A Pillar of Anglican Worship - Barry Rose at 92

Barry Rose OBE is one of the towering figures of Anglican church music. At ninety-two he looks back over sixty years at the heart of the English choral tradition, with warmth, humour and disarming candour. He built the choir of Guildford Cathedral from nothing at twenty-six, rebuilt the choir of St Paul's Cathedral as Sub-Organist and then Master of the Choir, trained the choristers who sang at the 1981 royal wedding, served as Master of the Music at St Albans Abbey, and produced BBC Radio's Choral Evensong for nearly twenty years. He studied organ with C. H. Trevor at the Royal Academy of Music, orchestrated Stainer's Crucifixion, and worked with Paul McCartney and Elton John along the way. This is a long, candid conversation about English cathedral choirs, boy choristers, church organ playing, Anglican chant, sacred music and what is happening to the tradition he helped build. We begin with the most pressing question in English church music: what is happening to the cathedral boy choir. Rose speaks plainly about mixed treble lines at St John's Cambridge, St George's Windsor, Hereford and Chichester, the case for separate boys' and girls' choirs on the Salisbury and Truro models, and what he believes is being lost. From there, how he actually trained choristers: why he never chased a manufactured "choral sound," letting each child sing with the voice they were given; probationers, humming, an hour on a single hymn; soft consonants and stopping the sound a millisecond before the D in "God." For Rose the words got there first and the music came later — the music is only a handmaid to bring the words alive. We discuss Anglican chant, Coverdale and the Book of Common Prayer, why the Creed should be said and not sung, and his definition of a descant: a decoration, never an annihilation. He takes us inside the choral establishment — Guildford's absorbent-plaster vault, relearning tempo for the echo of St Paul's, recording straight to stereo with no chance of repair, and why AI will give you a four-part choir but it won't have any soul. Then the stories: persuading McCartney to ring the choir school headmaster, clashing with Sir David Willcocks over descants at the royal wedding, and C. H. Trevor telling him he would never be a good organist — but would always be a good musician. Near the end he says, simply: "I'm at the end of my life, so I can say what I'd like really now."━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CHAPTERS00:00 "The words got there first, the music came later"02:46 "That tradition is being killed off in the name of equality"13:06 The 20% tax closing England's choir schools15:33 Training boys versus girls — and the bus16:57 "You call a spade a shovel": rehearsing children honestly22:17 The silences between the notes — Laurence Olivier23:58 Founding the Guildford choir on chant and hymns alone27:39 Why the Creed should be said and not sung28:47 Guildford's absorbent plaster and the St Paul's echo37:37 Can AI make music? "It won't have any soul"45:00 Messiah: tempo, Jennens, and divine inspiration49:56 C. H. Trevor: "You'll never be a good organist"53:51 Paul McCartney, Elton John, and the choristers56:39 The royal wedding, Willcocks, and the descant58:31 How it ended at St Paul's1:03:10 The "holpen" story, and bright eyes in a voice trial1:07:17 The Responses everyone wrongly attributes to him1:14:51 "My favourite organ is the one I'm playing now"1:21:47 "A descant is a decoration, not an annihilation"1:32:33 Howells, Charles Wood, neglected composers1:44:48 The Road Home━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#SacredMusic #ChoralMusic #AnglicanChurchMusic