How shall I keep from singing?

It was interesting to borrow someone else’s Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday this year, 200 miles away from Creamtealand.

The Tuesday saw me in Olney (home of the first pancake races, ‘running since 1445′ and also home of the famous hymn writers Newton and Cowper). The annual Shriving Service was a strange mixture of traditional hymns from the pen of these two writers and prizes presented to this year’s pancake racers. I was impressed by the number of times the choir sang a descant – they couldn’t wait until the last verse of each hymn. And the surreal sight of the choir processing in followed by a procession of young women in aprons and scarves carrying frying pans (containing various remains of well-tossed pancakes) will remain with me for a long time.

Ash Wednesday was celebrated late in Leighton Buzzard – a full Eucharistic service starting at 8pm, complete with Ashing and the Allegri Miserere (competent high notes from the young soprano soloist). And so to bed, with my forehead still signed in ash.

Normality returned on Sunday back at my own church – we began to use the Greening Mass setting, starting this week with the Kyrie, and the anthem was, ‘Turn thy face from my sins’ (Attwood), sung much slower than we were used to, causing it to sound rather muddy (the mire of sin, obviously).

At Evensong we were complimented on our diction in the Psalm – our choirmaster will be pleased as he often sounds like a stuck record on that score. Whether the congregation could hear every word in the anthem (O for a closer walk with God – Stanford) we were never told. It was difficult to sound cheerful during the service as we had just been informed that one of the church offering holders had been stolen during the afternoon. Sunday is a quiet day in our town, obviously too quiet sometimes. I hope we never get to the stage where we have to lock the church.

In the vestry before the service, we practised two items, the delightfully simple ‘Lead me Lord’ (Wesley) and the grandiose ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ (Handel), which we intend to sing on Easter Day. The first was this morning’s anthem, although there were several mentions of Handel’s Messiah in the sermon today so perhaps we would have done well to have included that also. No doubt on Easter Day, the sermon theme will be on Wesley’s setting of Psalm 4 and 5!

There was a good turnout for the United Benefice service in the morning, to say farewell to our curate, moving on after 5 years. We sang the usual ‘How shall I sing that Majesty’ and ‘Here I am Lord’ which tend to accompany such major life-changing vocational situations, plus the rather surprising ‘Lord of the Dance’. The choir item by Handel sounded as if it should have been by Bach – the chorale-like ‘Lord I trust thee’. As is our custom, the service was followed by a splendiferous feast – I’ve never seen so many smoked salmon sandwiches on a table groaning with food of every kind, including a huge chocolate centrepiece. The choir, already satisfied from a generous chocolate gift at choir practice, gamely joined in to reduce the load.

Due – at least in part – to the special service in the morning, evensong was a very quiet affair with a small choir and a small congregation. We were very relieved to have the help of the new vicar to join the alto section for the anthem (especially as those choir members who were not on holiday for half term appeared to have been very generous at spreading around their cold viruses). Consequently, ‘Deep Peace’ by Rutter actually sounded like deep peace and not the start of world war 3.

No ugly noises this morning, though the rather strange sound of the choir humming the organ part of ‘Ave Verum’ led one of the altos to comment that we should audition for the Swingle Singers. This unusual arrangement saw unaccompanied hum, solo with hum (first half); SATB second half, interspersed with quartet humming.

The ugly noise made an entrance in the evening service – a schools’ Songs of Praise taking place instead of Evensong. Lest anyone think I’m being rude about the quality of singing (all the schools performed their chosen items with enthusiasm and youthful voices) I’d better explain that ‘Ugly noises overhead’ was the first line of an unusual hymn sung by one of the schools. It was a moving piece all about the experience of growing up in a war-torn country, and made an interesting change from the usual ‘wriggly worms and blooming flowers’ theme of so many twee children’s assembly songs. The church was full to overflowing with proud parents as well as hundreds of uniformed children making up the choirs of six local schools. The vicar suggested they might like to come again next Sunday – I wonder how many will. If they do, for sure they will be leaving their school uniforms at home.