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My “Tenth” Lesson, of King’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

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In 2004 while on sabbatical study leave in Cambridge, England, and thanks to the kindness of my faculty sponsors there, my family and I were able to attend the annual King's College Lessons and Carols service that takes place in the King's College Chapel on Christmas Eve. As the program states, "the service starts a little after 3 p.m.", and thanks to the good fortune and blessing of having entrance tickets "0001, 0002, and 0003", we were in our seats ahead of the masses that come from all over the world to be at this special service.
 
The organ prelude that year included Bach's Prelude & Fugue in D, Kenneth Leighton's Fantasy on 'Veni Emmanuel', a set of pieces by Messiaen, and more Bach. Within the Lessons and Carols program, in addition to Stephen Cleobury's choices of standard fare such as Poston's Jesus Christ, The Apple Tree and Pearsall's In Dulci Jubilo, some of our USA homesickness was relieved by his choice of of Paul Manz' E'en So Lord Jesus, Quickly Come and the Appalachian text I Wonder as I Wander. The hymns and carols were his usual combination of traditional and new.
 
It had been my pleasure to get to know the Acting Dean of King's Chapel, as well as the Chaplains at a few of the sister colleges in Cambridge. I was singing in the Cambridge Choral Society directed by Cleobury, and when Tim Brown wanted to augment his Clare College Choir, he would call me (at my offering) to sit in and sing.  My sponsors for the sabbatical included Brown at Clare, as well as Sir David Willcocks, and upon occasion, I would share the music library at Cambridge University with John Rutter who I routinely saw there, as well as Christopher Hogwood, doing research. On Christmas Eve, all of that seemed to gather together in one exquisite celebration of much of everything I loved about Cambridge, the season, and what we love about the choral art during this season.
 
However, even in that environment of rarified Christmas air(e), the great lesson I learned–let's call it "Lesson #10"– came the next day. We returned to King's Chapel the following day for the Christmas morning service. In contrast to the capacity attendance on Christmas Eve, we were only a few of those in attendance the day after, along with the King's College Choir, the organ scholar, and their director. The BBC had gone away; there was no worldwide radio broadcast; the dignitaries from around the world had left Cambridge.
 
However, that which remained was the exquisite quality of presentation of the musicians, the Dean, and the staff. Even though the Chapel was practically empty, the quality was the same as the day before when the entire world was listening. Lesson #10.
 
This year, ACDA's friends Chilcott, Rutter, Wilcocks, Cleobury, will be featured in the lovely entrance to Christmas offered by King's. I note that I Wonder as I Wander from 2004 returns this year, and to my great joy, Sir David Willcock's descant for Hark, The Herald Angels Sing returns to the lineup. Christmas begins when I hear the minor second on the word "herald" on the final chorus of Sir David's descant.
 
Download the Service Booklet for the upcoming 2011 Lessons and Carols Service from King's, and let's join together as we listen to the broadcast here in the U.S. through American Public Media and affiliates, including Minnesota Public Radio.
 
 

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Comments

  1. It all began (as did a few recordings on LP) with Dr. Boris Ord, C.B.E. (Organist & Director of Music at King’s College (1928-57)
    The Dean I knew was Dr. Alec Vidler. though, unknown to him, there was a hidden mic above his stall for many services of Evensong!
    I have some of the tapes here (if they have survived some 50+ years later!).  I am still looking for the orchestral scores of Stanford in A
    which Boris remembered well from its first “Three Choirs Festival” performance with full orchestra.  The scurrying intro for the Magnificat and that horn solo at the beginning of the Nunc Dimittis – Wow!  O for the orchestral scores of other Stanford canticles which are somewhere in the BBC Music Library…………………Does anyone have copies, including the Bb Te Deum and maybe Stanford in G Evening Canticles, if the composer set this also??
    Eric Fletcher
    (Florida USA)

  3. Dear Tim,
     
    What a lovely post you have written. Thanks for sharing this lesson number 10.
     
    Happy Holidays to a great fisherman and amazing musician,
     
    Paul

  5. Tim – Spent two years in England at the end of my military service with wife and son; all of us confirmed Anglophiles (a bit strange, given my heritage is French and hers Irish), living at the western edge of Cambridgeshire.  We never got to King’s for the Lessons & Carols service, but I have listened with pleasure to some recorded instances, and, with the advent of media presentations now available on the computer, have enjoyed not only the sound of the magnificent musical establishment but also the sight of that glorious building.  But my commentary is based on your “Lesson #10” – the requirement we all have, particularly in presenting sacred music, of doing it as well as it can be done, day after day, great feast and ordinary time, because….well, for the believer, because God is not less glorious on a “regular Sunday” than he is on Christmas or Easter or Pentecost; because our  best efforts, as little as others may be aware of them, are something we owe to ourselves, to others around us, and to God; because our need to petition and praise are the same, day-after-day, month-after-month, and so on, throughout our whole lives.  If indeed, as St. Augustine so properly put it, “To sing is to pray twice,” then Lord knows that we musicians need to do a lot of double-duty praying!  Therefore, while what we do on a “regular Sunday” may not exactly match what we did at Midnight Mass or Good Friday or whenever something special takes place, the optic must always look at doing it as well as can be.  And if, as I remind my choirs, someone takes one step closer to God because of something we did on a “regular Sunday” morning, then we have done our jobs; we have fulfilled our ministry.  It’s just that we don’t always have the resources to do the grand gesture every Sunday, and it shouldn’t be that way in any event, otherwise the “special” days wouldn’t stand out for the reasons that they should stand out.  And this is what Tom Day referred to (I hope I quote him correctly) in his book, “Why Catholics Can’t Sing” (after reading it I thought it should be entitled “Why Catholics WON’T Sing,” but I digress), is that we should be motivated by “inspired mediocrity.”  What I believe he meant was that though we wish to do the grand gesture weekly, that would only mean we would do grand gestures weakly – that it would pall, and displace proper emphasis on those “peak” days of worship.  Not every word or passage in the Bible reaches the grandeur of the Lord’s Prayer, or the Sermon on the Mount; there’s a lot of other material in there worthy of thought and prayer, but not quite at that level of spiritual height – and if we believe this is indeed God’s inspired Word, He knew what he was doing.  If everything in the Bible were IN CAPITAL LETTERS, nothing would stand out.  So with music in services – you work to do supremely excellently on the great days, and you work to inspired mediocrity on the others.  But inspiration (infusing with the Spirit) is no less important on either of those events.
     
    Ron

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