Adrian Partington

Hello, Michael.

Yes, this is absolutely true. King John closed cathedrals and abbeys for a short time because uh the Pope at the time had excommunicated him, and this was his form of petty revenge. And so, uh yes, this year the cathedral's been closed for worship for the first time since the 13th century. Absolutely true.

That is a wonderful film. I love that film.

The color and the music, it's just marvelous.

Mhm.

Very, very many times, yes. I know my my friends, the players, really enjoyed those sessions, you'll be pleased to hear.

And the Widor was a particular talking point.

Well, some time away, I fear.

Well, um my own little house is in the Wye Valley, actually. It's the other side of Gloucester, um about, but it's similarly beautiful and very pastoral and not very built up. So, I'm glad you've seen the Cotswolds.

They were.

Wonderful.

Hm.

Well, I certainly do. I mean, I think Gloucester has been a center of United Kingdom music-making for, yeah, around a thousand years. But one thing I'd like to say, we all think we're very modern, but Gloucester was originally founded in the 16th century—uh, in the 6th century, as a monastery for men and women. Now, um I think that's something to be celebrated, and one of the early leaders of the community was Abbess Kyneburga. Um so, I'm very proud to say that uh we had women in our community uh, presumably offering music as well, from from over a thousand years ago. But the monastery itself uh rose to prominence later, after the country had settled down, after the Norman Invasion of 1066, which most people will know about, um into a Benedictine monastery. The first time we know that there was actually know there was singing was in the late 15th century, but of course there was singing before that. Because there are references to boy choristers being employed, um I think the monks may have got a little bit lazy and then bought bought in musicians to do their singing for them. But Henry VIII, um as I'm sure you know, King Henry VIII, um he abolished the monasteries in the 1530s and 1540s. But immediately established um a system of English services, Matins in the morning, Evensong in the evening, and all the worship to be conducted in English and sung by a choir uh which was of men and boys, now happily of girls, boys, men, and women. So, we are the successors to a tradition which goes back in its present form to the 1540s, and it's something really to be proud of.

Mhm.

Yes.

Well, I think it's tight now because of our shared problems. I mean, so in many ways, I think um Europe is uh a cultural extension of um the United States rather than the other way around. When your country was growing as a nation, you know, it imported ideas from Europe, but I think the traffic is more in the opposite direction now.

Um, we have a a national characteristic for all our races here, which is on the whole, quite tolerant. Um, though the extremes of behavior that we see in other parts of the world, tend not to happen here. People get angry, of course they get angry. People get passionate. But um we're still reasonably calm as a nation uh, although we haven't handled coronavirus terribly well, I can tell you that.

I'm sure.

Oh, yes.

Sure was.

Yes, we're blessed with um singing galleries. In fact, um uh we have two, they're called tribune galleries, and services can be held up there, or we can use them for sort of a Venetian cori spezzati music. Um, we have a large organ loft, that you probably noticed, we have choir groups up there sometimes if we're doing Monteverdi, you know, can divide the choir into three or four parts. And we have a large chapel, a very late medieval chapel, um called the Lady Chapel, and in that, I don't know if you went to it, there are three singing galleries, three galleries built specifically to hold singers. Um, and as you say, the acoustics of the building are uniquely beautiful. Uh, and I'm told, our our master mason here tells me that it's because of the quality of the stone which was comes from the Cotswolds, as a matter of fact, it's very, very hard limestone. And he also says because the arches are round rather than pointed, they are better acoustically. So, the in short, the sound is fantastic. Just marvelous.

We do a bit, yes. We've just um just recorded something which has gone into 12th place in the classical music charts, I'm proud to be able to tell you. So, a Requiem by a modern British composer called Ian Venables. Um, but it it was written for the building, and so he knew just how to uh to pace it, you know, um so it's it's slow-moving harmonic music, but very, very beautiful and has proved fantastically popular.

No, it's not.

Well, it is, yes. Well, it kind of is, kind of is. All right. The boys and girls uh go to school at this. It's called the King's School because Henry VIII wasn't a very modest chap and he named the school after himself when he when he founded it. Um, and what happens is that the um just the boys at the moment, the girls rehearse later, but because of staffing, that kind of thing, uh I see the boys every morning at 8:00, and they do an hour's rehearsal before going to school. And the girls rehearse after school, for historical reasons, but that's going to change next year. Um, so we they are very, very closely linked and always have been, and it it's it's a luxury, it's a total luxury to have all the children coming from one school.

Yeah.

It is, and it's one that I think of often. Um—

—well, I do, because I have um lots of children myself, as indeed do you, not as many as Bach, um but I'm used to trying to be creative with um pandemonium going on around around about me. Um, but uh the children know that they are doing something special, you know? They they come into the building and they're still wide-eyed and enthusiastic as as they were when they first came. It's uh it's it's rather lovely. I just wish more people could have the opportunity. I mean, we do have lots of other choirs here, so that everybody who wants to can sing. Anybody in the city can sing. Um, but the cathedral choir, obviously, has to be uh but formed through competitive audition uh because not every child has got the musicianship to be able to sing Bach or Byrd, you know.

You have a very sonorous bass voice, though. That's a good bass voice.

Great pleasure.

It's so important.

Hm.

Although, I must say straight away, my the greatest formative influence on my life was being a choir boy, singing as a child in a choir. I think that's the most important thing you can offer a child. It's simple, it's free, it's totally rewarding, and it gives you the best life experience. Singing in a choir is just the best thing you can do.

In Worcester, yes, it's about 30 miles from here. It's not as nice as Gloucester.

Ah, yes, I've been there.

Yeah.

Yes.

Gloucester, yes. Yes, indeed. Well done, yes.

Sure was. We, I've done it two or three times. And there's another piece, um he just knew the acoustic, as Vaughan Williams, I'm proud to say, was born in Gloucestershire.

As indeed was Holst. Do you play much Holst, The Planets presumably you've conducted some?

Did he really? What a link to history! God.

Of course.

A name I know, yes. Wonderful. Boulanger.

Yes.

Wow.

Fantastic.

I was, yes, but I formed a youth choir because it's always, as I've already demonstrated, my vision is for the whole world to sing. Sounds dreadfully corny, but I mean, we we set up choirs for the for the orchestra, you know. Um, and the the older children um were thrilled to take part in, you know, Mahler's Eighth Symphony and Mahler's Third Symphony and uh King Roger by Szymanowski, and all these things where the children's choir was just marvelous, marvelous years. And uh it was fantastic for me to uh live in the shadow of Simon Rattle for three or four years before he he he moved to Berlin. Um, what a tremendous man he is.

Well, um yes and no. I mean, I've I've played the organ in Berlin, I've accompanied the um Berlin Radio Choir a couple of times. Um, and last year, I was thrilled to take the Gloucester Cathedral choristers to sing at the Philharmonie, um in uh a a youth concert, actually, um a concert with members of the orchestra, not the whole orchestra, um and we sang uh cantatas, two cantatas. One by Nico Muhly, um I'm sure you've come across, and one by Jonathan Dove. So, it was a great experience, and my daughter lives there, so that was nice.

Did you? God, wonderful.

Wonderful.

Yes, I understand.

Certainly.

Yes, I have. Um uh, I think that for me, the conductors I feel most comfortable with are those who are also performers, in the same way that I think the composers that interest me are also performers. I think conductor, career conductors don't always know about the executive difficulties that their performers are having if they haven't done it themselves. Um, and do you see what I mean?

Um, and uh my job here, although I'm called Director of Music, historically heads of music at cathedrals were called this curious English title, "Organist and Master of the Choristers". So, for the last 500 years, those two sets of skills have been seen as being together, you know. Um, and so I just grew up doing both, and it may mean that I'm not as good an organist as somebody who just plays the organ, and I'm not as good a singer as somebody who just sings. But uh the church has historically required uh both those skills to be developed together. Um, and so, therefore, not only do I have to conduct, I have to play. So, I'm always aware, at least I hope I'm always aware, of what my performers are facing, because half the time I have to play myself. I will tell you something which uh my most recent professional engagement, one for which I was humbly grateful because there hasn't been a lot of professional work around in the last few months. Um, I spent the last three days playing the harmonium um in reduced scoring uh masterpieces, you know. Um, after the First World War, Schoenberg and Erwin Stein and people like that re-scored big pieces for chamber ensembles, otherwise they weren't going to get performed. Um, and so, and the conductor was an American, um splendid man called Ken Woods, uh who's also a cellist.

Yeah, well, I've been playing, you see, and this is this is my thesis, that I feel comfortable with conductors who themselves perform, you know, and that's what I try and do because I think they have a have another dimension to helping performers give of their best. That's that's my view, anyway.

Sure.

Ah.

Yeah, his his music needs to be better known. He was tremendous.

That Mozart duet in D, have you seen that film?

Richter is focused and diligent, Britten was playing all the right notes, but was also aware and alert and smiling, and you know, just enjoying, because the music was so in him. Extraordinary.

Oh.

Well, um it goes without saying that if I'm doing a new piece or a piece I even know, I read as much around the subject as I possibly can, uh and uh since most of my work these days is to do with uh choral music, um the most important thing is that you have a perception of the meaning of the text. And I try and think, what does the composer mean by this? What does this line, why did why did he set this line in that way? I think about this all the time. But I'm also aware of something, and I don't want to come across as being some sort of um slightly mad Christian zealot. Although I am a believer, uh I believe that um the world does not exist for itself, let me put it like that. That there is a purpose in our being here. I think a lot of composers um had uh an instinct that meant that their work was not for themselves, that they were a kind of channel of energy um for something greater than themselves. And that, unquestionably, Bach felt that, unquestionably Byrd felt that, and uh perhaps later composers have struggled with that notion. But the reason that I I find working in the cathedral so fulfilling is that I think whether you believe in Christianity or not, it is surely a healthy thing that you see yourself as an artist as serving some greater purpose than your own ego. And uh that is uh how I approach the music. I I'm not one for flinging myself around and demonstrating my emotions in public. Uh what I try and do, and this sounds, I don't want this to sound pompous and old-fashioned, is just um help the performers serve the music to the best of their ability and my own ability. Um, and if you take the approach that music is a symbol of something greater than yourself, you can apply it to uh any sort of music-making, you know? Some famous atheist composers um it works with them too, because real genius like, I don't know, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, who are not, you know, obviously uh Christians or spiritualists of any kind, they definitely had a perception that they were doing something which was bigger than themselves.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

I hope so.

Definitely.

Correct. No.

What an interesting question! Um, I think the glib answer is that uh the greatest composers grasp opportunities, the less good composers miss them. Um, and I have complete control, I'm happy to say, on the music that I program here. So I tend not to uh program stuff that I don't think is very good. That's avoiding your question, really, um but uh there was a survey done by a PhD student of our music lists, spread over 10 years, and I'm very pleased to say that um the most, by far, the most uh represented composer here was William Byrd uh whose music I have a particular affinity to. And I think he gets such richness out of texts and just never misses an opportunity.

Wow!

Yes, you must.

I do, I do.

Thank you.

Great pleasure.