Music
The cathedral has the traditional Anglican choir of boys and men, and more recently a girls' choir, with the only dedicated choir school in the Church in Wales, The Cathedral School, Llandaff. In addition, the parish choir sings at the weekly Parish Eucharist, and is a mixed choir of boys, girls, men and women. Women were only allowed to sing in the choir from 2005 onwards.
The organ that was installed after the wartime damage was never entirely satisfactory, even before the lightning damage. Originally it had been planned to install a new organ at that time, but the costs of about 1 million pounds were deemed to be too high in the austere climate of post-war Britain. Work on installing the new organ, by the Nicholson's of Malvern firm of organ builders, began in autumn 2008. Though not fully completed, it was brought to a playable stage by Easter 2010 and had its inaugural performance (the Gloria of Louis Vierne's Messe Solennelle) at the Easter Vigil service on 3 April 2010. The stops still lacking, due to the necessary funding not yet having been acquired, are those of the enclosed solo and some pedal stops. This is the first entirely new organ for a British cathedral since that for Coventry. A specification can be seen here.
The cathedral has a ring of twelve bells (with an additional "flat sixth", to make thirteen in total) hung for change-ringing, located in the Jasper tower. The current bells were installed in 1992, replacing a previous ring of ten.
Read more about this topic: Llandaff Cathedral
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“I cannot say what poetry is; I know that our sufferings and our concentrated joy, our states of plunging far and dark and turning to come back to the world—so that the moment of intense turning seems still and universal—all are here, in a music like the music of our time, like the hero and like the anonymous forgotten; and there is an exchange here in which our lives are met, and created.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“Sound all the lofty instruments of war,
And by that music let us all embrace,
For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall
A second time do such a courtesy.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)