March 2007
Peter Barley talks to Dr Harry Grindle	Show Menu

Director of the Priory Singers and a former organist of St Anne’s Cathedral Belfast

I'd like to begin by asking you about your earliest musical influences.

I began to have piano lessons at an early age, but in terms of church music it all began when I became a chorister in Bangor Abbey when I was seven or eight. The organist was a competent amateur musician who played the organ well, but he wasn't really a choir-trainer. Thus, although he had a good boys' section of at least twenty boys, we didn't really get any training in voice-production, sight-reading and the like. However, it must have been a good choir, as on a Sunday the organist would look round and if he had a quorum he would put up a piece of paper with a number on it. This meant that he wanted us to do the canticle setting of that number.

This organist was succeeded by Houston Graham, who was the key figure for me. My voice was just about to change and I became an organ pupil of his. Houston had a tremendous technique; he played all the major organ works. This opened my eyes and thrilled me and he became my hero. It was his sheer musicality and his imagination. I still look back and see him as a very significant figure in my musical life. He went on to be Assistant Organist at Belfast Cathedral and by a lovely twist of fate when in 1964 I was appointed as Organist of the Cathedral many years later, he was my assistant. That must be most unusual. I thought that this might possibly be awkward but he just said to me that he was very proud.

That was a lovely accolade. What had you done prior to this important appointment?

In 1953, I went to Queen's University, Belfast to read French. My first organist post was in a Presbyterian Church in Donaghadee and from there I went to a parish church in Belfast. However, really I felt that I needed to get to England, and upon finishing my degree I took a post as Head of French and Music in a small Church of England grammar school in North London. I studied harmony and counterpoint with Eric Thiman. I found him to be a superb teacher with great technical facility-he could write a fugue as easily as one would dash off a letter. I studied for the RCO diplomas with Douglas Hawkridge at the Royal Academy of Music and orchestral conducting with Sir Adrian Boult as well as going on various conducting courses. I would have stayed in England but for the fact that my only brother developed cancer and was clearly going to die. When he died it was such a shattering experience for my whole family that really I took the decision to return to Northern Ireland to support my distraught parents. At such crucial times in one's life personal ambition goes out the window.

So you managed to rejoin the Belfast church music scene?

Yes indeed, in 1962 the important post at Bangor Parish Church became vacant. This had been held for many years with distinction by one of my previous teachers, Dr Ernest Emery. After two years in this job I moved to St Anne's Cathedral.

What musical resources did you find at the cathedral when you arrived? Did you make some changes?

There was a large choir of between fifty and sixty singers. It included about 24 boys in addition to ten sopranos, who had a mature sound with lots of vibrato. My predecessor thought in choral society terms rather than along cathedral lines. I decided to focus on the boys' choir and not to replace the ladies as they left, thus gradually solving the problem of blend. I also introduced countertenors, who, I think, are an essential ingredient of the genuine cathedral sound. I also developed a young men's choir for the boys as their voices changed. Previously, they had just left the choir and so you lost most of them. I felt the extra effort was worthwhile.

In terms of recruitment of the boy choristers, were they from particular schools or from all round Belfast?

There had been a connection with Belfast Royal Academy. A scholarship had been set up (before the days of the 11-plus) to enable boys who were musically able, but who would otherwise have missed the opportunity, to receive a grammar school education.

For many boys this would have been their first experience of music or worship at a high level. Presumably this encouraged a number later into ministry or professional music making.

Many boys went on to be clergymen, some becoming bishops in due course. Former primates of All Ireland, Dr John Armstrong, and Dr James McCann, had both been choristers at Belfast Cathedral.

You mentioned that your predecessor, Captain Brennan, had been there for sixty years—in fact I see that he was the first Cathedral Organist. When you arrived, did this present you with a tough situation, or did you feel that people were pleased to welcome a new organist and were keen to give you their full support?

It was certainly a challenge and I think the fact that I came from Northern Ireland didn't help. There were those who considered that someone from England should have been appointed and there was a certain amount of animosity. However I was determined, with God's help, to make a good job of it and that is why I decided to focus initially on the recruitment and training of the boy choristers.

Were there other aspects that you were keen to work on when you first arrived?

The repertoire needed to be revised and a whole new vision of what the cathedral choir could and should do had to be realised. Over a period of time I began to arrange regular recitals of church music on a Sunday afternoon in place of the sermon at evensong. This became a monthly event, even right through the Troubles, and occasionally I would get together a small instrumental ensemble. We performed Bach Cantatas and other sizeable choral works such as the Bach Passions, and we also commissioned new works, such as an anthem from John Joubert for the dedication of the South Transept.

I was also very interested in orchestral conducting. I had the opportunity to work with the Ulster Orchestra and also got a grant to study with Igor Markevitch at the International Summer School in Monte Carlo. We were able to set up a concert series on Sunday afternoons in place of evensong at periodic intervals and we would fill the cathedral on these occasions. We would promote a full-blown programme with the Ulster Orchestra playing an overture and a symphony, while the cathedral choir would contribute a choral work with the orchestra as well as singing a group of unaccompanied items.

These were exciting and fulfilling times, then for you as a musician?

Absolutely, and I would have to say that the greatest thing that happened to me, apart from my coming across Houston Graham, was meeting with Sammy Crooks, who succeeded Cuthbert Peacock as Dean. He just couldn't have been more supportive.

How much rehearsal time did you have with the choir?

Traditionally the boys rehearsed on a Tuesday afternoon from about 4.30—6 pm with the Assistant Organist, but I realised when I came that since this was probably the most important rehearsal of the week, I'd better take it myself. In so doing I could prepare the boys thoroughly for Wednesday night when the adults came in preparation for Sunday. The boys (including probationers) also came on a Saturday morning, and I introduced a scheme similar to one later created by the RSCM—a chorister training scheme with various different levels. The Saturday session became a hive of activity, with senior boys testing junior boys. We eventually had the most St Nicholas awards anywhere in the world.

The Troubles must have had an enormous impact on running all these activities, however?

Absolutely, and in my more gloomy moments I thought that the Troubles might wreck everything. You might set off on a Tuesday afternoon to take that crucial rehearsal with the boys, and you never got there because the centre of town was roped off due to a bomb scare. There might be no bomb at all, though there very often was, and so that rehearsal didn't take place. Even a rehearsal for a TV broadcast once had to abandoned, and sometimes we had to decamp to the cathedral crypt during a bomb scare, where our rehearsals competed with a transformer humming a bottom G sharp!

Running a choir against the backdrop of the Troubles must been very hard going for you?

It was, yes. Church music has been my greatest interest, but those years did take a lot out of me. I set high standards and I was determined to keep them up. But it was very difficult. The Troubles had an impact on my recruitment. When I went round the schools, the boys were interested, but when their parents discovered where the choir was based, many were unwilling to allow their sons to come to the cathedral. So in fact I was trying to achieve high standards with a quality of boy eventually who mightn't have got it into some of the better parish choirs around. But I was just glad to have anyone. This meant I had to work extra hard myself.

What was your next move?

By now I had taken on a full-time school job, as I had a family to support, and so in 1975 I moved into teaching. I later became a lecturer in music at Stranmillis College of Education, subsequently being appointed Head of Music there.

You are well known as the author of ‘Irish Cathedral Music’. What are your impressions of how church music in Ireland has changed?

It would be fair to say that the scene today is worlds apart from that when I was a chorister at Bangor Abbey. I occasionally now deputise for organists in some of our parish churches, and it is often a depressing experience. There are choirs with folk in their 80's who are hard of hearing. There is a sad lack of young people, and one wonders what the future will be for the average parish church. One would have thought of Belfast as being a bastion of good church music, but there are now some churches with no choir at all.

Why do you think that young people are not coming forward?

Schools are now offering so much by way of musical opportunity to youngsters that their time is fully taken up and they are often unable (or unwilling) to make the additional commitment. This is sad, as they are missing out on something very special. I was for a number of years a member of the panel of adjudicators for the Ulster School Choir of the Year Competition and heard many excellent choirs. This competition was very successful, but it was really very surprising to find that very few of the children would have been singing in a church choir.

How about happier memories, such as your most satisfying moments?

It was particularly rewarding to find that some of the boys went on to pursue successful musical careers. A number became Oxbridge choral scholars and lay-clerks in English cathedrals. One also had great encouragement. I've already mentioned Dean Crooks, but there was also Bishop Butler, Bishop of Connor (he had come from Tuam). Here was somebody who appreciated the value of what was happening in the cathedral in those dark days. He would occasionally write letters and when he was visiting the cathedral he would come down to the choir after the rehearsal before the service and offer words of encouragement. Things like that I will never forget.

What do you think has changed in the cathedral world since your day?

I think pay and conditions are greatly improved. When I began at St Anne's, I was being paid the princely sum of £500 per annum, which was the same as for the post at Bangor Parish Church and the latter also included accommodation. I was running at a loss for my first few years at the cathedral and had to teach in all my spare hours to make up a salary. I was really doing the job for the love of it.

In the light of these conditions would you have any advice for church musicians who are perhaps just starting out now?

I think you have to have a huge commitment to church music to want to do it. After all, it imposes strains on home arrangements, with weekends being tied up with church work. In some churches, the church authorities are approaching the situation sympathetically. I can think of one church that I know of where they were in danger of losing their organist because of the pull of his family commitments. Here they now have a system where they provide an assistant or substitute to play for certain services, perhaps a couple of times a month. This gives him a bit of freedom. A little bit of flexibility has to be shown by parish vestries, otherwise the future could be even less promising for some churches.

This is wise advice not just for organists and their families, but clearly for clergy and those who are charged with the administration of church affairs.

I should also mention that of course there are shining examples of excellent parish church music around the country. I think particularly of the tradition here in Belfast at St George's. The basis to the success of that choir owes much to the work of Nigel McClintock. He really fostered the musical programme there and showed what could be done in a parish setting where there is somebody with the ability, drive and enthusiasm.

If you had a magic wand, and could grant any wish for the church music scene in Ireland, what do you think that would be?

Well I must say that I am very pleased to see that the RSCM is at last doing something to improve the situation. There's now a regular newsletter and people are being encouraged to send in details of what they're doing, and there is encouragement. That has to be writ large—there are souls out there struggling in many cases, and they just need some support. We all respond well to a bit of encouragement—it makes us feel good, and we feel that we want to do even better next time.

That's a very strong message with which to end. Dr Grindle, thank you for taking the time to talk to SOUNDBOARD.

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