Gerre Hancock must be “rolling in his grave.” Assuming what I read online was true, Gerre Hancock (the iconic Organist and Choirmaster at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue) once said that a Liturgy is not complete without at least one descant. Obviously, Jeremy FIlsell strongly disagrees with that because he can’t stand descants. He never (or very rarely) uses them. He prefers hymns to be dull and drab.

I’ve written about this many times, but I think it’s pretty much confirmed by now.

I’ve never known any church musician who was anti-descants. But Jeremy Filsell is definitely the first example of such.

He likes brass descants. They’re okay apparently. And he will change the organ chord harmonies on the last verse of a hymn on occasion. That’s okay apparently. But have the boys sing any of the descants they sang before Jeremy’s arrival? Not. Going. To. Happen. With the rare exception. I can’t remember the last time the boys sang a descant. I’ve never seen anything like this. Have any of the congregation noticed? That’s what I’d like to know.

Every time I see a hymn listed on the service leaflet that I know has a descant written for it, I think to myself: Well, it won’t be sung so screw that. And the boys do not sing it. I’m surprised Jeremy allows the boys to sing pieces up in their register because that’s often what descants do, and “we certainly don’t want anything that remotely reminds us of a descant, do we?!” Sigh.

Descants, when they are well done — as the trebles at Saint Thomas used to do — add so much to a drab, dull, monotonous hymn.

Only the finest choral ensembles and trebles/soprano sections can sing descants well and do them justice. Many churches can’t use descants because their choristers can’t do them well or do them at all because their soprano section sucks. And a descant should never be sung with any noticeable vibrato. That will ruin a descant.

I just keep shaking my head in disgust. Here you have the superb trebles of the Saint Thomas Choir School, and they’re not allowed to sing descants. That’s insanity. It’s also infuriating. Did Jeremy have some bad experience with descants in his past? Did the Rector of Saint Thomas Church know that Jeremy was so adamantly against descants when they hired him?

Maybe Jeremy is looking for another church job. One can hope. Although I suspect he’s not going anywhere any time soon.

We just had All Saint’s Day with the processional hymn “For All the Saints.” There’s a descant for that, and I think that descant is even printed in the hymnal (most descants are not in the hymnal). As expected, the boys did not sing it. Instead, Jeremy changed the organ harmonies on the last verse. That was alright, but it’s certainly no substitute for a beautiful descant soaring throughout the Nave.

Descants would add to the drab hymn playing in general at Saint Thomas. I really miss the glorious High Church hymn playing of former Organist jeremy Bruns. He’s wonderful. They have a superb relatively new pipe organ and that’s how they play hymns? Drab and by-the-book. As if they are afraid of the organ except for maybe the last verse? The hymns are usually played as if the pipe organ is a Casio keyboard.

Add to that the insipid camera crew who must not think that the parish has any regular viewers because they show us the same windows, same detail of the High Altar, same statuary, same candles, and same this and that every time they record the Liturgies at the expense of showing us what the people in the pews are seeing: The Liturgy. The procession. I see no one in the pews gawking up at the windows or anything else. We all know we’re in a church dammit — doh! — we don’t need that constant reminder by showing us “church scenes” idiots. The camera lens should be no different than the eyes of the people sitting in the pews. I see no one in the pews looking at all the things I listed. This camera crew is clueless, insipid, and inept. And infuriating.