Music Notes 2013 Carol Service on Tuesday, 17 th December

Transcription

1 Music Notes 2013 Carol Service on Tuesday, 17 th December The Tuesday carol service follows the pattern of the Christmas Eve service in the Chapel of King s Cambridge, as established by the Dean in 1918, Eric Milner-White. His readings differed from those used in the original service establish in 1880 in Truro Cathedral by its then Bishop Edward Benson. These we shall use next Sunday at the Advent IV Carol Service. We always aim to have a narrative thread running through the choice of carols at these services as well as a suitable musical balance, and it is perhaps the job of these notes to try to clarify this. The Bidding Prayer encourages us to read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious Redemption brought us by this Holy Child. Those first days are called to mind most years by the carol Adam lay y-bounden. The best known version of this was written by a former Director of Music at Kings Cambridge, Boris Ord, and we used this setting (as usual) at the Advent Carol Service last Sunday. So, this is generally an opportunity to explore other settings of this text. Last year it was by the recently departed Philip Ledger, the year before by Howard Skempton, and the year before that by Peter Warlock. This time it will be by Bob Chilcott (b. 1955). Earlier this year, Nigel Short produced a CD of Bob Chilcott s music called The Rose in Winter, sung by the Oxford-based choir Commotio, conducted by Matthew Berry, and released just last month. Bob Chilcott is an old friend of his, and they worked together in the King s Singers for some years. With this repertoire freshly in his mind, it was decided to feature a few of Chilcott s carols in our carol services. This setting of Adam lay y-bounden comes from his suite On Christmas Night, which was performed in its entirety on 6th December this year at the Priory Church choir s St Nicholas s Day Concert. The sequence was written in 2010 for the choir of the University Christian Church in Austin, Texas. The first reading follows immediately and describes Adam and Eve s ejection from the Garden of Eve. Following a hymn, we also hear how the Angel of the Lord informs Abraham that his obedience will result in the nations of the earth being blessed in his seed. We are nevertheless clearly still in the Old Dispensation and the choir responds to this with a setting of the text Remember, O thou man, also by Bob Chilcott. It starts with a warning: Remember, O thou man, thy time is spent and how thou art dead and gone, and I did what I can: therefore repent! It then goes on to exhort us to remember God s goodness and the promise He made; how he sent his Son to redress our sins, so we should not be afraid. Finally, it looks forwards to the birth and the angels. Chilcott does something very clever with this, and if you don t know the setting, I don t want to spoil a moment of surprise. Suffice it to say that he manages to invest this setting with a world-weary, down-on-your-luck, smoky atmosphere that really works well.

2 This group concludes with the third reading, in which Isiah foretells Christ s birth: For unto us a child is born. We are clearly now looking forward to the New Covenant, and the choir encourages us down The Little Road to Bethlehem as set by Michael Head ( ). He was a prolific composer, especially of songs, alongside his career as Professor of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music. This well-known setting was written in 1946 and quickly became an enduring favourite, much recorded both as a song (its original form) and as a choral arrangement. If you go on a search for recordings, you will find and extraordinary range of performers, including an upbeat skip down the road by Hayley Westenra, which you may or may not admire. Nevertheless, it is a testament to the enduring qualities of this melody, which is constructed as a series of arch-shaped phrases something that for some reason particularly beguiles the human ear. The journey down this particular road leads us to the fourth lesson in which Micah foretells the glory of little Bethlehem, after which we all sing O little town of Bethlehem. We will certainly know where we have got to in the story after this little sequence! Now we move forward again, with the choir singing a setting of I saw three ships by Simon Preston (b. 1938). He is generally considered to be one of the world s very finest organists and his elegant technical mastery of the instrument is phenomenal. His church career has involved three principal institutions: King s College Cambridge, where he was first a chorister and later organ scholar; Westminster Abbey, where he was first Sub-Organist and later Organist and Master of the Choristers; and Christ Church, Oxford, at which he was Organist and Fellow between his two sojourns at the Abbey. Since 1987, he has eschewed church positions and been a freelance recitalist, conductor, and composer. This setting dates from 1965, during the time that he was first at the Abbey. Those who have sung under his direction, including Nigel Short, can attest to his extraordinarily high and demanding standards, and he takes no prisoners in his compositions either. This setting is challenging for choir and organ alike. The text of this carol dates from some time in the seventeenth century and almost certainly comes from Derbyshire. The three ships are considered by some authorities to refer to the ships that carried the presumed relics of the three Magi of the Epiphany over to Cologne Cathedral in the twelfth century, but that s not really the point here. Whatever its origin, the text describes in a kind of question and answer procedure three ships that carry Jesus and the Virgin Mary into Bethlehem (actually a physical impossibility, since Bethlehem is nowhere near any substantial body of water but this is metaphor and not to be questioned ), referring to their joint journey to the place of Christ s birth. The upshot, vividly brought to life in this arrangement, is that all the bells on earth shall ring, all the angels in heaven as well as all the souls on earth shall sing, and we too shall rejoice amain. That s what it is about: the joyful response of all creation to the birth of the Saviour.

3 The fifth lesson recounts the story of the Annunciation, and then we have a complete change of musical pace. Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson (b. 1938) is an Icelandic composer whose mysterious and atmospheric music incorporates a wide range of styles and compositional procedures. His main interest lies in his own instrument, the piano, but he has also composed a wide range of music, and has taught and broadcast extensively. This austerely beautiful piece, Mariukvædi, is made up of three verses in praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary that were written by Jon Arasón, Iceland's last Catholic bishop at the time of the Reformation. He was executed, together with some of his sons clergy discipline was laxer the further away you got from Rome in 1550, a moment that marked the final ascendancy of the Lutheran church in the country. Catholicism was then largely supressed until the mid-1800s, when a process of restoration began. It is reported that there are now very nearly 11,000 Catholics in Iceland today... Arasón is responsible for a saying that remains in modern Icelandic vernacular. As the moment of his execution approached, Sveinn, a priest who was permitted to comfort him, said (in Icelandic) Remember, there is a life to come, to which Arasón replied slightly witheringly Yes, I do know, Sveinnki an expression that has come to be used whenever anyone gratuitously states something obvious or, as we might say (or used to): Queen Anne s dead! Anyway, this carol has tremendous poise and paints a beautiful picture of the Virgin Mary, the young woman who seems so extraordinarily unfazed by the appearance of an angel and the life-altering news she is given, and responds so simply and acceptingly: be it unto me according to thy word. The sixth lesson tells the story of the birth of Christ in those wonderfully familiar words that many children used to be able to recite by heart. It would have been the one hundredth birthday (were he still to be with us) of Benjamin Britten ( ) on November 22 nd this year, S. Cecilia s Day. His set of choral variations, A Boy was Born, was written when he was only 19 years old and still a student at the Royal College of Music. It is an extraordinary accomplishment, as well as an incredibly difficult work for unaccompanied choir that can really only be attempted by the very best performers. It is dedicated to Britten s father, who was on his deathbed as the first broadcast performance took place, lending an additional poignancy to the choice of text. A performance of the whole set of variations would extend our carol service substantially, so it is only the theme on which the rest of the work is based that we will hear. Nevertheless, this is itself a little work of genius. The entire thing is built on the foundation of the first four notes we hear that set A Boy was born, and after that, it is possible to trace every element of the rest of the movement from them. This is a simple, straightforward chorale, but he manages to invest it with considerable power. The seventh lesson concerns the shepherds, and after we have sung God rest ye merry, gentlemen (rarely is a comma more importantly placed), the choir will sing an arrangement of Blessed be that maid Mary by Sir David Willcocks (b. 30 th December 1919 only six years after Britten), who has done more than most to shape our

4 modern way of holding carol services. While Director of Music at King s College Cambridge, he distilled his experience and musical insight in choosing and arranging carols for the annual Service of Nine Lessons and Carols into a volume called simply Carols for Choirs, published by Oxford University Press in 1961, and edited by Willcocks and the conductor Reginald Jacques. This book has been followed by four further volumes, with the last, Carols for Choirs V, produced in 2011 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of this highly influential series. This setting of a traditional tune to words by the Anglican priest George Ratcliffe Woodward ( ) is vintage Willcocks, with a straightforward four-part setting of the first verse, followed by splitting the choir into two, then a little trio for upper voices, a trio for lower voices, and finally a triumphant eight-voice texture to bring it to a close. It is a perfect example of what he along with his ability to write definitive descants could accomplish in this genre with such mastery. The point about positioning this carol here is that verse 3 tells us about the angels visiting the shepherds, and verse 4 speaks of the three kings with their gifts, allowing us to look back to the seventh lesson and forward to the eighth, which we hear next. This brings us to Here is the little door by Herbert Howells ( ). This is the first of the set of the composer s Three Carols. The text is by Frances Chesterton, wife of the celebrated writer G.K. Chesterton, and is one of a number of poems she wrote that they sent out jointly at Christmastime to friends and acquaintances. Perhaps because the convention of the day turned her into Mrs G.K. Chesterton, her work is often confused with his, so that some sources incorrectly cite him as the author. This is a beautiful and deeply devotional work that was set by Howells in We come to the ninth and last lesson, the great prologue to S. John s Gospel, and the climax of Milner-White s set of readings to which the others have all been leading. The question is: how to capture that summation of the purposes of God and the actions of The Word in a suitable carol? The answer this year has been found in the words of the carol Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, a text from the United States, which is found in Divine Hymns or Spiritual Songs compiled by Joshua Smith, a Baptist lay minister and hymn compiler, in New Hampshire in Several of the poems included in this volume were set by the New England composer Jeremiah Ingalls, including Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, but the text became famous in modern times through the beautifully elegant setting by Elizabeth Poston. Others have now started to take it up, and we will hear another simple but profound setting by Malcolm Archer (b. 1952), formerly Organist and Director of Music at St Paul's Cathedral, and now Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College. Each of this carol s verses describes the author s reaction to something, but culminates in finding its fulfilment in Jesus Christ the Apple Tree. In a way, it is curious that this text has become so associated with Christmas, which is not particularly referred to anywhere: the association of Christ with trees and wood is

5 long established as an allusion to the crucifixion, but the text seems more to focus on the rest that can be found in the tree s shade, the bountiful fruit that this particular tree produces in abundance, and the strength that can be obtained by consuming this particular fruit. It is a beautiful image, entirely concordant with the message of S. John s great Prologue.