Carol Services (and Kings)

[Philip]

Yes thank you Stephen. The service looked very well put together.

 

The organ sounds good for what from NPOR looks quite modest.

[Philip]

This correspondent headed off to St Marys, Nottingham this evening for a very good Nine Lessons service. Once again we got a good selection of the wide and wonderful Christmas repertoire. I persuaded John Keys to include the Lauridsen 'O magnum mysterium' which for me sums up the wonder of Christmas, although I once again found 'O Holy Night' to be a highlight also, though all of it was very very good.

[MusingMuso]

In retrospect, I found most of this year's TV broadcasts safe and predictable, but the one which caught my attention was the morning eucharist from Tewskbury Abbey. What a fine choir and magnificent organ. The singing had real vitality which I enjoyed enormously.

 

MM

[S_L]

In retrospect, I found most of this year's TV broadcasts safe and predictable, but the one which caught my attention was the morning eucharist from Tewskbury Abbey. What a fine choir and magnificent organ. The singing had real vitality which I enjoyed enormously.

 

MM

 

 

I didn't hear the Tewkesbury broadcast, being in church, at that time, on Christmas morning where we had a Mozart Mass K140, Victoria 'O magnum mysterium' & Handl 'Resonet in Laudibus', but I did watch the Midnight from Liverpool - the Widor Mass is a 'meaty' piece of work, to say the least, and could not, I would have thought, in any way, be described as safe or predictable. I thought, also, Timothy Noon, conducting from a chair after an accident in the snow, and, particularly, the boys of the Cathedral choir worked their socks off!

[SteveBarker77]

Thank you, Steve, and congratulations on your fine musical set-up at St Stephen's. I thoroughly enjoyed this service. How heartwarming it is to know that there still are some places able to communicate a real sense of the glory and majesty of God.

 

A gentle slap on the wrist, however, for attributing "Greensleeves" to Henry VIII. The tune was already known in the fifteenth century.

 

How big a congregation did you have for this service?

 

Thank you for your kind comments (only just back in the swing of things!) - and sorry about the Greensleeves - it was a last minute change to the Order of Service and either I or the Rector didn't proof-read it well enough!

 

We had about a hundred in the congregation for this; St Stephen's is a relatively small church with parts dating back about 1000 years. It's built in a cruciform shape with no side aisles. There were about 30 in the choir. We are fortunate to have a very supportive congregation and Rector regarding the music, and maintain weekly Choral Evensong as well as the Sung Eucharist in the morning.

 

Best wishes,

 

Steve

[SteveBarker77]

Quite by chance, yesterday evening I watched (again) episodes 1-3 from my DVD of the ITV series about life at Canterbury Cathedral. Lo, and behold, the choir of St Stephen's Canterbury and, if I remember correctly from 14 hours ago, Mr Barker himself. Well done!

 

Malcolm

 

Than you! Yes, that was me - although recorded about five years ago now and looking a little more youthful! We managed to get on it twice, once through singing on Christmas Eve with the Archbishop which we do every year, and again singing for the Christingle Service which is held on Holy Innocents, at which the Cathedral invite one choir (or a group of smaller choirs) from the Diocese to sing.

 

Best wishes,

 

Steve

[MusingMuso]

I didn't hear the Tewkesbury broadcast, being in church, at that time, on Christmas morning where we had a Mozart Mass K140, Victoria 'O magnum mysterium' & Handl 'Resonet in Laudibus', but I did watch the Midnight from Liverpool - the Widor Mass is a 'meaty' piece of work, to say the least, and could not, I would have thought, in any way, be described as safe or predictable. I thought, also, Timothy Noon, conducting from a chair after an accident in the snow, and, particularly, the boys of the Cathedral choir worked their socks off!

 

================

 

 

Quite right SL.....a poor choice of words on my part.

 

Iwonder if the rather strange acoustic at Liverpool didn't have something to do with it, and the difficulties of recording the sound faithfully. I'm sure the singing was excellent in the flesh, but somehow, it didn't come across to me watching in the telly.

 

Tewskbury just leapt out of the speakers, and sounded wonderful........that was my point I think, and it probably owes as much to good sound engineering as it does to anything else. However, I was quite thrilled with the apparent quality of the choir and the congregational input.

 

MM

[Vox Humana]

Tewkesbury does have one of the most wonderful acoustics you could desire for a choir.