A RECORDING of Rochester Cathedral Choir, made in 1926 and discovered by a member of the City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society, is believed to be considered one of the earliest live recordings of a cathedral choir in situ, versus in a studio.
The music on the record, conducted by the cathedral organist from 1916 to 1930, Charles Hylton Stewart, is Stanford’s Magnificat in B flat and the hymn “All those that on earth do dwell” (Old Hundredth). The organ is played by the then assistant organist, Percy Whitlock, higher often called a composer, who had previously been a chorister at Rochester.
It was made by Columbia Records, which had begun recording with electronic microphones in 1925. The recording was transferred live, by GPO telephone lines, to Columbia Studios in Westminster, and cut right into a 12-inch, 8rpm shellac record.
The very first electrical recording was from Westminster Abbey, on the burial of the Unknown Soldier, on 11 November 1920. Six years later, on 1 November 1926, the Abbey’s Special Choir and the Chapel Royal, directed by Sydney Nicholson, recorded Parry’s “Never Weather Beaten Sail”, on side 1, and Weelkes’s Gloria in Excelsis Deo, on side 2. It was released commercially by Columbia in February 1927.
The Rochester recording has impressed those that have listened to it. Glyn Paflin, this paper’s arts editor, describes the diction and intonation as excellent. “Each beat is emphasised very firmly, perhaps more so than you’ll now,” he says.
“That could also be since the fairly primitive technology meant that they needed to be barely more emphatic than they normally can be, though it could even have been the contemporary performance practice at Rochester.”
The man to search out the recording, Michael Curling, has given it to the cathedral, to the delight of James Strike, the archivist of the Rochester Cathedral Old Choristers’ Association. It has been converted on to CD, and can be played during this Sunday’s choral evensong on the cathedral, which is able to rejoice the Old Choristers Association
The present director of music, Adrian Bawtree, said: “We are delighted to be sharing this historic recording with you all. To hear the choir in such good heart back in 1926, and to listen to the famous Percy Whitlock on the organ, is just simply implausible. We will do our greatest to proceed to sing with the Spirit after we mix with our Old Choristers on 19 May.”
