Lessons and Carols again

The Christmas Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols I attended in December 2012 at Christ Church cathedral on Sparks Street was the subject of a blogpost I wrote shortly afterwards. I have no idea who reads my blogposts, hardly anyone, I suspect; even so, five of the criticisms I made then no longer apply––the event has improved immensely, so either a dignitary at the church did read what I thought, or someone else forcefully voiced the same opinions as mine, and was listened to!

Today I went (on foot, in the cold wind) to this year's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at the same church and came away delighted (buoyed up during my long walk home in the even colder wind, past all the coloured lights on Parliament Hill).

The service began with organ preludes, more suitable as a background accompaniment to people meeting one another and finding their seats in the nave than the vocal music had been, two years ago. This time, the girls' choir was waiting to sing, already assembled in the choir loft and the men and boys were standing at the back ready to move forward to their choir stalls. This year they did process to music, choirs and congregation all on their feet, singing Once In Royal David's City. Each of the hymns turned out to be one that people knew, often by heart––and I was lucky to be standing among good singers in my pew. The main lights were turned off during the choirs' anthems (including Herbert Howells' lovely A Spotless Rose), which helps the concentration, but came on again for the communal hymns so that anyone who needed to could read the words. The barrier of an unfamiliar language had been removed too, the church now having dispensed with its token Bible reading in French.

Here is the programme. (Click to see it.)

Parts of that programme more than delighted me; I found some of that music (William Mathias' Sir Christémas and the Louis Vierne organ Finale) shivers-up-the-spine thrilling. I must admit I have rather a weakness for Stanford Magnificats, too, for personal reasons. How evocative music is! Like Proust's madeleine.

Singing, then more singing

At the carol party (me conducting, with Jennie on the left)
Photo by Chris.

I am hoarse. On Saturday night we sang for hours at Bill's and Jennie's Christmas carols party, some of the diehards still going strong at 11pm when most other guests had left. Then we were so tired that we left too, driving carefully through the blizzard down the Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway (Ottawa River Parkway, as it used to be known). There'd been a blip last year when Bill and Jennie were away living in France, but normality has resumed and we met the usual people back at their house; all of us had remembered Bill's warm up round (I heard the Bells on Christmas Day from The Canadian Pub Caroler) pretty well, and it sounded harmonious! We didn't have a pianist for the harder carols this year so had to tackle them a cappella. I did a bit of conducting to keep the pace going.

When we took a break I chatted to a gentleman who used to run the Ottawa Kiwanis Music Festival, a music competition for about 10,000 local students young and old. He'd been Vice Principal of an Ottawa high school too, where he'd encouraged the music to great effect. That school still has a reputation for excellence which I'm sure is no coincidence. Another person I talked to at the party was Tina Fedeski, mentioned in my previous blogpost! She comes from Bedford in the UK.

Yesterday evening in imitation of the Kings College Cambridge Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, which I'll hear on the BBC tomorrow, Christ Church cathedral on Sparks Street offered its own service, the choristers carrying candles and starting their processional not with Once in royal David's city (that came second) but with Tomorrow shall be my dancing day, very well sung. I liked that.

I thought the whole thing a considerable improvement upon last year's service, after which I'd made a few criticisms––maybe someone had noticed my blogpost!––though they still had a choir boy read the first Lesson in unnecessary French, and still wanted us to "hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church" all the time.

Never mind. I do like the way that Matthew Larkin, the cathedral's Director of Music, chooses unusual items for his competent choir to perform (the long, mystical and complex Seek him that maketh the seven stars, by Jonathan Dove, for example, by which I was utterly enthralled despite the restlessness of some of the people in the nearby pews, or an African one, a Yoruba carol with drum accompaniment, Betelehemu). Even the more familiar ones are sung to in unusual arrangement, such as I saw three ships, arr. Simon Preston, and Il est né, le Divin Enfant, arr. Paul Halley, which cleverly combined chorus and verse melodies together in the last verse and served as a very bouncy introduction to the first chapter of St. John's gospel, which followed, solemnly read by the Bishop.

The congregation joined splendidly in the hymns. We did all the verses and descants were added by the girls' and boys' choirs. After a final Hark the herald... , Mr. Larkin repaired to the organ seat to give us the closing organ voluntary, full throttle: the last movement of Louis Vierne's Symphonie 1. Those of us who stayed till the last ringing chord applauded.

Afterwards I put my hood up against the freezing wind that funnels down Sparks Street in our winters, passing the trees with their beautiful blue Christmas lights around the war memorial, and met Chris for a rather too substantial but tasty pub supper on Clarence Street.

Old fashioned service

This afternoon I went to Choral Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral, with Matthew Larkin playing the organ and directing the choir (he also composed today's setting of the traditional, 16th century Versicles and Responses).

It was thrilling. A bell began to ring in the tower, summoning the congregation to come in and sit down, and as the blasts from the organ pipes began to make the pews vibrate, I thought: this is good, I feel at home with this. The ostensibly religious element of the service, however—the prayers and the Bible readings, especially when translated into "modern" (inferior) English—did not have that same effect on me.

Mr Larkin was playing Oliver Messiaen's Apparition de l'Église Éternelle. It was neither comfortable nor soothing, but harsh, jaggèd, disturbing, composed by a man in mental torment, it seemed, and the organist emphasised this in his powerful interpretation, jabbing at the keyboard. Likewise when the choir's turn came to perform, that music was discordant too, and he got them to sing the clashes fortissimo. The Introit was Sir Edward Bairstow's Let all mortal flesh keep silence. The Magnificat and Nunc Dimitis, during which the congregation remained standing, were in Herbert Howells' setting; the anthem too (Behold, O God our defender) was by Howells.

The boys, who had learned their parts very thoroughly (except perhaps for the very young novices who sometimes lost their places in the sheet music ...and I saw one of these very small boys give a big yawn) were revelling in it. The lead chorister was particularly confident and had a fine, flawless voice, effortlessly produced. He turned his head toward the nave whereas most of the others either faced forwards, ten boys on one side of the choir, ten on the other, or kept their eyes fixed on the director. They wore the full regalia, red, floor-length cassocks, white surplices. The men of the choir sounded like professional singers. I was impressed.

After the prayers, including the Prayer of St Chrysostom, we all sang Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven, which once upon a time was my School Hymn, the trebles singing a descant to the last verse, and they processed out to the postlude, Jean Langlais' loud and triumphant Acclamations: Christus vincit on the organ.

Chris met me outside when it was over and we went to the Green Papaya for a Thai curry.