How shall I keep from singing?

I spent a few days in Edinburgh (via Worcester) and a few days coughing. The St. Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, choir were particularly good; most impressive as their top line is mixed. Evensong had been combined with a memorial service for a long-standing church member, so the music list was changed at the last minute. We enjoyed ‘Pie Jesu’ (from the Faure requiem), Stanford in G canticles, Gabriel Jackson responses, ‘Bring us O Lord God’ (Harris) and Rutter’s ‘Gaelic Blessing’. The quality of the singing, and of the several confident soloists, was almost worth dying for – even if I did have to listen to much of it from the foyer, due to the aforementioned coughing.

In view of the continuing loud, troublesome cough, I thought it wise not to attempt to sing myself this weekend. Although I suppose I could have tried to cough rhythmically and pretended to be Evelyn Glennie. ; )

It was a weekend of old and new faces. Our new soprano joined us for her first Sunday after trying out our style of choir and music for a few practices first. She joins two new tenors, also in their first weeks with us. The funeral of a longstanding choir member also brought back old friends to sing in the choir and others to swell the congregation.
We wondered if we were going to get a sermon about faces as the two anthems this Sunday were ‘Hide not thou thy Face’ (Farrant) and ‘Turn thy Face’ (Attwood), but apparently it was all a co-incidence.
The long weekend finished with some favourite funeral music – the glorious ‘O thou the central Orb’ (Wood) and the delightfully simple ‘God be in my Head’ (Walford Davies).

The vicar must have felt particularly guilty after all the pancakes he ate at the ‘Pancakes and Board Games Evening’ on Tuesday, as he preached on over-eating (and the desirability of purchasing Fair Trade products). It served him right that there were so many people at the Lent Lunch today, there were no second helpings of soup.

We were well and truly ashed on Wednesday with huge crosses, so that – although the modern Litany stops short of calling us ‘Miserable Sinners’ – we would have been forgiven for feeling like ones.

Our anthem today was ‘Forty Days and Forty Nights’ with a very bohemian organ accompaniment – not at all Lent-like, but very satisfying for the organist to play. We now know why he chose it.

We test-ran one of the new Eucharistic prayers this morning, based on the Jewish idea of the youngest child asking ‘Why?’, with questions about the meaning of the Eucharist. I’m sure most parents will understand why the constant asking of ‘Why, why, why?’ questions can get very irritating. A different sort of repetitiveness characterised the anthem (‘O thou who camest from above’, arr. Stopford), with the same musical phrase repeated over and over. We rather like it, though.

Memories of evensong past were kindled in the evening, with the service taken by a retired priest who has reassuringly been singing evensong all his life. We sang ‘Here, O my Lord’ (Whitlock) very slowly, which didn’t appeal to many of the choir. We are used to singing it faster and kept trying to beat the organist.

An exciting change this weekend, taking a trip to Canterbury for the installation of the new Bishop of Dover. The very long procession included many senior clergy, canons, Deans and Bishops, but I was grimly fascinated to note that their ironing skills were, in most cases, no better than our own parish choir. The music was rather more ambitious, though, with the Rose Responses, Howells ‘Coll. Reg.’, and Bainton ‘And I saw a new heaven’. Unfortunately the choir were standing a long way away (and I was in one of the front rows of the congregation, so those at the back must have felt very separated from the choral contribution) which made the sound rather weak. I guess filling the whole of Canterbury Cathedral with sound must be rather a challenging task for any choir. It is certainly an awe-inspiring space.

Sunday saw us in London at St. James, Paddington, a beautifully decorated church with a warm congregational welcome. The small professional choir sang a spectacular introit (music and composer not given) from the back of the nave, followed by a Mass setting I’d never heard of (Buhler’s Mass in C), rather clunky in style, and Lobo’s ‘Ave Regina’ during the administration. This choir of 5 had no trouble filling the large space of St. James. Unfortunately, we were unable to stay for evensong (Byrd’s Third Service; In nomine Jesu, Handl) as we had a train to catch.

A grand procession, with acolytes, the Vestry Group, the choir and our largest banners, led the clergy – including our guest preacher, the Archdeacon, into church this morning. We were led neatly from Christmas towards the penitential season of Lent, beginning with ‘Angels from the realms of Glory’, and ending, once all our candles had eventually been lit, with ‘Faithful vigil ended’. ‘O thou the central orb’ (Wood) made a very fitting anthem.

We welcomed a new member to the tenor section this week – a very useful addition given that we were singing two magnificent anthems today. The evening anthem was ‘Lift up your heads’ (Matthias), which, unusually, is much easier to sing than it sounds; other music included the Millington responses and the Moeran in D setting for the canticles. We really must learn to count during the Moeran Magnificat as the entries arrive sooner than one would think.

More snow and ice – about half of us made it to ‘the Baptism of Christ’ and even fewer to evensong. Fortunately, the music was simple and well-known, Mozart’s ‘Ave Verum’ in the morning and ‘God be in my head’ (Walford Davies) in the evening.

The following two Sundays had only morning commitments for the choir, now that the snow had cleared away. Typical. So the numbers were back up to sing ‘Listen Sweet Dove’ (Ives) and ‘Teach me O Lord’ (Attwood), although we could have done with more basses for the latter.

The three kings arrived at the crib early – conveniently on a Sunday. Today, I think the vestry group had the most productive time, illustrating the arrival of the kings, the gifts they brought, and giving serious consideration to which gifts they could bring. Meanwhile, our service appeared to progress with lightning speed, despite (or perhaps because of) the cold. ‘Bread is blessed and broken’ (Iona) was a simple, but effective anthem for our first foray, without choir practice, after Christmas. Several people said how much they appreciated the organ interlude in ‘We three kings’ (Hopkins, Common Praise).

By the evening, we were up to usual form, with a complete Festival Evensong for Epiphany. Although the lower parts had to tone down their enthusiasm in order to provide a balanced choir, due to several soprano absences. The Sweeney responses and Stanford in C were standard fare; ‘Eastern Monarchs’ (Lang) sung effectively in unison. It was just a pity that we could not fit our warm, wooly winter coats underneath our cassocks. Next week, I’m bringing a hot water bottle!

Sunday morning’s service was about as far from a normal service as you would expect, and it was rather wonderful. For it was also the wedding of one of our well-known church members, to a well-known member of a nearby church. Both singers, who had met singing, and who wanted to celebrate their marriage in the company of the whole church two days after Christmas. The vicar managed to expertly weave the marriage ceremony into the Eucharist, and the church was full of congregants and well-wishers. We don’t often get an opportunity to sing Christmas carols at a wedding, but we hope we sent the happy couple on their way rejoicing with ‘O little one sweet’ and ‘Now the holly bears a berry’. We also thoroughly enjoyed the lashings of wine and wedding cake at the end of the service, as well as the more usual coffee and biscuits.

A change of location for the evening service – the ‘Lessons and Carols’ were held at the tiny church of Gulworthy (the miners’ church in the Tamar Valley). We enjoyed the usual mix of carols and readings, plus the added delight of a new (to us) carol with rather good words and tune (‘Glory to God! all heav’n with joy is ringing’), first verse sung as a solo by the vicar. Gulworthy is well-known for its hospitality, so we enjoyed the mince pies and mulled wine on offer afterwards. The wardrobe mistress will need to order cassocks with expanded waistlines in time for Epiphany.

A very special Christmas – hospital carols, Midnight Mass and Christmas morning all illustrated how special church and the choir were to us all, risking ice on roads and paths in order to make it. Those that did were well rewarded with a joyous sing of favourite carols, and gorgeous harmonies, including Away in a Manger (arr. Willcocks) and Silent Night (arr. Sweeney). We were publicly thanked for all our dedication and hard work, which was entirely unexpected and therefore rather lovely.