leaderboard1 -

Cambridge Chats #1: Timothy Byram-Wigfield

December 4, 2003
Default

Gordon and Barbara Betenbaugh are organist/choirmasters at First Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg, VA. They have recently returned from a 13-week sabbatical in the UK. They also direct Cantate, the Children's Choir of Central Virginia, and Mrs. Betenbaugh is chapel organist and assistant choral director at Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg.

Tim Byram-Wigfield has been the music director at Jesus College in Cambridge since 1999. A former chorister at King's College, he was organ scholar at Christ Church Oxford before he moved to Winchester Cathedral to be sub-organist in 1985. For eight years he was Master of the Music at St. Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh before taking up his present appointment. He combines his work at Jesus College with a busy schedule as an organ recitalist, and has played in France, Australia, Belgium, the USA and Canada. He conducts the Northampton Bach Choir, is organist for the Millennium Youth Choir, and regularly gives workshops for amateur choirs. He is also active as a pianist, arranger and composer. He broadcasts frequently on BBC Radio 3, and has recorded on the EMI, Hyperion, Argo, Priory and Herald labels.

The chapel at Jesus College is the most ancient college building in Cambridge, begun in 1140. We had occasion to speak with Tim over tea prior to his afternoon rehearsal on Friday, May 23. We had previously attended a week's rehearsals and Evensongs at Jesus. The program is distinctive in maintaining two choirs. During university term there are five choral services each week. The Chapel Choir sings three and the Mixed Choir sings two. The alto, tenor and bass voices are common to both groups and are sung by the choral scholars, who each receive £100 per term plus a nominal payment for all the services they sing.

Tim Byram-Wigfield has recently been appointed director of music at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. The chapel runs a conventional cathedral-style set-up of boy choristers and twelve professional men, singing daily services. The building is one of the finest examples of English 15th-century architecture, with fan vaulting, fine stained-glass windows, and a marvelous Harrison and Harrison pipe organ.

BB: Your boy choir doesn't have a choir school like King's College or St. John's, do they?

TB-W: That's right.

BB: Do they pay tuition?

TB-W: No, the college provides it. In fact, the college also pays them a small stipend of £35 per term which is put into a savings account for them. It can accumulate until the time that their voice changes. We also provide some instrumental bursaries for them.

BB: How does that work?

TB-W: An instrumental bursary is a small donation that the college would make to the parents directed toward the cost of their instruments.

GB: Suzuki is not taught much over here, is it?

TB-W: It is in some places and certainly at very young ages. It used to be very popular for children who wanted to learn the violin in large classes. I daresay in London it still happens. I don't know of a class in Cambridge, but there might be one.

GB: Actually, from a choral standpoint it only helps the ear. It doesn't help the reading skills which is paramount.

TB-W: Yes, that's true. When I first came here four years ago there were only 13 full-time choristers, and only about half of them were reading on their instruments. Maybe it's just been through luck or because we've been tapping a different vein, the caliber of chorister we've been getting in terms of their musical ability and literacy has appreciated a bit. Going back to what you were saying, ours is a very different set-up from King's and St. John's. We operate on a part-time basis and can only be on that part-time basis, because the activity is essentially taking place after school at the end of the choristers' day.

BB: In the auditioned children's choir we have at home, the parents pay tuition. We've found that when parents pay tuition to the choir just like they do for soccer or other sports and activities, they feel more inclined to insure that their child attends rehearsal.

TB-W: Yes, that's like having lessons. That's less of a problem with us, because in a sense we're asking them to do us a favor by having the boys come and sing the services for us. In return, of course, we're providing them with a certain element of musical education and other aspects of education as well. Commitment being what it is these days, the amount of things the parents want their children to do affects the choir. We had a full house on Wednesday evening, and then we had less than 2/3 yesterday. This morning I got several e-mails that children would be absent for this, that, and the other reason. You get the idea.

GB: Yes, we have the same thing with church volunteer children's choirs at our church.

BB: Do you teach the boys in a separate theory class?

TB-W: No, it has to be done in the context of the music that we teach them. The only time I get the chance to teach them anything in that vein is when they're probationers and come to their probationers' class, which is on Tuesday afternoons. We only have an hour.

GB: Did you start the mixed choir of boys and girls in Edinburgh at St. Mary's Cathedral?

TB-W: No, my predecessor Dennis Townhill did. That works for them very successfully because they operate like a choir school. We had rehearsal in the morning and a service in the evening. Also, because it's in Scotland, where the tradition is not so firmly embedded in the society, it wasn't seen quite so much as a heresy to introduce boys and girls together, although for a while it was not without its difficulties. One of the strongest arguments there was that it was the only choir school in Scotland, and also because the choir school operated like a specialist music school like Wells Cathedral or Manchester. The argument was that this was a golden opportunity for a child to sing in the choir, so boys and girls should have the same opportunity. That's a pretty strong argument, really! It was for those reasons that they introduced the boys and girls. They kept an eye on the balance, which never really got beyond a third, boys to girls. Here it is a different situation, because this is a volunteer boys choir, just a club really. It could be swimming or it could be football.

BB: Do you have auditions?

TB-W: Oh yes, they are auditioned, and they have to pass that audition. They also have to pass an informal audition having done their probationary training before they become full choristers.

BB: Explain that, please. The earliest we take choristers in our auditioned children's choir is third grade, which is age 8. What age do you start the boys?

TB-W: I take them earlier at age 6, because I want them to get the bug early and get them used to using their voices and get them to understand something of the single line of music in front of them. They come and sing with the older boys once or twice a term.

BB: How often do you meet with these boys?

TB-W: Just once a week for a half an hour on Tuesday for singing with a bit of theory thrown in. It's really learning how to use the voice, and they learn some chorus songs and some easy hymns. They have a little test every term, so they have to learn something from memory, and they have to count rhythms. It's predominantly based on the singing rather than on instruments. That gives them the bug. They get their own cassock in the vestry and have something to aspire to. By the time they're 8 or 9 they are old enough to join the big guys.

GB: I understand that the college has done this for about 150 years.

TB-W: Yes, in 1849 when the stalls were put in and that lovely ancient organ case with the angels painted on it. [Author's note: In 1849 the "Sutton Organ" was built by J. C. Bishop and restored by Mander in 1967.] There was a rededication of the chapel, and we still have the manuscript for an anthem which was written by Thomas Walmisley for four boy choristers to sing. The names of the four boys are on the front of the manuscript. It's really very touching. They clearly were one of the porter's sons or one of the cook's sons or that kind of thing. Ever since 1849 there's been this tradition of getting volunteer boys to come sing in the chapel. That is, I daresay, one of the reasons why Jesus College is distinctive among other college chapels, because they've had the boy trebles, and a number of very distinguished church musicians have cut their teeth by being organ scholars here. There's James O'Donnell, Peter Hurford, Richard Lloyd, Malcolm Archer and a whole host of others who've gone on to work in schools as well as cathedrals. I think we've got four, maybe five, ex-Jesus organ scholars who are now assistants in cathedrals, which is very encouraging. It's a pretty worthy record. So, we don't have as long a tradition as King's or St. John's. One of the reasons that it wasn't as developed was because they never had a director of music to develop the program. The organ scholars were responsible for running it. In days gone by when academic pursuits weren't so pressurized, it was probably possible. In these days what with children's protection, the experience of teaching them, never mind the time it takes to go around to the schools and recruit them, the energy and time you need to devote to the program, you can't expect an 18-year old organ scholar to do that and do his degree also. That's why they created this post.

BB: How do you recruit?

TB-W: I go around to the schools where we already have choristers, and ones which I know are sympathetic. I do know some colleagues in other cathedrals where they have a similar situation where the headmasters won't allow them across the threshold because they think that it's peddling Christianity. This is becoming a real issue of political correctness in this country. You get parents who will refuse to allow their children to sing Christmas carols. I hate to say it, but this has emanated from the other side of the Atlantic. It's very sad in a way, because it undermines and makes us question everything about the oral tradition that we have in this country. In that context, it's actually in some places very difficult to sustain any kind of Christian choir at all. In Cambridge we're lucky because a lot of the people we're appealing to are educated enough to understand about the tradition; secondly there is a huge reservoir of parents who are employed by the university and therefore can understand what's being offered and thirdly, although they might send their child to a state school, they still want their child to be a chorister. Those three things give us an extra edge, but I think in other places it's rather different.

GB: We're going to the Southern Choirs Festival in Salisbury on the Saturday that you'll be there accompanying the Millennium Youth Choir. What kind of commitment do you have with them?

TB-W: Two courses, one at Easter and one in the summer.

GB: You don't accompany them each week then?

TB-W: No, because they come from all over the country. It's drawn from parish church choirs. The whole rationale behind the Millennium Youth Choir is that the RSCM designed this for young people between the ages of 16 and 23. It's for "A" level and university singers who wouldn't otherwise get the opportunity if they sing in their parish church choir to sing to that level of excellence.

GB: We have a chorister, a rising senior, who just e-mailed us that she'd been invited to sing at a new RSCM course at Washington National Cathedral this summer. She was delighted.

BB: She had been to two or three RSCM camps.

TB-W: Right. The RSCM has a number of summer courses as you've probably seen. The Millennium Youth Choir is relatively new as its name might indicate. It's only been going for three years. It was first conducted by Martin Neary. He did it for about 18 months to two years. Now Gordon Stewart conducts it.

GB: Where's he from?

TB-W: He hails from Dundee, but he's operating in the North. He was organist at Blackburn Cathedral and taught in Manchester for a long time. He's now the borough organist of Huddersfield Town Hall. There's a very fine Willis organ there. He does a lot of work with the BBC. He conducts both Daily Service and Songs of Praise as well as The Millennium Youth Choir.

BB: The Millennium Choir basically sings only twice a year?

TB-W: Yes, but there are one or two other opportunities that come along. For instance, they sang on the BBC Songs of Praise which is a television program on Sundays. Generally it's just twice a year, but I'm happy to go and play. It's nice to be able to do that.

GB: The 1971 Mander organ in the chapel is certainly eccentric!

TB-W: Oh, yes. It's really on its last legs now.

GB: Are you going to renovate it?

TB-W: Thirty years ago English organ builders were only just discovering or re-discovering about the principles of German Werkprinzip and tracker action. This was their brave first attempt to build something with tracker action and bold German choruses. That's what it is! It's very much a product of its time. It has the eccentric things like the reed en chamade (laughter, and a nasal YYENT). It's a very strident sound. Everything is starting to wear. It's always been very heavy to play. As I say, it's one of these curiosities that is, in many ways, a pioneering experiment. People recognize that now. There are those that say we should keep it because it was pioneering. That's fine if you don't have to play it every day.

GB: I understand.

TB-W: The college recognizes that something's got to be done. In fact, our strategy has been not to replace it with a new organ, but to replace it with a worthy Victorian instrument that needs a home. We found a 3-manual Hill up in a Baptist church in Portsmouth. It didn't start out there. It came from another church in South London. The Baptist church is closing, so we've purchased the organ, and it's being taken down and put in storage. The next stage now is to finalize how it will fit in the Mander space and whether we want to enhance the specifications at all. We'll then put forward proposals to the college. That's been our strategy rather than to build a new tracker action organ. Also we need some liturgical sounds to do the accompaniments. We need an oboe, a harmonic flute, a swell to choir, just those kinds of basic things.

GB: It will be a 3-manual?

TB-W: Yes, at least a 3-manual.

GB: With pistons and memory?

TB-W: It will have pistons, but it won't have a stepper. I'm not into those sequencers. It will have some memory. A lot of the accompaniment skills relied on in this country is being able to use the manual and the pedal pistons together. There's a coupler that I don't think you have very often in the states called the great to pedal pistons coupler. For many years organists would learn to accompany using great pedal pistons. When you press the great thumb piston, it operates the pedals as well. The idea is that you would use the great and the swell. People like Howells, Whitlock and Ireland learned their craft of organ management by using this skill. That's something which is fast disappearing, because everybody uses sequencers these days to change one of the stops.

GB: I have on my instrument Great 1 and 2 pistons which affect the pedal also. I wired it in mainly for the cadential 32's and accompanying. It's easier than a toe stud, of course.

TB-W: Yes, it is. Our organ will be quite a modest specification, probably about 49 stops. We deliberately decided to go down this route, because a lot of the new organs being built at the moment in Cambridge are of a particular type. Selwyn's having a Létourneau built now.

BB: We'll be there week after next. Létourneau does excellent work.

TB-W: Gerton College has a new Swiss organ by St-Martin. It is a very clever 4-manual with about five stops in each manual. It's a particular style of instrument which does lend itself very easily to turn of the century style music. There are very few romantic symphonic organs in Cambridge--King's is a modest example. St. John's is not really one, but it pretends to be. You should go and see the one in Our Lady and the English Martyrs.

GB: We went down there and saw it, but we haven't heard it yet. I understand it is used in Sarah MacDonald's CD of Howells' Evening Canticles with the Selwyn College Choir.

TB-W: Yes, it's a very fine romantic organ, and they restored it very well.

GB: I love the sound of the crescendo "build up" while accompanying at King's.

TB-W: It's fine up to about mezzo-forte I think. 

GB: I was surprised to see that bass flute inside the organ screen in the staircase to the console.

TB-W: Yes.

BB: Do you ever get to play other instruments in town?

TB-W: I played that Harrison on Monday. The King's Voices (mixed voices) sing the services on Mondays.

BB: Did you play last Sunday for Evensong or was it an organ scholar?

TB-W: Yes, I played.

BB: We were there and have been attending rehearsals of the Men and Boys choir and Evensongs for several weeks.

TB-W: What did we do? The Mathias--the Jesus service, and the Hadley My Beloved Spake. Well, it's quite a nice thing to do and no pressure for me. It's nice not to be in charge and to be at the steering end.

GB: It's quite a room.

TB-W: Yes! What kind of church do you work in?

GB: Presbyterian. It's about 1200 members. We have an adult choir of 40 people, a Youth Choir of about 40+, children's choirs of about 50 and three handbell choirs. We have an auditioned choir called Cantate, the Children's Choir of Central Virginia consisting of two choirs from 3rd-7th grade and 8th grade through high school. I direct the younger choristers, and a colleague does the high school singers. Barbara accompanies one choir and directs a third group called the Cantabile Singers, which is an all-girl choir in grades 8 through 12.

TB-W: Both boys and girls together?

BB: Yes. The original concept was just to be children. The girls could stay until age 15 or 16, and the boys were supposed to leave when their voices changed. They wouldn't go away, so we just changed the concept. The older group sings SATB, and the younger ones all treble.

TB-W: In some cathedrals where there are volunteer choristers, like Carlisle and St. Alban's, they occasionally arrange for the ex-choristers whose voices have recently changed to come and sing with the existing choristers, so that they don't feel that they've been thrown out on the scrap heap. Of course, we are desperate for altos, tenors and basses.

GB: Well, are you playing Monday at King's?

TB-W: Yes, I think so. It's extraordinary, isn't it, that there's so much activity in a radius of about three miles. Most churches in this country are gasping for decent resources. The real sadness of this training is that most choral scholars, especially at Trinity where they have girls, unless they want to make a career as a professional singer, they don't tend to carry on singing in church choirs. It's a real shame. Then, of course, we have a dearth of organists.

GB: I was going to ask you if you have problems like we do in the states.

TB-W: It's getting bad now. Early this month we had the open day for prospective organ scholars, those who would like to apply to Cambridge to be organ scholars. We had 24, which if you consider that we have 22 colleges in the scheme isn't very much.

GB: So the university will have to take everyone?

TB-W: That wasn't the actual competition. That happens in September, but it's indicative of how things are. Last year I asked the question of how many of them were expecting to go on to be a professional organist. I think only two were.

GB: Are the organ scholars at King's going to continue in the profession?

TB-W: I think Daniel Hyde is staying on another year as a postgraduate student, because there are hardly any openings at the moment.

BB: What about Ashley Grote?

TB-W: Ashley still has another year, so he's set there. The really high fliers like the idea of going to London perhaps and maybe being an organ scholar or one of the assistants at St. Paul's or Westminster ABBey. They don't like the idea of going somewhere in middle England and subsequently doing scout mastering or something.

GB: Since you have two choirs, do you have a lot of administration work?

TB-W: I spend a lot of my time dealing with administrative things to do with the choristers and the interaction with child protection monitoring procedures. A lot of administrative work is generated just by having the choristers. If we want the choristers to take part in a concert, either we or the person promoting the concert has to be responsible for getting licenses for those children to take part in that concert. Technically, that means filling in 12-page forms, getting passport photographs and doctor's certificates for the kids to take part.

BB: That's just for them to leave the country?

TB-W: Yes.

BB: Do you take your choir on tour every year?

TB-W: Yes, we do, but we don't undertake concerts for which people are charged, so that problem doesn't arise. There was a story I heard about Wells Cathedral. Wells took their choir to the States about three years ago. They had not only to work out a schedule which corresponded to legislation concerning rehearsal time, sufficient bathroom stops and this sort of thing. They then had to keep a diary about how the actual tour went, so they could compare the two. They had to have something written down in case somebody made any allegations, or wanted to pursue litigation or complained about being tired, became ill, etc. They would have a record. Things are going berserk. Of course, most places take the easy way out and don't want to deal with that. It's hard enough to get choristers in the first place and yet, there is still this much trouble.

BB: What about your mixed college choir? Do you tour with them every year?

TB-W: Yes, we do. We try to have each choir have a project of going away once a year. It's sometimes nice to take the mixed choir away to the Continent whereas the boys choir might go to a cathedral. They've done a lot of touring in the last eighteen months or so. We've taken them to Paris and Copenhagen. In the new year we'll be going to Edinburgh to sing services for Epiphany. One thing I'd like to ask you actually is what's your view of church music in this country coming from the States.

GB: Well, we always said that God lives at King's College! (laughter) The first time I heard a recording of the King's choir was in the early 1960s, and it was the most in tune singing I'd ever heard. I didn't know it was possible to sing like that. I got the bug as an undergraduate and through the years we learned to love the wonderful music making at St. John's and other colleges and cathedrals as well.

BB: We think church music here is wonderful with performances to uncompromising standards in many places.

TB-W: The world even in this country has moved on a great deal since 1960 to 2003.

BB: Oh, sure.

TB-W: Have you seen a copy of the magazine Cathedral Music?

GB: Yes, we take it. It is excellent.

TB-W: In there is an article by the organist at Guilford Cathedral trying to defend a very difficult situation. Guilford, as you probably know, is a post-war cathedral. Barry Rose was the first organist, and he recruited the kids. They started from nothing. He managed to get scholarships at the local schools. 40 years ago it was possible to do that. In a changing society and the way that parents run children's lives these days, it isn't possible to do that nowadays. One couldn't start a cathedral choir from nothing in the way that Barry was able to do in the 1960s. In Guilford, his successors have had to cope with and deal with that legacy. It's been very difficult. In that situation they've decided to scrap the Saturday services, so the boys will have one day of the weekend free. I can see that in some cathedrals that will happen more and more. I do think that things are different. In places like King's and Westminster Abbey where the resources are rich you will always have the tradition continued. When you get to places where they operate on a part-time basis you have trouble even getting an alto at all. When I first went to the cathedral organist conference, it was very obvious some people are having difficulty securing lay clerks. However, they wanted to pretend that they were doing as well as their colleagues were. I think now that organists are beginning to be much more vocal and frank about their experiences in recruiting boy choristers and adults. In trying to persuade parents of the commitment involved, I think we are seeing the start of fragmentation. Maybe in King's and Westminster Abbey it will continue for years and years, but I don't think it's going to continue everywhere. Even if you try and take those kinds of things into account. you then throw in the changing liturgical demands and the more informal stances that the clergy likes to take who perhaps question the need for having such regular formal services. Even initiatives like Common Worship dilute what the Book of Common Prayer offers in terms of musical opportunities. They would say otherwise. They point to all the resources that they produce. Actually it's a dilution of a music that used to be so rich. They are encouraging to ditch 400 years of music and use theirs instead. Their music simply isn't in the same division. Then you're caught in a problem because clearly there are questions of whether Evensong is just a time warp and are you just presenting music that was written 400 years ago. But what else is being offered?

GB: Dumbed down rubbish.

TB-W: It is dumbed down. Some people are just taking the position that you just have to go with the flow.

BB: Any difficulties or problems you may face over here are more than doubled in the States.

TB-W: I think you are further down the track than we are. The only thing we've got that saves us really is the tradition and the history of the buildings that we happen to be in.

GB: I was commenting to Barbara as we walked here today that I think that educated people here in the UK are more cognizant of the arts because of the long tradition. Our parish is an unusual congregation in that almost all are professionals and world travelers, well educated and at the top of their profession. We are very fortunate to have much support for all our endeavors and concerts. However, educated people in the states in general are not usually musically cultured or supportive of the arts. I think that the vast majority of professionals in the states still listen to pop music on the radio for entertainment, and a small percentage support the symphony and community concerts, etc.

TB-W: Certainly. One can't talk of a more superior tradition--you can't talk about the western tradition of classical music as being superior to ethnic musicology or even studies in popular music and jazz music which has over 100 years now. It isn't really possible to talk of Beethoven, Brahms and Bach in the same reverential tones we used to and get away with it. So, the times they are a-changing!

BB: It's not as scary for us in our position.

TB-W: Again, you're further down the track. I've been very lucky to have the opportunity both in Edinburgh and before when I was at Winchester to be able to deal in music which I love and was brought up on. I count my lucky stars that I'm still in a job which allows me to do it.  I'm not quite sure that in another ten years time it will still be there. It's only a trust fund that keeps things going and pays for my salary. That's a big part of my fortune, really. For as long as the college wants it to happen, that's fine. I can see a time, even here, where the dean might retire and the college might say, "Oh, do we really want a dean? Do we really want to have Evensong?"

GB: A turnover of ministers in any church could greatly change musical things. The stories are legion.

TB-W: Of course, the decline in churchgoing is becoming very alarmingly rapid in this country. It's slightly higher in Scotland. Perhaps we should leave for rehearsal now.

Author's note: As we left for that day's rehearsal of men and women and walked through the beautiful grounds of Jesus College, the mood of our philosophical discussion greatly changed. Tim is a high energy, easy-going person who smiles a lot and encourages his choristers in the joy of music. He is also an excellent, natural pianist who plays with much ease and joy. His choristers obviously enjoy making music with him. We look forward to visiting Jesus College again and attending Evensong after the Hill organ is installed. We also look forward to meeting up with Tim at Windsor Castle.

Related Content

March 18, 2024
The celebration “These people will be your friends for life,” Karel Paukert pronounced to his organ class at Northwestern University in the mid-1970s…
March 18, 2024
That ingenious business Great Britain’s King George III (1738–1820), whose oppressive rule over the American colonies led to the American…
March 18, 2024
Robert Eugene Leftwich Robert Eugene Leftwich died January 13, 2024. He was born July 2, 1940, in Texas and grew up in Longmont, Colorado. He…