Westminster Cathedral: The Recording Venue
Way back when, one of my first tastes of high quality choral music came via the late great Sir Colin Davis. A bargain Philips Duo entitled "Mozart: Great Choral Works" heralded recordings of the (unfinished) Great C Minor Mass, the Coronation Mass and the (unfinished) Requiem. The Great Mass in C Minor was a revelation, and I had noted at the time that it had been recorded, with the London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, in "Westminster Cathedral". Source here Intrigued by the distinction between the famous Abbey of Westminster, and this "Cathedral", a search in the early days of Google (or Alta Vista or whatever rudimentary search engine was then in fashion) turned up my first glimpse of the great red-brick monolith that I would come to be so fond of. Of course many, probably most, of the Cathedral Choir's own recordings have been made in situ, with excursions to All Hallows Gospel Oak (London) and Buckfast Abbey (Devon) as well-known exceptions...
