Eve-'n-Song in London: January 2012

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!