The Choral is beautifully shot. Musical, too?
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This topic is so relevant right now. Thanks for the timely post.
Artsy films like this rarely do well at the box office. The sole exception was Amadeus.
Hmmmm…. Spoiler alert: I don’t think this is Bennett or Hytner’s best work by far: often it feels contrived, and I find the portrayal of an irascible and lecherous Elgar unconvincing – even caricatured. (Was he really like that? I am happy to be enlightened.) One of the Guardian reviews said there were too many characters and not enough time or depth given to them. I won’t say I didn’t enjoy it (I sound like my old Yorkshire Aunt – “Eeee, I don’t dislike that coat…”) but the last third didn’t ring true (singing complex Gerontius parts in the street? Really?) – though the ending was relatively poignant. Relatively. The music – such as it was – is the real star? But even that wasn’t given enough space.
Eeee – I didn’t dislike that film…. But….
I was singing John Adams parts in the street only last week. Choral singers often do, particularly in the week or two before a Concert.
Really? I’ve sung in choirs of all sizes for 40+ years and never in my life have I and fellow singers sung 4 part in the street before the concert! In small choirs where we’ve had a memorised repertoire then I have taken part in “flash mob” performances in restaurants and on planes! But that’s different.
Treacly crap, Ralph Fiennes always had a weakness for this kind of period-costume Christmas-special dramas
and a film centering on … Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius???
What’s the target demographic? Comatose English housewives from 1916?
Personally, I prefer treacle to bile.
What’s wrong with Gerontius? Someone’s keen on stereotypes.
Please enumerate the “period-costume Christmas-special dramas” to which you refer.
I am not a particular dyed-in-the-wool Fiennes fan, but I remember him in his first role in Prime Suspect, and I think the world discovered hm in Schindler’s List. He got even more famous for his work in the (dreadful) film The English Patient. For me his best work was in Quiz Show, though I enjoyed his against-type performance in The Grand Budapest Hotel.
He keeps popping up where I least expect him, but I doubt his obit –I hope far in the future– will consider his career to have included much “treacly crap.”
Yes you need a degree in gerontology to appreciate the film.
Loved it.
They should have had Richard Strauss turn up for a Bakewell tart to exclaim:
“Meister Elgar, is the first English progressive musician”
Bakewell is in Derbyshire, not West Yorkshire!
Yorkshire Curd Tart, or a “Fat Rascal” anyone?
‘Progressivist’ to be strictly accurate
Strauss spent two summer holidays in Sandown, Isle of Wight. There is a plaque at the entrance to the Ocean Hotel, now derelict.
That speaks volumes
If only Ralph Finnes had spend more time on practising choral conducting before the shooting
It was passable. He got the time signatures correct. Independent arms are very tricky to achieve for many actual conductors but Cate Blanchette managed it.
Independent arms are well down the list for choral conductors – and more (successful) orchestral ones than you’d imagine. Animal energy and enthusiasm, which RF lacked completely, are far more important. So is the ability to lead the music, not react to it.
Oh dear. That’s my fear with anything musical. Conducting is leading the music and expressing it through your arms hands and expression. (Not to mention weeks of perfecting the performance you want). Trying to decide whether to go and see it. Still undecided.
Go and see it and enjoy the narrative and production. This isn’t made by musicians. I wouldn’t like to see musicians try to act.
But on that note, I spied that the musical director on the film was George Fenton, he with excellent credentials. Who else noticed that he played Elgar’s chauffeur?
Someone whould have told them that Gerontius has a hard “G”.
Not if you are a Catholic or Cardinal Newman.
Being a German speaker he’d have known that but 50% of those who know the piece currently still use a soft G
Nobody knows for sure, as his name is never articulated. Though we’ve used hard G in performance & recording.
What a bore. I expected a good storyline given the cast, but the characters had no charisma, the dialogue was crude at times and could have been written by a schoolboy, and the plot line was unconvincing.
I assume you could have done better
I don’t come from West Yorkshire but I moved out of London 13 years ago and live down the road from where this was shot in Saltaire and Shipley and the Yorkshire Moors. Singers I know were in that film both as singers from Leeds Minster and as extras from all round.
Nicholas Hytner is a fine producer and he even directed me as the Governess in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw in Kent Opera’s and Roger Norrington’s day. All very tasteful.
It is a beautiful film, and our cinemas here in the north of England are practically full. My local cinema has had to put on a whole pile of showings as it was sold out. There are still people around to remember their parents and grand parents going off to war, first and second world wars, not to mention what is going on today.
A lot of people don’t seem to understand the north of England other than Manchester, let alone Yorkshire. As a soloist for many choral concerts albeit not in 1916 or Gerontius – I grew to love the north of England, particularly West Yorkshire and Cheshire as a Londoner. They are far from Guardian readers!
Absolutely this. Reactions to the film, both reviews in the press and comments like the ones on SD, are very different depending on whether you know the area. I was born in Leeds and now live close by (I was in Saltaire only the other day). I don’t think people from the South (let alone other countries) have any idea of how oratorios are deeply entrenched in the culture of the region. I live in a converted Methodist chapel and in the late C19 and even well into the C20 Messiah’s were commonplace in our house. Perhaps Gerontius was pushing it a bit, but in the context of the film it worked perfectly and there was some fine singing.
Nor do non-locals perhaps understand, or get, the dry acerbic wit. I loved the film, though I would agree that the scenes with Elgar himself jarred a bit.
I sang it with the Doncaster Choral Society in late 1970s. I’m sure no one would have thought it a great performance; but it was spirited and musical and the choir believed in what they were doing – which may not have been the case at its first performance…
Ralph Fiennes was unconvincing as a choirmaster. I saw no attempt at communication with the choir with his eyes or hands or bidy movement.
You met Brahms, how did you find him?
Frei aber einsam.
Best lines I have heard in a film for a while.
A dreadful misrepresentation of the English choral tradition – emphatically not elitist, but rooted in communities, especially in the north.
Alan Bennett, once a fine writer, is clearly past his best; the Britten/Auden play was dreadful too! Perhaps, now in his nineties, he should retire!
I’m confused by the title. Choral is an adjective….at least in American English. Maybe it’s different in the UK? Do they mean The Chorale?
Yes, and no. LVB9 is often referred to as The Choral. But in this film, it is used to refer to the singing group in the town.
Going dahn (up) the Choral, see?
I trust that now makes perfect sense to the Americans here!
To be clear(er), The Choral is just short for The Choral Society….
Short for The Choral Society?
“Yeah, luv, we’re just off t’choral. ‘Ave kettle on for later. Our ‘Arry would luv this Elgar stuff but ee’ s got overtime at pit”
Delightful film with a very important message concerning male adolescence and belonging. Those casting doubts on the film forget that it’s both a reflection of 1916 and the north of England. And, yes, I have been with young people singing unaccompanied church music loudly in the street, again admittedly in the 20th century
Total bunk. Performances of German music did not stop during WW1. The St Matthew Passion was performed by choral societies.
The title is all about context and accent. It has to be said in a northern way, but written out it’s something like – “Ay luv, just off to t’choral”. ‘The’ of ‘the choral’ is barely audible so it would sound more like “just off to choral” and in fact many people would it say as that
Bear in mind Nicholas Hytner is director of the Bridge Theatre in London and shortly before making this film had his favourites Fiennes in “Straight Line Crazy” and Simon Russell Beale in “John Gabriel Borkman” and “Bach and Sons”. Straight Line Crazy was magnificent. Bach and Sons was average/poor, SRB going through the motions. He then did the Invention of Love at the Hampstead Theatre, great performance if a bit highbrow for me. I skipped JGB not wishing to spoil the memory of Sir Paul Schofield (with Atkins and Redgrave) at the National 30 years ago. Hytner and Bennett have collaborated many times over 30+ years with great success. So the film was always going to be an old boy’s affair, possibly a last hurrah for Bennett, Elgar played by Bach with added moustache. It was a rather limp effort and the script lacked Bennett’s usual dry wit. We were glad only having had to pay cinema prices rather than theatre prices to see it.
Well I loved it . As a singer who performed the angel’s farewell at a veterans service and whose grandfathers answered the call I was entertained and deeply moved . To hear the Halle orchestra and Alice Cootes over the final sequence moments was heart rending . I have never been in a cinema where the audience remained in their seats for all the credits and were still there when the lights went up ‘ nuff said ?