The master’s coda

10:04am Friday 18th July 2008

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HE is a man who throughout his working life has been steeped in the spiritual beauty of church music.

Yet when pressed Philip Moore, the soon-to-retire organist and master of the music at York Minster, admits to a sneaking admiration for the work of Elton John.

He’d never really listened to much pop music, Mr Moore admits – not, at least, until his three children began to grow up. “Then I listened to a certain amount. And I quite liked Elton John. The melodies and harmonies are rather good!”

That liking, however, did not extend to Sir Elton’s performance of Goodbye English Rose at Princess Diana’s funeral. “I thought it was horrible,” he says. “It set my teeth on edge. It was seriously over-sentimental.” Plus, he admits, the piano just doesn’t sound right in the setting of a cathedral or abbey.

He may have spent his life composing and conducting classical church music for organ and choir – but Mr Moore is no music snob. Whether it is The Beatles, Abba – both of whom he likes – or a piece of 17th century church music, what matters is whether it is good music, he says. “I don’t like bad music, whether it is classical or light.”

On Sunday, Mr Moore will conduct the Minster choir for the final time at a special service of Evensong at 4pm. His links with York and the Minster won’t be severed entirely thereafter – he will remain as conductor of the York Musical Society until 2010 – but nevertheless leaving will be a great wrench, he admits.

It is often said that retiring and moving house are two of the most stressful experiences we ever go through, he jokes. And he will be doing both at the same time. The house in Minster Court that he has lived in for the last 25 years goes with the job – and he will be moving out when he officially retires at the beginning of August.

He’s not looking forward to it. He has already had a removals firm around to check on what needs to be done – and they estimate he has a tonne of books alone that need to be moved to the cottage in Barton-le-Street that will be his new home, he says.

Mr Moore came to York in 1983, after working as assistant organist at Canterbury and then organist and master of the choristers at Guildford Cathedral.

Just a year into his tenure at York came the devastating fire in the Minster’s South Transept. He remembers it well. The weather that night was very strange, he says. “It was very hot, and there was thunder and lightning but no rain.” He somehow slept through most of the fire itself, waking up only in the early hours when he heard the sound of engines – fire engines coming to get water. Then there was a knock on the door. “They said ‘I’m afraid to tell you there has been a terrible fire.’”

His young son went with him to view the damaged Minster – he recalls carrying him through water flooding the floors. There was the smell of smoke, and burning, and chaos everywhere. “But the most eerie thing was seeing daylight on the organ case. Daylight. That was quite extraordinary,” he says.

In his 25 years at the Minster, Mr Moore has overseen the enthronement of no fewer than three archbishops – Dr John Habgood in 1983, Dr David Hope in 1995 and Dr John Sentamu in 2005. He oversaw the music at the enthronement of all three. The most memorable for him remains that of Dr Habgood – partly because it was his first, but also because there was a very special atmosphere that day, he says.

The service that will most live in the minds of many people today, however, was the colourful enthronement of Dr Sentamu. The new Arechbishop’s African robes, the singing, his bongo recital, all made for a joyously unorthodox occasion.

“It contained elements that were not of our tradition,” admits Mr Moore with a smile. “But the great thing about it was that it was completely authentic.”

What really struck him about that day, however, was the lunch in the Minster. Often at such occasions there is a real hierarchy about the meal, he says – with a lunch for the “great and the good” and another for the rest. Not with Dr Sentamu. “He just wanted everybody to have a jolly good meal. It was almost like feeding the 5,000! We just queued for our Marks & Spencer sandwiches!”

Mr Moore won’t be drawn into the game of comparing the three archbishops that he worked with. All three were “very different men, all terribly talented and all in their own ways deeply encouraging towards music and liturgy,” he says.

They also shared a conviction that the church does have a role to play in politics. Dr Habgood entertained Arthur Scargill at Bishopthorpe Palace during the 1984 miners’ strike, he points out – while Dr Hope spoke out on Iraq and Dr Sentamu, very memorably by cutting his dog collar off live on TV, on Zimbabwe. It was absolutely right that they should make their views known on such issues, Mr Moore says.

“If they don’t say anything, people say the Church won’t take a stand,” he says. “I think the church has to take a stand.”

The enthronement of three archbishops might be enough for one man’s career, you might think. Mr Moore, however, also lead the music at the installation of three deans – John Southgate, Raymond Furnell and Keith Jones – as well at the reopening of the South Transept in 1988, following the fire of four years earlier, and at a special service to mark the Millennium in 2000. Both the latter events were attended by the Queen.

So what will be his most abiding memory?

None of the above, he says. What will live in his memory most are the quiet evenings in the depths of winter when he led Evensong for small congregations.

Hence, the afternoon service on Sunday will be a fitting coda – a passage of music introduced to bring a lengthy composition to a satisfactory close – for Mr Moore following 25 years at the Minster.

In summer, he says, the Minster is restless, because of the sheer numbers of people that have been there. In winter, it is quite different. “When you go in there at night, you can almost feel it settling around you. I feel people’s personalities are somehow present all around you, even when they have left.”

Some churches, he says, feel spooky. Not the Minster.

So how does it feel? “Warm,” he says. “Warm and peaceful.”

You sense he is going to miss it.