How shall I keep from singing?

We had a choir Golden Wedding celebration this weekend – one of our sopranos has notched up 50 years of marriage, so had a service on Saturday with champagne for the choir afterwards, and cake on Sunday. Another soprano sang Lloyd Webber’s ‘Pie Jesu’, with the whole choir contributing ‘The Lord bless you and keep you’ (Rutter). The difference between an actual wedding and a Golden Wedding is that the soprano turns up to sing the next morning when she’s been married 50 years!

We sang a choir special today, ‘This Joyful Eastertide’ (Wood). In fact, it has wormed its way into our repertoire so thoroughly that we repeated it for Evensong at our daughter church.

The Holy Week marathon involved little singing at the start of the week (said Compline plus address), although we did sing ‘Before the ending of the day’ every evening. On Maundy Thursday the Gloria (Thorne) made a welcome reappearance, as well as the anthem, ‘A new commandment I give unto you’ (Shepherd).

We had to arrive very quietly for the Last Hour of the Good Friday service as there was silent prayer and meditation on the addresses during the first part of the service. This posed a problem for the oboe player in ‘Christ has no body now but yours’ (Ogden) who was therefore unable to warm-up beforehand. Much sucking of the reed ensured that no disasters occured and the music sounded suitably haunting. The other choir item was ‘We glory in thy Cross, O Lord’ (Shepherd), alternating in style between plainsong psalm-chant and chorale response.

There was a good turn-out of all parts to all the services except that we were short of enough top line on Easter Day to do justice to the celebratory Hallelujah Chorus (sung to a completely full church) and the Festival Evensong. The Noble in B minor canticle settings sounded confident in the lower parts but tentative in the upper parts; however this combination worked much better in How’s two-part ‘Bless O Lord’, where S and T combined to sing the top line and A and B the lower line.

We need to recruit more sopranos to make up for the times when several are ill or away on holiday. Perhaps we could spread the word that the vicar always gives out creme eggs after the Easter service?

A very little donkey, with a very marked cross on its back, led the procession across from the parish centre to the church – led by the youngest children, dressed for the part and waving palms. The vicar decided that the grass outside the north door was as far as he was willing to let the donkey go – and, judging by the amount of grass it was eating, that was probably a good idea. The children followed us inside and continued their drama later in the service. The choir were supposed to join in at one point, but the young children rushed by so fast (and looked so cute) that it caught us out. ‘Never work with children and animals’ is a very wise saying if you are older and more ponderous.

The choir anthem, ‘Bread is Blessed and Broken’ (Iona) caused some interest. We haven’t sung it for a while and some people enjoyed it so much they asked for more music in a similar style. I suppose we should have taken the opportunity to plug our choir CD, which includes this piece, but we were either far too modest or (again) not quick-thinking enough to milk the opportunity.

Llandaff Cathedral did a beautifully understated Mothering Sunday, with only a brief mention in the sermon. Any schmaltz had probably already happened at the earlier Parish Eucharist. The all-male choir were in fine voice, for the Wills ‘Missa Eliensis’ and Attwood’s ‘Turn thy face from my sins’. It was hard not to join in with the anthem, as it is a favourite of my own choir. We enjoyed catching up with one of the tenors, known from other choir connections, and also the new director of the RSCM, Lyndsay Gray.

It was good to be back at our own church after the break. More Lenten music was sung, including the hymn ‘O Sacred Head’ (sung as an anthem) and Stainer’s ‘God so loved the World’. Our singing apparently moved at least one person to tears – I hope it was for the right reasons.

Now it’s time for the final countdown of Lent, through Holy Week and on to Easter.