ARTE.TV – ON DEMAND – DOCUMENTARY
King’s College Cambridge – founded by Henry VI of England in the 1440s – is known to many for its legendary boys’ choir: its legendary recording of the Have mercy by Allegri, in 1963, conducted by David Willcocks, is one of the best-selling classical music recordings in history. A documentary by Gérard Pangon and François Chayé, King’s College in music (2019), attempts to portray it, from its origins to the present day.
But, wanting to talk about everything (history, politics, religion, music, architecture, famous students, etc.), this film flies over the various subjects at a brisk pace, between more or less long musical sequences, truncated pieces or illustrating imperfectly the historical periods concerned and a strong presence of extracts from a rather soporific concert of the Passion according to Saint Matthew (1727), by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).
Sublime Anglican repertoire
Admittedly, Bach’s music – the proof… – is played at King’s College, but it is rather the prerogative of the boys’ choir of St. Thomas’ Church in Leipzig, where Bach was music director. King’s College boasts a sublime Anglican repertoire of Renaissance music, sometimes written by composers trained in its ranks, such as Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625). And again, we hear, we don’t know why, instrumental music by Gibbons (which was not played in church) and a transcription for… accordion!
John Taverner (c.1490-1545) was a central composer in the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547), but he was choir master at Cardinal College in Oxford (now Christ Church College), the rival university town. When the XXe century is mentioned, the authors still fall by the wayside by retaining the cantata Rejoice in the Lamb (1943), by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): it was written to commemorate the dedication of a church in Northampton.
Later is evoked a piece specifically composed for the choir of King’s College, the Fayrfax Carol, by Thomas Adès (born in 1971), created on December 24, 1997 for the Nine Lessons and Carols festival, a ritual moment organized during the Christmas period and broadcast by the BBC, on radio since 1928, and on television since 1954 But we only hear a few snippets of it for the benefit of the final chorus of the Saint Matthew.
While King’s College is said to have “welcomed its first female students in 1972”, the subject of the non-mixedness of the choir is not approached by this documentary, which, however, is clearly aimed at the layman. Explaining this particularity, detailing the life of its members, the way in which the youngest learn on the job, mixed with the most experienced, all of this would have deserved to be enlightened.
King’s College in music, documentary written by Gérard Pangon and directed by François Chayé (Fr., 2019, 43 min). Broadcast on Arte on April 24 at 6:45 p.m. and on Arte.tv from April 17 to 27.