it had its birth.
From “A Song of Praise” – John Mason (1646-1694)

Charles Hylton Stewart (1884-1932) was Cathedral Organist here from 1916 to 1930, having begun his musical life as a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford, and Assistant Organist at King's College, Cambridge. From Rochester he returned briefly to Chester (his birthplace - his father having been Precentor there) as Cathedral Organist before being appointed to St George's Chapel, Windsor in 1932, where he died after only twelve weeks in the job. The  Evening Canticles in C major were written in 1925 for the “Festival of the Rochester Diocesan Church Choirs Association”.

Michael McCree (1933-1992) was a devoted Tenor Lay Clerk here for 33 years, and a much-loved local dentist, before retiring from both positions in 1991. He was tragically killed in a road accident whilst on holiday in France the following spring. This weekend we sing the setting of the Preces & Responses which Mike wrote for the Cathedral Choir.

Percy Whitlock (1903-1946) was a boy chorister here during the First World War and Assistant Organist (at the age of only 18) to Hylton Stewart from 1921 to 1930, as well as holding church organist's posts in Borstal and Chatham. From 1932 until his death he was Organist at St Stephen's Church and Borough Organist in Bournemouth. “Come, let us join our cheerful songs” is a typical “Hymn-Anthem”, published in the year of his death. The Evening Canticles in D major were written in 1930, while he was still at Rochester.

Come, let us join our cheerful songs with angels round the throne:
ten thousand thousand are their tongues, but all their joys are one.
"Worthy the Lamb that died," they cry, "to be exalted thus!"
"Worthy the Lamb," our lips reply, "for he was slain for us!"
Jesus is worthy to receive honour and power divine;
and blessings more than we can give, be, Lord, forever thine.
Let all Creation join in one, to bless the sacred Name
of him that sits upon the throne, and to adore the Lamb. Amen.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

“Be still, my soul for God is near; the Great High Priest is with thee now;
The Lord of Life Himself is here, before whose face the angels bow.
To make thy heart His lowly throne thy Saviour God in love draws nigh.
He gives Himself unto His own, for whom he once came down to die.
I come, O Lord, for Thou dost call, to blend my pleading prayer with Thine:
To Thee I give myself, my all, and feed on Thee, and make Thee mine. Amen.”
WD MacLagan  (1826-1910)

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