Merry Christmas!

I'd like to wish all Choristers and their parents a very Merry Christmas.

The singing this term has been of the highest quality, to which the many superlative comments I received following the Christmas Celebration concerts bear witness. It has certainly been a term in which we have been able to go further than simple note learning and really make music together, thanks to the musicianship shown by the oldest boys and especially Alex, the Head Chorister. But that has been supported very enthusiastically by the younger boys in forms 2 and 3 (= years 5 and 6 - this form/year dichotomy probably needs a separate explanatory post!) and it is the full contribution being made by boys across the choir which has had such a positive impact on the choral sound this term.

As I write we have completed Solemn Pontifical First Vespers and are awaiting Midnight Mass. First Vespers is perhaps the most solemn and satisfying (at least to me) service of the Christmas season. The format is that of a normal Sunday Vespers (without Benediction) but with five coped clergy, including two cantors (Fr Alexander and his twin brother!) and with the Archbishop presiding from the throne. The psalms are sung with added solemnity through the use of fauxbourdons in alternation with the chant. Marenzio's double choir octavi toni Magnificat is the one which has been traditionally sung at this service for most of the last half century, and the motet was Palestrina's O magnum mysterium: no twee Classic FM hit this, but surely one of the most sublime settings ever of any Christmas text, scored for divided upper voices, SSAATB. After the blessing and solemn Alma redemptoris mater, Peter Stevens played the hushed Desseins éternels from Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur, based on a text from Ephesians: God, in his love, has predestined us to be his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace.

I ought to have mentioned it earlier, but do please note First Vespers for next year, especially if you'd like to experience the Solemnity of the Nativity in its traditional purity, devoid of the more secular elements which seem to pervade most carol services. And, after several simulations over the last fortnight, since 4pm this afternoon it really is Christmas, so once again a very Merry Christmas to all readers, and many thanks to the Choristers for their musical achievements this term! And finally, following Second Vespers tomorrow, I hope they have a most enjoyable break and look forward to seeing them in January.

Christmas Celebration

The music for Tuesday and Wednesday evenings is as follows:

• O Radiant Dawn, MacMillan (from the Apse)
• Of the Father's heart
• For unto us a child is born, Handel
• A spotless rose, Howells
• Ave Maria, Mawby
• God rest you merry
• O magnum mysterium, Lauridsen
• Gloria, Missa Sancti Nicolai, Haydn
• In the bleak midwinter, Darke
• One in Royal David's City
• L'adieu des bergers, Berlioz
• Jauchzet frolocket (Christmas Oratorio), J S Bach
• O come all ye faithful
• Hark the Herald

Congregational carols are in bold. Everything but the Howells and Lauridsen involves the orchestra.

Since 2008, when the seating capacity was limited because of scaffolding, we have repeated the Celebration on a second night. This has certainly justified itself through the greater number of tickets sold overall, but is also beneficial from a musical standpoint. The programme is demanding as it involves singing more diverse repertoire than usual over a large orchestra in a less resonant space than the Apse. Putting it all together in two short rehearsals on the day (choir only, then choir & orchestra) is a challenge and can leave the singers feeling tired before the first performance. The opportunity to sing the programme again means that all the preparation work feeds into a second, and usually more relaxed, confident and enjoyable, performance.

As during the tour concerts, the singers are more exposed. We have had some discussion about presentation in recent song schools so the boys are aware of the need to engage the audience visually as well as aurally, and have even had another smiling practice, but the most important thing is to read well ahead and then sing without heads sagging down into the music folders. This will also increase alertness to ensemble and improve focus of sound. And of course it looks good - and what people hear is in no small way influenced by what they see.

To those of you familiar with English choral repertoire, does the opening phrase of the MacMillan introit remind you of the opening of a Latin motet by a Tudor composer?

Story of Christmas

The first of our carol services is tomorrow evening in St George's, Hanover Square. The tradition of singing there goes back to David Hill's time as Master of Music in the 1980s. I don't know exactly how it began but the event, known as The Story of Christmas, was run until last year by the late Robert Spooner and is in aid of Children's Charities. It takes the form of a Nine Lessons and Carols, somewhat dumbed-down, and the readers are all celebrities of various ranks. Dame Judi Dench is the patron and attends most years, last year sitting next to Daniel Craig, who remained long enough to read one of the lessons before slipping off to another engagement. The Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, provides the climax to the ceremony as he declaims the opening of John's Gospel in his unique, authoritative voice - usually managing to upstage most of the preceding readers!

The music is, at the behest of the organisers, popular and accessible: Rutter = "great", Bach = "maybe next year". But this year I have had to acquiesce to the request to sing Parry's I was glad after the reading from Isaiah - a great piece of music but totally out of place in a carol service - as the new organiser apparently promised it to Dame Judi to lure her through the doors. I wonder how many of the audience (or is it a congregation?) will think we are in fact another, non-Catholic, Westminster-based choir when we sing this. I've ensured that a disclaimer appears in the order of service so that I can't be labelled as a liturgical ignoramus. It'll be interesting to see if anyone attending thinks that it's out of place.

One particular challenge this year is a carol sung in French, Berlioz's L'adieu des bergers, which is also included in next week's Christmas Celebrations, when it will have orchestral accompaniment. It's a few years since it last came up so I think most of the choristers were learning from scratch when we had a quick look before last weekend's exeat, but as of this morning it was sounding, to my ears, quite convincing. Many thanks to Mme Garnier for helping me to brush up on French pronunciation.

Aoife Daly

Parents will be sorry to hear that Aoife is leaving her post as Music Administrator: from 1 February she will begin working as Administrator for the choral ensemble Tenebrae, bringing to an end four and a half years of outstanding service to the Cathedral Choir. During this time she has been a great support to me and my colleagues in the music department, and in addition to her expert handling of routine administrative tasks she has been particularly effective in setting up and seeing through many special projects, such as the recent USA tour, the Grand Organ Festivals (it was Aoife's idea to stop charging admission and take retiring collections, thereby doubling the audience) and the plan to renovate the song school, which is set to happen before the end of 2012. I'm sure you will join me in thanking her for all she has done, congratulate her on her new position, and wish her all the best for the future.

We are beginning the search for her successor, advertising next week and interviewing in January.

Ceremony of Carols

Next Monday evening (5 December) the choristers are performing Britten's Ceremony of Carols (for boys' voices and harp) in the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral. Tickets are still available from Christina White at the Friends' Office: 020 7798 9059 - although their website isn't terribly helpful, it really is happening!

The resonant but intimate space of the Lady Chapel should make a perfect venue for Monday's concert. There will be additional items for boys' voices and chamber organ but the Ceremony - a suite of nine mediaeval carols framed by the plainsong Hodie Christus natus est and with a centrally placed solo harp movement - will be the main focus and the climax of the programme.

In the late 1950s Britten heard the Westminster Cathedral Choristers sing the Ceremony and was so impressed with the sound the boys made (this was in George Malcolm's era so it was quite extreme) that he wrote the Missa brevis for them. The Ceremony and the Missa brevis were recorded by the Choristers back in 1986 with David Hill conducting. James O'Donnell was Assistant Master of Music at that time. It's available from the Hyperion website along with audio samples.

Plainsong Gradual: Universi

One of the purposes of this blog is to give some insight into the musical choices for Mass and Vespers at the Cathedral. It's a huge topic and is therefore something I'll dip into over a period of time, but as the new church's year begins tomorrow with the First Sunday of Advent this seemed an ideal place to begin.

The basic building block for any choral service at the cathedral is plainsong - plainchant or gregorian chant if you prefer - and you will have noticed that it provides the musical continuity between the diverse polyphonic items sung by the choir. Thus a service containing Haydn and Elgar or Palestrina and Maxwell-Davies is drawn into a single musical thread by the plainsong which intersperses these items.

When he is inducted, each chorister is presented with a Graduale Romanum, the book which contains all of the plainsong to be sung at Masses throughout the year and which (if he takes care of it!) he will keep for the rest of his life.

Is it like a hymn book? Not really. Everything is in Latin and is written in a different style of musical notation, using staves with four lines and square notes (neums) with very few stems. The chants are not hymns - in the Catholic tradition hymns are sung as part of the Divine Office, e.g. at Lauds and Vespers - the chant in the Graduale comprises both the Proper and the Ordinary of the Mass. In other words, these chants are the Mass, not extraneous texts to be inserted into it at whim.

How do we know what to sing? It's sometimes suggested that I pick any bits of chant I like, rather like selecting a hymn such as Guide me O thou great redeemer and hoping that it fits the theme of the day. In fact the opposite is the case. Each piece of chant (and there are over 800 pages of music) is carefully codified to be sung at a particular part of the Mass at a particular point in the church's year. I spend many hours each term planning the chant for the services, reading carefully the directions in the Graduale to be sure I have made the correct selection. At times like Advent and Epiphany it's particularly complicated.

I'd like to single out one particularly beautiful piece of chant for tomorrow, the Gradual: the chant sung between the first and second readings. Graduals tend to be the most ornate and beautiful of any in the whole corpus of plainsong. Each has two sections, usually a lower opening followed by a higher verse, though most Sundays we normally have time only for the opening section. The second section of tomorrow's gradual, sung by the boys, soars up to the highest note we sing (in chant) all year, setting the text from Psalm 24: Show me your ways O Lord, and teach me your paths. This is a repeat of the text heard in the introit at the start of Mass - it's as though the text is being given special emphasis by repetition coupled with the daringly high tessitura.

A rather prosaic performance of it can be found here. We'll sing it a whole tone higher, hopefully with better tuning, and in the best Italian tradition we'll also linger longer on the highest notes. I suppose one could say that's an application of Puccini performance practice to gregorian chant - hopefully somebody somewhere has written a dissertation on the validity of this approach!

Concert: Kynaston at 70

In the December edition of Oremus, available now, I interview former Organist of Westminster Cathedral Nicolas Kynaston as he approaches his 70th birthday. His account of life at the Choir School in the 1950s and subsequent return as Organist aged only 19 is fascinating - do read it.

But more importantly, this Wednesday (30th November) Kynaston will play a celebratory 70th birthday organ concert in the Cathedral. It begins at 7.30pm and admission is free. I do hope you'll come and help provide a suitably large crowd for what promises to be a memorable concert and a significant event in the history of the Cathedral.

During the 1980s Kynaston used a (now) rather non-PC artist photo. There wasn't space in Oremus so I've reproduced it here for you to enjoy.