Hark! The Herald Angels Sing...

When we first moved to London in August, the one thing I wanted to experience in London was the choral music at Advent and Christmas.  The city is full of all kinds of classical music, but I could only imagine that the choral music at Christmas was something to experience. My month was full of choral concerts as well as the normal Christmas shopping, parties, visits from family and friends and topped off by a spectacular New Year's Eve fireworks display which we watched from Parliament Square.  It's hard to capture the entire month in a blog but here are some highlights. 

In early December, Elizabeth Street in Belgravia is one of the many areas that hosts a Christmas fair.  The street is filled with choirs, brass bands, craft and food booths.  

school boy carolers from a local school

These school boys were delightful.  They were about six or seven years old and I was impressed by their beautiful clear tones when I heard them singing, "Once in Royal David's City,"  a popular carol in England and included in an 1848 publication, Hymns for Little Children.  

December 8 ~  Since it was Tom's birthday,  I treated him to tickets to the Bach Choir's Christmas Concert at Cadogan Hall. The Bach Choir has a long history and became popular in the late 1800's during the reign of Queen Victoria. The choir has a long list of illustrious conductors including Charles Villers Stanford, Walford Davies, Gustav Holst and David Willcocks.  Members of the choir were C. Hubert Parry and Ralph Vaughan Williams (who later became their director).  That's an impressive list of British composers!

  December 11.  I'm singing with the Sloane Square Choral Society which is a new choir that sings about three concerts a year.  Our Christmas Concert was on December 11 at Holy Trinity Church, a beautiful Anglican church in Sloane Square.  We sang Britten's "Ceremony of Carols" (one of my favorites) and a newly commissioned piece for the choir which we performed with a jazz orchestra.

Through a conversation we overheard at a restaurant on Wednesday, December 14, we found out about a concert being performed by Christ Church Cathedral Choir,  Oxford at the church of St.John's,Smith Square.  For 26 years, St. John’s Smith Square has been host to a Christmas Music choral festival in December.   Twelve different top choirs performed this year as part of the ten day festival.

Messiah at Royal Albert Hall

December 16~  Messiah at Royal Albert Hall~ Hundreds of singers performed the entire Messiah with amazing precision, diction and fantastic, brisk tempos.  I never thought that many singers could do justice to Handel's masterpiece. However, the tempos made it work.  How did the conductor get 400+ singers to all have such exacting diction?

December 19~  We went back to St. John’s Smith Square to hear Trinity College, Cambridge sing Britten's Ceremony of Carols and the cantata, St. Nicolas.  St. Nicolas was sung by a wonderful British tenor, Allan Clayton who is also debuting in March with the New York City Opera.


December 20 ~  King's College Choir at Royal Albert Hall, Christmas Concert.  This is the choir that sings the famous Lessons and Carols from Cambridge on Christmas Eve.

December 21~ Tallis Scholars at St.Johns, Smith Square singing Palestrina and Praetorius.  The Tallis Scholars specialize in performing a cappella sacred vocal music written during the Renaissance.  

outside Westminster Abbey after  Lessons and Carols Christmas Eve 

December 24~ Lessons and Carols at Westminster Abbey. This was another of the top forty choirs last year, according to Gramophone magazine.  It was heavenly!  I did learn, though, that you don't have to queue three hours early.   The choir sings from all parts of the Abbey during the service so it really doesn't matter where you sit.  When you can't see them, you can hear them.   It was quite an experience.

Covent Garden

December 25, Christmas Day ~  All of public transportation is shut down on Christmas Day, so it was a wonderful day to take advantage of very little traffic in central London.  We enjoyed a "London Walk" which was a two hour guided walking tour through all of the places that Charles Dickens frequented and lived.  As the brochure states, It was Dickens whose words plumped,fluffed and sprinkled Christmas all over the world.  So on Christmas afternoon we celebrate him, his words, his life and his Christmas--A Christmas before Cola turned Santa red. A Christmas in the gaslight.   A Christmas in London.

I tried to capture a small part of the wonderful sights and sounds of London during the holiday season. However, there is much more to London at Christmas than choral singing!  Here are a few more pictures that hopefully will help capture London at Christmas time.  Enjoy!

Motcomb Street lit for the holiday

Selfridges Department store

                    

                    Ice skating in the moat at the Tower of London

               

Christmas decorations on Sloane Square

                        

                     Southbank Food Market-- one of many around the city during the holidays

                                                                     

Windsor Castle, post Christmas with Dan, Tom, Adam and Cristina

A spectacular finale to a specatcular holiday season

Come and Sing with John Rutter

I spent the month of November in Ohio reconnecting with friends and enjoying some of the things I miss in London (the dog, driving, Target, CVS) so this is a long overdue blog on the wonderful day Tom and I spent with John Rutter in late October.  

I've realized that if I don't scan the internet every day when I'm in London that I could miss out on some fantastic opportunities.  That is what happened on Monday, October 20.  As I was looking for something in London that might catch my interest,  I stumbled upon a page that said, "Come and Sing with John Rutter."  I quickly checked out the details  (time, place, cost), then proceeded to book two tickets (Tom agreed to come with me).  

Anyone who has sung in church choirs has probably sung some of John Rutter's music, especially his Christmas carols  (Shepherd's Pipe Carol, Donkey Carol, Star Carol, Candlelight Carol).  He also has written a Magnificat, Gloria and Requiem.  


On Saturday, October 25, Tom and I went to the Temple Church, a late 12th century church, where we were to join John Rutter for our day of singing.    The church is between Fleet Street and the River Thames.  Our morning rehearsal was held at the Middle Temple Hall, an Elizabethan Hall which was begun in 1562.  It is also where Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was preformed for the first time at Candlemas  in 1602.

the carvings on the wall in the Middle Temple Hall

There were about 100 people who had joined us for the day.  Our morning was spent singing SATB music of Rutter, Stanford's fantastic Magnificat in B flat and a beautiful Russian setting of the Lord's Prayer by Antony Arensky.   I continue to be amazed at how so many people in this country  know how to sing AND sightread.


Mr. Rutter entertained us with his charismatic personalty, engaging sense of humor and his stories of his work with Westminster Abbey Organist and Choirmaster James O'Donnell on the music for the Royal Wedding.   He told the story of O'Donnell calling him one day and telling him that Prince Charles had requested that Rutter write an anthem for the Royal Wedding.  He agreed.  

Almost immediately after that Prince Charles called O'Donnell again, asking to preview the music in a week.  Mr. Rutter kindly requested that he be given more than a week to write the music.  So, they put off the meeting for about a month, and the piece that was written (This is the Day) was previewed, approved, and performed at the Royal Wedding.  The words are taken from different Psalms that represent the story of the Royal couple.  For me, the most touching of these was taken from Psalm 91:  "For he shall give his angels charge over thee... to keep thee in all thy ways."  Rutter said he included that text to incorporate the memory of Diana in the ceremony.

Another of my favorite moments was when Rutter asked the altos for more sound, saying "I like my altos fiery."  I'm not sure I've ever heard a conductor refer to altos as "fiery", but I liked it.  

His other comment that I loved was this: "Starting a song should be like switching on a light, not revving up a motor."  What a great way to tell your choir not to scoop!  It created a perfect visual and it immediately took care of the problem.

Our rehearsal space in Middle Hall

The Round Church 

After lunch, we moved to the Temple Church to perform the music that we had practiced in the morning. The Temple Church was built by the Knights Templar, the order of crusading monks founded to protect pilgrims on their way to and from Jerusalem in the 12th century. 

The Church is in two parts: the Round and the Chancel. The Round Church was consecrated in 1185 by the patriarch of Jerusalem. It was designed to recall the holiest place in the Crusaders' world: the circular Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It is a beautiful, spiritual space - and has  wonderful acoustics for singing. The Church also was featured in the novel The Da Vinci Code and was used in the film as well.

We performed the Russian piece in the Round Church surrounding effigies of the Knights Templar of the Crusades. They believed that to be buried in the round was to be buried in Jerusalem, the center of the Crusaders' world.

Effigies of the Knights Templar

After this we moved to the Chancel part of the Temple Church, a larger section designed more like a traditional cathedral, to sing the Stanford Magnificat and other British choral songs with the organ.

The Chancel

At Tom's encouraging, I did ask Mr. Rutter for an autograph of the piece he composed for the Royal Wedding.  He's a class act.  This is the fourth year he has done a Come and Sing in London.  He has other Come and Sing days around the U.K. and loves to share his love of choral singing (and his music) with everyone.    We hope he comes back  for a fifth year in London so we can do this again!

This is one of my favorite pieces of John Rutter:  The Lord Bless You and Keep You.  It is sung here by the Westminster Abbey Choir on the occasion of Prince Phillip and Queen Elizabeth's 60th wedding anniversary.