Sunday, 12 December 2010
| Cathedral Choir & Notability: | Lux Aurumque (Eric Whitacre) |
| All: | O Come all ye Faithful |
| Cathedral Choir | Benedicamus Domino (Peter Warlock) |
| All: | Once in Royal David’s City |
| Notability: | Good News! (Jay Althouse) Mary’s Boy Child (Jester Hairston) |
| All: | While shepherds watched their flocks |
| Anthony Hunt, organ: | Von Himmel Hoch (Garth Edmundson) |
| Cathedral Choir: | Still, still, still (Austrian traditional, arr. Janzen) |
| All: | O little town of Bethlehem |
| Notability: | Silent Night (Franz Gruber) |
| All: | God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen |
| Cathedral Choir: | On the lips of an angel (Charles Gounod, Scott Soper) |
| Notability: | Jingle Bells (J Pierpoint, Arr. Ralph Allwood) |
| Cathedral Choir & Notability | Bogoroditse Devo (Rachmaninov) |
| All: | Hark the Herald Angels Sing |
| Organ Voluntary: | Von Himmel Hoch (J.S. Bach) – Anthony Hunt |
For our annual Christmas celebration for Age Concern we teamed up as usual with ace chamber choir Notability. The partnership made for an eclectic mix of music, including a chance to sing Eric Whitacre’s scrumptious setting in Latin of Edward Esch’s glimpse of the Nativity:
Light,Scott Soper’s On the lips of an angel is the musical equivalent of adding another blade to the twin-blade razor. It takes Gounod’s famous Ave Maria (based on J.S. Bach’s Prelude no. 1 in C from The Well-tempered Clavier) and adds a counter-melody, sung first by the male voices, and then in conjunction with Gounod’s much-loved tune. The audience, to judge from appreciative comments afterwards, were enraptured. We’re treating the regular Sunday congregation to it next Sunday, when Ave Maria is the Missal text for the Offertory Antiphon.
warm and heavy as pure gold
and angels sing softly
to the new-born babe.
There were readings and reminiscences from sundry celebrities and dignitaries, and Fr Tony led us in prayer at the end. He encouraged us to be bold about Christmas: celebrating our Lord’s birth is a public proclamation of our faith in God’s existence, and his presence in the world.
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