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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2015 18:14:18 GMT -5
Hereford was the centre of a diocese already in the sixth century. The stone cathedral was refounded by Putta in the year 680 or thereabouts, raised by Milfrid, altered two hundred years later, but plundered and burnt by Gruffydd ap Llywelyn in 1056. Its reconstruction was begun in 1079 but not completed until 1148. Scarcely fifty years after its completion William de Vere, who occupied the see from 1186 to 1199, altered the east end by constructing a retro-choir or processional path and a Lady Chapel; the latter was rebuilt not long afterwards—between the years 1226 and 1246, during the Early English style—with a crypt beneath. Around the middle of the century the clerestory, and probably the vaulting of the choir, were rebuilt, having been damaged by the settling of the central tower. Under Bishop Aquablanca (1240–68), one of Henry III's foreign favourites, and an unblushing nepotist, the rebuilding of the north transept was begun, being completed later in the same century by Bishop Swinfield, who also built the aisles of the nave and eastern transept. In the first half of the fourteenth century the rebuilding of the central tower, which is embellished with ball-flower ornaments, was carried out. At about the same time the chapter house and its vestibule were built, then Bishop Trevenant, who presided over the Bishopric from 1389 to 1404, rebuilt the south end and groining of the great transept. Around the middle of the 15th century a tower was added to the western end of the nave, and in the second half of this century Bishops Stanbury and Edmund Audley built three chantries, the former on the north side of the presbytery, the latter on the south side of the Lady Chapel. Bishops Richard Mayew and Booth, who between them ruled the diocese from 1504 to 1535, made the last additions to the cathedral by erecting the north porch, now forming the principal northern entrance. The building of the present edifice therefore extended over a period of four hundred and forty years. In 1786 the western tower suddenly fell down - the wind you know. In 1841 the restoration work was begun, instigated by Dean Merewether, and was carried out by Lewis Nockalls Cottingham and his son, Nockalls. Bishop Bisse's masonry, which by this time had been found to be useless, was swept away from the central tower, the lantern was strengthened and exposed to view, and much work was done in the nave and to the exterior of the Lady Chapel.The west front was restored by John Oldrid Scott over the period 1902 and 1908 (the last year of western civilization). Since then a few tasteful lamp-posts have been put up by a nest of suffragisticals who have adopted the original nomenclature "the women of Hereford diocese". These civically minded ladies tidied the grounds by digging up all the corpses and disposing of them in a skip round the back. Their lovely lamp-posts, by a beautiful pink path, with a few clouds, may be appraised in our photo-graph. |
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Post by ahinton on Oct 9, 2015 8:51:17 GMT -5
Hereford was the centre of a diocese already in the sixth century. The stone cathedral was refounded by Putta in the year 680 or thereabouts, raised by Milfrid, altered two hundred years later, but plundered and burnt by Gruffydd ap Llywelyn in 1056. Its reconstruction was begun in 1079 but not completed until 1148. Scarcely fifty years after its completion William de Vere, who occupied the see from 1186 to 1199, altered the east end by constructing a retro-choir or processional path and a Lady Chapel; the latter was rebuilt not long afterwards—between the years 1226 and 1246, during the Early English style—with a crypt beneath. Around the middle of the century the clerestory, and probably the vaulting of the choir, were rebuilt, having been damaged by the settling of the central tower. Under Bishop Aquablanca (1240–68), one of Henry III's foreign favourites, and an unblushing nepotist, the rebuilding of the north transept was begun, being completed later in the same century by Bishop Swinfield, who also built the aisles of the nave and eastern transept. In the first half of the fourteenth century the rebuilding of the central tower, which is embellished with ball-flower ornaments, was carried out. At about the same time the chapter house and its vestibule were built, then Bishop Trevenant, who presided over the Bishopric from 1389 to 1404, rebuilt the south end and groining of the great transept. Around the middle of the 15th century a tower was added to the western end of the nave, and in the second half of this century Bishops Stanbury and Edmund Audley built three chantries, the former on the north side of the presbytery, the latter on the south side of the Lady Chapel. Bishops Richard Mayew and Booth, who between them ruled the diocese from 1504 to 1535, made the last additions to the cathedral by erecting the north porch, now forming the principal northern entrance. The building of the present edifice therefore extended over a period of four hundred and forty years. In 1786 the western tower suddenly fell down - the wind you know. In 1841 the restoration work was begun, instigated by Dean Merewether, and was carried out by Lewis Nockalls Cottingham and his son, Nockalls. Bishop Bisse's masonry, which by this time had been found to be useless, was swept away from the central tower, the lantern was strengthened and exposed to view, and much work was done in the nave and to the exterior of the Lady Chapel.The west front was restored by John Oldrid Scott over the period 1902 and 1908 (the last year of western civilization). Since then a few tasteful lamp-posts have been put up by a nest of suffragisticals who have adopted the original nomenclature "the women of Hereford diocese". These civically minded ladies tidied the grounds by digging up all the corpses and disposing of them in a skip round the back. Their lovely lamp-posts, by a beautiful pink path, with a few clouds, may be appraised in our photo-graph. Thank you for posting this. It is indeed a fine building and, in my view, the finest of the three "Three Choirs" cathedrals. It has a very fine organ of the typically English Romantic kind although its manuals and pedals are short of full compass (maunals up to A only and pedals up to G); in that respsect and one or two others it's a kind of second best St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. It also has the best acoustic of the three. The photograph (unhyphenated, please!) is of relatively recent origin as is evident from the revamped grounds around it (Elgar on his bike near to the building remains untouched, however). Sadly, however, the cathedral and its surrounding Castle Green / Bishops' Meadow, which has thankfully changed little over many years, has almost become the only part of the city worthy of a visit; much of Hereford today looks as though no one has cared for or about it for a long time - it's very run-down - and it's also most awkward to get to and from, there being no ring road, no motorway for 20 miles (and even that - the M50 - is only a spur off the M5 to Ross-on-Wye), no decent main roads to or from it and the nearest viable airport is some 70 miles distant. What a pity! My only issues with what you write are, as you might expect, to your references to 1908 as "the last year of western civilisation" and to the bizarre expression "a nest of suffragisticals" which I take to be a clumsy euphemism for "some suffragettes" (not least because I've never heard of suffragettes "nesting", like birds or tuplets)... But a beautiful place, without doubt - and one in which the British cathedral music tradition survives at least as well as in any of the major London churches today. As it happens, I attended the 100th performance of the Anthony Payne realisation of Elgar's Third Symphony there during the 2000 Three Choirs Festival. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2015 0:07:32 GMT -5
When one looks at the "sculpture" to which reference is made by Mr. H. one is at once struck by the lack of all dignity in its portrayal of our great composer. The sculptress, a Miss Pearson, plainly cannot be a serious person, and for that reason I will not reproduce her production here. I do not know her position in society, but it would certainly be preferable, and more appropriate, were she to devote her future energies, as ladies do, to the household arrangements of some worthy gentleman. Here instead may be seen Hereford cathedral's organ case and its organ console: But where does the performer prop his score? we wonder. The absence of "motor-ways" in Hereford's vicinity is not so much a loss as a necessity. On the other hand it is unthinkable to have motor traffic running along main roads inside the city. The solution is obvious: leave all motorized cars at the city borders and transfer into horse-drawn conveyances to continue towards the city centre. The unloading and loading involved should take less that a minute if properly organized with platforms, and think of the difference! And so finally, what do you think of the third symphony Mr. H. - does it exist in every sense? |
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Post by ahinton on Oct 10, 2015 0:50:30 GMT -5
When one looks at the "sculpture" to which reference is made by Mr. H. one is at once struck by the lack of all dignity in its portrayal of our great composer. The sculptress, a Miss Pearson, plainly cannot be a serious person, and for that reason I will not reproduce her production here. I do not know her position in society, but it would certainly be preferable, and more appropriate, were she to devote her future energies, as ladies do, to the household arrangements of some worthy gentleman. I don't see a problem with it, frankly, although these days it might have been more appropriate for Elgar to be seated on the contraption leaning forward and pedalling furiously in order to get out of the city. As to your last sentence, its risibility places it beyond comment other than to mention that what Ms Pearson does or should do is her business and not yours or mine. Here instead may be seen Hereford cathedral's organ case and its organ console: But where does the performer prop his score? we wonder. "We" do, do "we"? Well, not having been in that loft I cannot say with absolute ertainty but there is clearly what appears to be a music stand at the top of what you reproduce here. The absence of "motor-ways" in Hereford's vicinity is not so much a loss as a necessity. It's no "loss" because the city has never had any and so cannot be regarded and having "lost" any, but (see below)... On the other hand it is unthinkable to have motor traffic running along main roads inside the city. The solution is obvious: leave all motorized cars at the city borders and transfer into horse-drawn conveyances to continue towards the city centre. The unloading and loading involved should take less that a minute if properly organized with platforms, and think of the difference! I did not and do not advocate the absence of pedestrianised areas in the city centre - indeed, they're usually a very good idea and many cities do have them; Hereford's is quite small and could benefit from expansion, but that wasn't the problem to which I referred, which is that of getting to and from that city in the first place - and in any case we're not just talking cars here but also delivery trucks and other motor vehicles. As to your extraordinary idea of horse-drawn transportation into and out of the city from various points outside it, just imagine the mess! - and how would you expect them to cope with the contents of 40+tonne trucks? Who would take care of the horses and where? And what would pedestrians in the city centre make of thousands of horses everywhere? Never mind "frightening the horses" - it would be a case of a plethora of horses frightening the pedestrians! No - what's actually needed is (a) a ring road around the city with at least two traffic lanes in each direction and at least three "park and ride" facilities common to many UK cities today in which parking is (usually) provided free of charge and buses/coaches convey those who have parked there into the city and back at their expense (b) easy access to an unhyphenated motorway from such a ring road (this would mean building such a motorway) (c) a train line to be built from the existing train station via the Rotherwas industrial estate towards Ross-on-Wye and thence to Gloucester where it would meet the existing train lines towards both London to the east and also north (Birmingham and beyond) and south (Bristol and beyond); this would enable journey times to London to be cut by around an hour from the ridiculous average of 3 hours 15 minutes necessitated by the fact that the current train route from Hereford to London is so absurdly indirect that the usual way to take a train from Hereford to London is to travel on a local train "service" from Hereford to Newport (south Wales) and thence to London, which takes around 2 hours 45 minutes in toto (although the route is still very indirect) - that this involves having to go abroad into Wales and back into England again in order to get to London illustrates the shortcomings of train transportation to and from Hereford. (a) and (b) combined would enable much easier access to Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff airports, although the road journey to London and its airports would still be troublesome because, even once the nearest existing main motorway (M5) is reached, there's no motorway in the direction of the capital. And so finally, what do you think of the third symphony Mr. H. - does it exist in every sense? It is an astonishing achievement on the part of composer Anthony Payne. All that he had to work with was about a page and a half of fully orchestrated material and some 120 pages of disorganised sketches, which might sound a lot but not only did they provide no obvious clues as to what to do with them but also not all of the symphony's material was contained or even hinted at therein. In this sense, unlike the cases of Mahler 10 (where at least something of the music runs from first page to last) or Bruckner 9 (whose finale includes far more material, some of it almost fully worked out, in Bruckner's hand, than was once though to exist), Payne had to act as composer, diviner, musicologist and the rest; initially, he didn't even believe that the task could be completed and eventually felt that he had somehow to try to "become" Elgar in order to accomplish it to the best of his very considerable ability (there are various published articles on this subject) - he was, after all, born almost 2½ years after Elgar died. The entire project was made even harder as a consequence of the fact that Elgar had written very little since his cello concerto, so almost a decade and a half had passed in near-silence before he took up this symphony at a time in his life that was to prove too late for him to complete it himself; the very opening, fully scored by Elgar, starts out in a new direction for him, its grinding contrary motion perfect fourths and fifths sounding almost more like Havergal Brian than Elgar! Whilst the end result cannot be precisely what Elgar might have written, it's way closer than anyone had a right to expect and it's been accepted by most musicians as well as by the majority of the listening public as "Elgar's Third Symphony" rather than as the cumbersomely titled work as which it was initially described. |
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