A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols Dec 25th 2012 2 p.m.

[DracoM]

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols Dec 25th 2012
[NB: R3 version]
Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge


Order of Service:


Once in Royal David's City (descant Ledger)
Bidding Prayer read by the Dean
Ding, dong, ding (arr. Woodward)

First lesson: Genesis 3: 8-19 read by a Chorister

Herefordshire Carol (arr Vaughan Williams)
Adam lay ybounden (Christopher Brown)

Second lesson: Genesis 22: 15-18 read by a Choral Scholar

Good Christian men (arr Ledger)
The holly and the ivy (arr Walford Davies)

Third lesson: Isaiah 9: 2: 6-7 read by a Member of College Staff

Nowell sing we now all and some (medieval)
Unto us is born a Son (arr Willcocks)

Fourth lesson: Isaiah 11:1-3a, 4a, 6-9 read by a Representative of the City of Cambridge

A spotless rose (Ledger)
Ring out, wild bells (Carl Vine - first performance, commissioned by the College)

Fifth lesson: Luke 1: 26-35, 38 read by the Master Over the Choristers

Gabriel's message (arr Pettman)
The Cherry Tree Carol (arr Cleobury)

Sixth lesson: Luke 2:1, 3-7 read by the Chaplain

Away in a manger (arr Willcocks)
All bells in paradise (Rutter)

Seventh lesson: Luke 2: 8-16 read by the Director of Music

In the bleak midwinter (Darke)
While shepherds watched (descant Cleobury)

Eighth lesson: Matthew 2: 1-12 read by the Vice-Provost

Three Kings from Persian Lands (Cornelius arr Atkins)
Sir Christèmas (William Mathias)

Ninth lesson: John 1: 1-14 read by the Provost

O come, all ye faithful (arr Willcocks)
Collect and Blessing
Hark, the Herald Angels Sing (descant Ledger)


Organ voluntaries:
In dulci jubilo BWV 729 (Bach)
Toccata Op 5 (Duruflé)


Organ Scholar: Parker Ramsay
Director of Music: Stephen Cleobury

[Anna]

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols Dec 25th 2012
[NB: R3 version]

Just as a matter of interest, as I listen to the Christmas Eve R4 broadcast not having time on Christmas Day, what's the difference between R4 and R3? Also, does the music ever change (apart from arrangers), from memory it's the same year to year (which is lovely, not complaining!)

[DracoM]

Organ voluntaries largely edited out of the R4 tx.
Usually on site, there is a fair amount of organ before the service as well.
eg this year:
Canonic variations on ‘Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her’ bwv 769a / JS Bach

from La Nativité du Seigneur / Olivier Messiaen
Les bergers
Le Verbe
Les enfants de Dieu
Les anges
Les mages
Desseins éternels

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme bwv 645 / JS Bach

Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen Op. 122 No. 8 / Brahms

...............and the Durufle Toccata No 5 will not be on R4 if they keep to the pattern of previous years. .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Descants:-

Once in Royal - Ledger. Simply the best.
O Come - Willcocks. Again, the best (and verse 7 is even better)
Hark the herald - Ledger. Another good descant, but I'm not prepared to say it's the no.1

[BBMmk2]

Didnt Sir David Willcocks write a descant for Hark the Herald?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes - a very good one, but this service is paying tribute to Philip Ledger.

[Wolsey]

Just as a matter of interest, as I listen to the Christmas Eve R4 broadcast not having time on Christmas Day, what's the difference between R4 and R3? Also, does the music ever change (apart from arrangers), from memory it's the same year to year (which is lovely, not complaining!)

The difference is that the second organ voluntary is included in the recording broadcast on Christmas Day - a custom established many decades ago. This is pure conjecture, but I imagine it's because the service is relayed live to a worldwide - not merely domestic - audience, and the Bach provides a brief and satisfying coda for those listening via the BBC World Service and the 300 USA radio stations. As the order of service (available to download on the College website) makes clear:

All remain standing during the first organ voluntary, which is being broadcast.
In dulci jubilo BWV 729 - J S Bach

¶ Please do not talk during the second organ voluntary which is being recorded for broadcast on Christmas Day.
from Suite Op. 5: Toccata - Duruflé

¶ After the first voluntary, the Choir and Clergy are followed out in order by the stewards, the Provost, the Mayoral party, the Vice-Provost, and Fellows of the College, with their guests.

¶ Members of the congregation who wish to leave at this point should do so silently. Those remaining are invited to be seated.

Orders of service going back to 1997 are also available on the College website, so everyone is able to see what has been sung over the past fifteen years.

[VodkaDilc]

An interesting feature in The Guardian today:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/dec/19/kings-college-choir-choirmaster

I was surprised to read the following in connection with Stephen Cleobury and the Christmas Eve Service:

When he became King's director of music, he decided it needed revivifying.

I can think of institutions or events which needed 'revivifying', but, having listened to this service for almost fifty years, I would have thought that Willcocks and Ledger left it in quite a healthy state - certainly not stagnant or set in its ways. I wonder if Cleobury actually meant this or whether it's the journalist's interpretation.

Ironically, some would say that it's now, after 30 years of Cleobury, that it needs revivifying. (Not a view which I necessarily share.)

[DracoM]

I appreciate that this may set cats into dovecotes but I wonder if the problem is in the fact that the scriptural lessons to be read are pretty well identical year after year. I look down the KCC list and think same old, same old. The obligatory 'new' carol / commission, but the readings are identical.

In one sense, you could say that this provides a tried and tested shorthand way of celebrating the feast, a natural structure, and I can see the force of that argument. OTOH, there is nothing inherent in the title of the service AFAICS which suggests that you have to choose those particular lessons, use those carols / hymns in THAT order, or that trajectory. e.g. Once in Royal is actually rather oddly placed at the VERY beginning, whereas strictly chronologically it should be towards the end, shouldn't it - so why is it where it is in the Truro / KCC pattern? Would be nice to know what other starters are employed in churches etc?

Yes, of course, readings to mark [a] the Annunciation and [b] Christ's birth, and rounded off with John 1 would seem to be de rigeur. Would the 'festival' be susceptible of different musical 'opportunities' if the readings were revised?

The other problem for me is that so many other churches / cathedrals / schools now assume that the Truro / KCC identikit pattern is the only way of setting up a Christmas celebration, such that Once in Royal starts off countless services in the Anglican etc world, that same bidding prayer is read pretty well word for word wherever, and actually after that, the choice of music has become [for me] tediously predictable. Advent and Easter seem to comprise more variety of both music and narrative possibilities, and, interestingly, Advent / Easter services generally seem to have been developed with more individuality and different literature / readings / music. OR is it that the radio / TV versions sung annually by eg KCC are actually already a notable distance away from what inventive parishes / dioceses are now doing elsewhere? Could we hear of other patterns, please?

I just wonder if perhaps some DoMs / choirs secretly groan at the thought of yet another more or less identical service to the KCC pattern [straitjacket?] Have we now effectively painted this story musically and narratively into quick setting concrete, such that we have actually emasculated it and extinguished its capacity for engendering thoughtful wonder? For those who have their notions of Christmas now dictated by more by ads on telly and frantic commercial blizzarding in shop / online than the church's year, or who attend church rarely and only on such occasions, there is indeed the comfort of predictability, of cosy tradition - yes, I can and do seriously understand that, but....but.....


[ Thus I obey the instructions of lighting the blue touch paper and standing clear ]

[Miles Coverdale]

Nice to see they're doing This is the thruth sent from above (Herefordshire carol). The version in Carols for Choirs 2 is heavily filleted and prints only five of the original ten or more verses, which leads to a rather unfortunate juxtaposition. Verse 2 ends 'Woman was made with man to dwell'. The original next verse, which is not in CC2, talks about the eating of the apple. You then go into 'Thus we were heirs to endless woes'...

[Philip]

A lot of interesting points raised, so to pick up on a few...

I certainly don't think that the readings in sequence as at Kings have to be so rigid, but the reason so many churches adopt them is that they do an excellent job of telling the story of 'the loving purposes of God', through Old Testament prophecy to the birth of Christ. The format is widely copied because it is so successful and achieves what it sets out to do. Many churches vary the format slightly, which is fine, but the essence is right.

As to 'Once in Royal', well it's probably not the ideal starter on paper, but has been made iconic by its use. If you're not using it, I'd start with 'O come, all ye faithful', which is a bidding to worship if you think about the words. However, its the theatre of the moment which wins I guess, and those opening moments for so many people herald the 'start' of Christmas. There would be an outcry if it were changed...

In fact, there lies part of the issue - people like tradition. A 'traditional' carol service is far more likely to pull in the punters than something which tries to be revolutionary. The choice of music is a delicate one, and has to embrace the old and new in equal measure; here, in theory, a newly commissioned carol is an extremely good idea - in practice, given SC has been at KCC for 30 years we haven't seen many of these commissions enter the mainstream repertoire; on the other hand, there is still plenty of good new music being written which is worthy of inclusion. But people do like the classics.

I suppose the crux of the issue is what is a carol service for? It is more than a musical concert, it is an act of worship which reminds us of the meaning of the events of that first Christmas, through readings and music. The readings should tell a story, and the music should illuminate, enhance and magnify them, providing an opportunity for reflection. How revolutionary does this need to be? I'm not sure, but I think what matters is that you create an atmosphere for appropriate thought and reflection while encompassing something of the true meaning and spirit of Christmas.

[Wolsey]

Hopefully, the preface from the order of service (heavily edited below) answers the question three posts above:

The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was first held on Christmas Eve 1918. It was planned by Eric Milner-White, who, at the age of thirty-four, had just been appointed Dean of King’s after experience as an army chaplain which had convinced him that the Church of England needed more imaginative worship. (He devised the College’s Advent Carol Service in 1934, and was a liturgical pioneer and authority during his twenty-two years as Dean of York.) [...] A revision of the Order of Service was made in 1919, involving rearrangement of the lessons, and from that date the service has always begun with the hymn ‘Once in royal David’s city’. In almost every year the choice of carols has varied, and some new ones have been introduced by successive Organists [...] The backbone of the service, the lessons and the prayers, has remained virtually unchanged. The original service was, in fact, adapted from an Order drawn up by E. W. Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, for use in the wooden shed, which then served as his cathedral in Truro, at 10p.m. on Christmas Eve 1880.
A. C. Benson recalled: ‘My father arranged from ancient sources a little service for Christmas Eve – nine carols and nine tiny lessons, which were read by various officers of the Church, beginning with a chorister, and ending, through the different grades, with the Bishop’. The idea had come from G. H. S. Walpole, later Bishop of Edinburgh. Almost immediately other churches adapted the service for their own use. [...] Wherever the service is heard and however it is adapted, whether the music is provided by choir or congregation, the pattern and strength of the service, as Dean Milner-White pointed out, derive from the lessons and not the music [my italics]. ‘The main theme is the development of the loving purposes of God ...’ seen ‘through the windows and the words of the Bible’. [...] The centre of the service is still found by those who ‘go in heart and mind’ and who consent to follow where the story leads.

As far as the Carols from King's TV broadcast is concerned, however, the Chapel states that it "continues to be recorded to complement the live broadcast on Christmas Eve. For this service, the readings change from year to year, allowing variety in the way the Christmas narrative is revealed through poetry and prose."

[Gabriel Jackson]

here, in theory, a newly commissioned carol is an extremely good idea - in practice, given SC has been at KCC for 30 years we haven't seen many of these commissions enter the mainstream repertoire; on the other hand, there is still plenty of good new music being written which is worthy of inclusion. But people do like the classics.

The reasons why any piece does, or doesn't, enter the repertoire are many and complex (and not necessarily to do with the quality of the music) and I'm sure you're not suggesting the commissioning of new carols for this service is a waste of time. In fact, what is interesting (and impressive) to me is how many of those pieces are widely performed - those commissions from Bob Chilcott, Arvo Part, Jonathan Dove, Judith Weir, Jonathan Harvey, James MacMillan, John Rutter and Thomas Ades do feature frequently in Christmas services and concerts. (Incidentally my own commission for the 2009 service has already had four commercial recordings...)

[Philip]

The reasons why any piece does, or doesn't, enter the repertoire are many and complex (and not necessarily to do with the quality of the music) and I'm sure you're not suggesting the commissioning of new carols for this service is a waste of time. In fact, what is interesting (and impressive) to me is how many of those pieces are widely performed - those commissions from Bob Chilcott, Arvo Part, Jonathan Dove, Judith Weir, Jonathan Harvey, James MacMillan, John Rutter and Thomas Ades do feature frequently in Christmas services and concerts. (Incidentally my own commission for the 2009 service has already had four commercial recordings...)

Indeed, and there have certainly been some worthwhile additions to the repertoire from Kings Commissions as you say (in terms of widespread popularity and frequency of performance, Part and Rutter by some distance I'd say)...but given the service's worldwide exposure you would perhaps think that more items would have made it into the mainstream repertoire, which was more the point I was making. It is perhaps no small coincidence that the list you give above are all rather more 'mainstream' composers (and you would join that list as well, GJ) as opposed to the likes of Tansy Davies, Dominic Muldowney and Brett Dean, who I have to confess I would otherwise not have heard of and whose commissions don't seem to be enjoying any longevity. Is it that more established composers are established for a reason (ie they write music which is 'better' or more well-received) or does the name behind the piece attract people to it? I guess this is the kind of question is what you were hinting at there.

[ardcarp]

I don't think Tavener's The Lamb was a KCC commission, but being included in their carol service made it hugely popular. Reason? Its refrain (Little lamb who made thee, etc, etc) uses very traditional harmony much repeated. The retrogradable two-part bit has a few scrunches, enough to give the piece contemporary 'cred', but not enough to frighten the horses.

Maybe this is one reason why some pieces persist and others don't...though my theory hardly applies to Harvey and Weir.