Choir and Music
The Visit of the Magi by Peter Paul Rubens (16th Century)
Choral Evensong for Epiphany
Happy New Year! I hope you’ve had a good Christmas and are looking forward to some more beautiful choral music as we enter 2025. The opportunity to sample some of that beautiful music comes very soon as we have a choral evensong for Epiphany at St. Andrew’s this coming Sunday, 5th January, at 6.30pm.
In the Western church, Epiphany or ‘manifestation’ became an occasion to celebrate one element in the story of Christ’s birth, the visit of the far-travelled magi, understood as the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. Matthew’s account speaks simply of ‘wise men from the east’; later tradition fixed their number at three and made them kings. For us, the most important thing is that Jesus came into the world as a saviour for everyone, not just those from a Jewish heritage.
The introit to our Epiphany evensong is the beautiful Lutheran hymn, “How brightly shines the morning star!” composed by Philipp Nicolai around 1597-98. The morning star, of course, is a reference to Jesus. Once heard, hang on to that tune because you’ll hear it again in the anthem, “Three kings from Persian lands afar” by Peter Cornelius!
The set of responses we shall sing is the second set by Humphrey Clucas. Back in the day, Humphrey was a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, and wrote his original responses for that choir. Many people in the choral world are unaware that a second set of responses by Humphrey Clucas even exists. They are probably also unaware that Humphrey Clucas latterly became a member of the choir of St. Andrew’s, Fulham Fields, and that he wrote this second set of responses for us! Those who are familiar with the first set of responses will be aware that Humphrey makes a number of references to them in the set he wrote for us.
Many of you will remember that last year marked the one hundredth anniversary of the death of the composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. We managed to perform quite a lot of his music in his anniversary year but there was not room for his Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in C major (Op. 115) We will put that right in this month’s evensong!
The anthem is “Three Kings from Persian lands afar” by the German composer, Peter Cornelius. The haunting baritone solo is overlaid with the Lutheran hymn “How brightly shines the morning star” that we heard as the introit. The original version by Cornelius set the accompaniment for piano, and it was the English organist, Ivor Atkins, who arranged the accompaniment for choir, with the choir singing the words of the original Lutheran hymn.
Finally, for those who may not have heard, Wolfgang Stange, who was one of our keenest choir supporters, died in December after a long and brave fight against illness. For anyone who may wish to join us at St. Andrew’s, or even just say a prayer for Wolfgang on that day, his funeral will be at 11am on Thursday 16th January. May his soul rest in peace.
Trevor
(Director of Music)
Music at St Andrew's
By our Director of Music: Trevor Dawson
There has always been a choir at St. Andrew’s for as long as I can remember. I know, because I used to sing in it! Without giving away too many clues as to my age, we’re talking about the 60s here (that’s 1960s!) and I can remember there being about five others in the choir apart from myself.
Following my appointment as organist at the tender age of 14, the choir entered something of a “golden age” in terms of numbers and we had maybe 25+ young people on the books at any one time.
Coming more up to date, our choir has undergone quite a marvellous renaissance! Once a month, on the first Sunday, we sing choral evensong with a choir of around 25 choristers and are continually building upon our repertoire of liturgical music. The choir consists of singers with a distinguished background in music and keen amateurs. For our regular Sunday morning services, we are blessed by a smaller, but equally keen group of singers!
In recent years, the choir of St Andrew's has been invited to sing at various services, including the cathedral churches of York, Norwich, Chester, Wells, Southwell, Ripon, Bristol, Chichester and Christ Church Oxford.
If you are an amateur with an interest in music or a veteran chorister and would like to sing with us, we would love to hear from you!
Choral Evensong usually takes place on the 1st Sunday of the month at 6:30PM