The excellent Choir of Trinity Church from Princeton NJ was invited to be the guest Choir on the Third Sunday after Pentecost at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys are on Summer break.

The Trinity Choir sang with perfect intonation in all voice sections. My friend said, “Their soprano section sounds like boys.” Yes, their superb soprano section very closely resembles the sound of trebles/boys. And the Men have a gorgeous sound as well. I especially liked the Choir’s anthem for Evensong which was the Jubilate from Howells’s Collegium Regale Service (King’s College Service).

For those who don’t know or who are not Anglican, Service means setting, or the music composed for that text of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. Herbert Howells — my favourite Anglican composer — went around England writing canticle settings (the canticles are specifically for Evensong and consists of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis) for the Choir and acoustics of the parish or cathedral church (seat of the Bishop) he was writing for. So for example, the Collegium Regale Service has faster harmonic changes for the Chapel of King’s College. Whereas the Saint Paul’s Service (written for Saint Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in London) has slower harmonic changes because of the vast acoustics and echo of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Howells also wrote a beautiful Collegium Regale Communion Service. But one of his most beautiful anthems is unfortunately rarely performed, “I Love All Beauteous Things.” Of course this anthem could be programmed for Mass or Evensong, but I think it would work especially nicely on the same Evensong with Howells’s Gloucester Service. To me, they are similar in style.

Hopefully no one at Saint Thomas said to themselves or anyone else, “Howells is too modern for me.” Years ago, that’s what a person in the congregation said to me one Sunday in an Anglican cathedral when I sat down in the pew (after genuflecting which seems to be mostly gone these days even at Saint Thomas). I glanced at the service leaflet and said: Oh, they’re doing Howells today. The woman next to me said: “He’s too modern for me.” I didn’t respond other than to say, “Oh?” I wasn’t going to get into it with her. I suspect CV Stanford’s Psalm 150 (which is a pretty basic Anglican chant in C Major; it’s one of my favourites) was “too modern” for her. If you’re not familiar with the Stanford, I’ll put it this way: I suspect anything by Mozart was “too modern” for her. I don’t remember what the Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys were doing of Howells that day but I think it was his Collegium Regale Communion Service, one of my favourites. And they may have chosen the Magnificat from his Gloucester Service for the Offertory Anthem that day.

I should also say that the Director of Music and the Organ Scholar for Trinity is Connor Fluharty. He also played the Organ Voluntary for the morning Mass at Saint Thomas and I enjoyed that, and he played some for Evensong. He seemed very familiar with their organ for a guest organist. He played beautifully. Too bad the Trinity Choir couldn’t be there all Summer as the Resident Choir, but Saint Thomas has a different choral ensemble every Sunday. Unfortunately, the following Sunday’s guest Choir was not of the same caliber as that of Trinity. The soprano section of that Choir reminded me of the wobbling and fluttering soprano section of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Not good. Whereas the soprano section of the Trinity Choir had none of that. Connor had done his job and his soprano section sang with perfect intonation; no dreadful wobbling and fluttering from them. I’ve asked this many times, but what is it with sopranos who can’t control their voice? It seems to be rather epidemic. It’s usually older sopranos. For the Choir I didn’t care for the next Sunday, I looked at the older (grey-haired) women in procession and something told me that I should prepare myself for wobbling and fluttering sopranos, and that’s what I heard unfortunately and consequently I watched very little of the Liturgy because I assume those sopranos wobbled and fluttered all through the Liturgy. I can’t take that. I thought: Are they from Boston? — the wobbling and fluttering capital — where one hears wobbling and fluttering sopranos whether it be Tanglewood or the New England Conservatory Concert Choir or Boston University’s Symphony Chorus? What is it about Boston where their sopranos mistake a Symphonic Chorus for an Opera Chorus (and I’ve yet to hear any Opera Chorus sing with perfect intonation as if they’ve never heard the term!).

With Trinity, their Anglican chants were also beautifully sung — I especially enjoyed the Howells chant and the one before that where the organist used a form of text painting in his accompaniment when the text was about the “waves of the sea” — the organ got “stormy” at that place in the chant, and Saint Thomas’s Assistant Organist, Maks Adach, also accompanied them beautifully. I’ve talked about text painting with my friend for years so I played that for him. He asked: Would anyone in the congregation even pick up on that? I suspect not. Maks also plays some very nice High Church improvisations on occasion. One can’t have too many of those!

Here’s more info about Connor from Trinity’s website:

“Connor Fluharty, a native of Pittsburgh, PA, has been the Organ Scholar at Trinity Church Princeton and the Music Director at the Episcopal Chaplaincy of Princeton since 2017. Since 2021, he has been Trinity’s Interim Director of Music. He is a graduate of Westminster Choir College, where he completed his Master of Music in Organ Performance as a student of Daryl Robinson. Active as a church musician for close to 15 years, he holds a Bachelor of Music in both Organ and Piano Performance from Grove City College. In addition, he has performed in master classes for Paul Jacobs, Ken Cowan, Stephen Tharp, and studied privately with Jean-Baptiste Robin in 2013 while a student in Paris, France. Aside from music, Connor is an avid fan of literature and film.”

Ah, Paul Jacobs of The Juilliard School.  I wrote an article about Paul sometime ago.  Seems like the nicest guy.  Interesting that Connor trained his Choir to sing with perfect intonation and he’s a graduate of Westminster Choir College.  Yet that woman — I don’t care to mention her name or to get started on her! — who prepares the New England Conservatory Concert Choir — and is also a graduate of WCC and rides on the Westminster coattails– and she does not believe in perfect intonation.  Well she does for the Men but not the Women.  The Women sound awful with their nervous-sounding wobbling fluttering noises they make.  One wonders if they’re trying to emulate the wobbling and fluttering Women of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (TFC) who also sounds awful?  No, I’m not being critical of James Burton (their relatively new conductor who was brought to Boston from the UK). Much of the TFC cannot stand him because of his more stringent audition requirements. I read that rehearsals are like a dinner with divorced parents. Clearly James Burton is doing the best he can with what he has to work with — which isn’t much; rather podunk quite frankly — and the people who auditions since his choral ensembles in the UK (the renowned Hallé Choir and Orchestra, for example) sang with perfect intonation in all SATB voice sections. 

The Choir of Trinity Church from Princeton was a pleasure to listen to.  An example of choral excellence.