Prince Charles' selections for his son's wedding would not have been out of place at any event in the last hundred years
The word is that Prince Charles took a tight personal grip of the music for his eldest son's wedding. If so, the programme in Westminster Abbey confirms that the heir to the throne is not just a reactionary in architecture but in music too.
Elton John may have been sitting in the congregation this time but there was no way he would be asked to sing and play, as he did at Princess Diana's funeral in 1997. There was no place, either, for the mysticism of John Tavener's Song for Athene, another striking choice that day. Nor, perhaps rather more surprisingly, was there a slot for a star soprano, the role famously filled by Kiri te Kanawa singing Handel at the Charles-Diana wedding in 1981 and by Arleen Auger singing Mozart at the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson in 1986. If ever there was a tailormade day for Kate Royal to sing for the nation, this was surely it. What a missed chance.
Instead, the music for the William-Kate wedding was a reassertion of a totally traditional piece of royal musical programming from the imperial age, with the all-male abbey choir carrying most of the weight. A cynic might even wonder whether Charles was taking advantage of the captive global audience to promote his BBC documentary, due to be aired next month, celebrating the music of Hubert Parry.
Parry, who is worth celebrating not just for his music but his progressive political views, was everywhere yesterday, from I Was Glad (? in the revised version, with the extended orchestral introduction written for the 1911 coronation of George V, I think, stirringly played by the London Chamber Orchestra under Christopher Warren-Green ? as Kate Middleton entered the abbey, through his famous goosebump-inducing setting of Jerusalem (in the Elgar arrangement) to his Blest Pair of Sirens, performed while the couple signed the registers.
The music of today got a look in, in the shape of the redoubtable John Rutter's instantly effective anthem This is the Day. Paul Mealor's motet Ubi Caritas et Amor got rather lost in the abbey's vast spaces. Two cheers for their presence, nevertheless. Otherwise, this was an all-British musical lineup ? save for a little Bach before the main event and a touch of Widor afterwards ? that would not have been out of place at any royal event over the last century. It was like the Daily Telegraph leader column set to music.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/30/wedding-music-traditional-prince-charles
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