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The Abbey has quietly begun a regular series of live video webcasts of various services.

The series began on September 8, 2024, with a Sung (Choral) Eucharist, and continued with a service of Choral Evensong on Holy Cross Day. Each of the service they have broadcast has stayed up on their YouTube channel for about a month.

The most recent service was a Service of Lessons and Carols for Christmas.

Today, the Feast of Epiphany, the Abbey will webcast a Sung Eucharist.

The Abbey began indexing these services on their “Streamed Services” page, which is now called “Watch Services”.

This kind of endeavor is of great interest to us at Sinden.org, as we suspect it is of all students of church music. The value in these kinds of regular, live webcasts is immeasureable. They allow us to hear a wide variety of liturgical music—sung at a very high standard—fully within a specific, contemporary liturgical context. Though any electronically mediated liturgical experience is, by definition, something other than being truly present, there is value in seeing and hearing liturgy and music as it is conducted in a place like this.

It is not lost on us that as the webcasts at St. John's College, Cambridge have sadly decreased in frequency (only four services were webcast in 2023/24), they have begun at Westminster Abbey. The common denominator here, we must speculate, is Andrew Nethsingha. Webcasts sprung up when he was directing the St. John's Choir, and now they seem to have done the same toward the beginning of his tenure at the Abbey.

Labels: Andrew Nethsingha, Epiphany, St John's (Cambridge), webcasting, Westminster Abbey

But that’s not the carol I am writing about today.

In the run-up to Christmas this year (so, Advent, I guess?) I had occasion to type all of the words to the carol “O little town of Bethlehem”.

And, unusually for this blog, I’m going to eschew any mention of the various tunes for this completely, and just invite you to reflect on the words. Although now common throughout the Anglican Communion, and really all of Christendom, these words come from the pen of Episcopal priest Phillips Brooks (”Born in Boston, Died in Boston”). Brooks later became the Bishop of Massachusetts.

You might be struck by the Christmas silence of the third stanza. Or the glorious crescendo achieved in the fourth stanza. It’s all rather beautiful, and our familiarity with it sometimes prevents a true close reading.

I hope you have had a blessed Christmas!

O little town of Bethlehem,
   how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
   the silent stars go by;
yet in thy dark streets shineth
   the everlasting Light;
the hopes and fears of all the years
   are met in thee tonight.

For Christ is born of Mary;
   and gathered all above,
while mortals sleep, the angels keep
   their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars, together
   proclaim the holy birth!
and praises sing to God the King,
   and peace to men on earth.

How silently, how silently,
   the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
   the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
   but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive him,
   still the dear Christ enters in.

Where children pure and happy
   pray to the blessed Child,
where misery cries out to thee,
   Son of the Mother mild;
where charity stands watching
   and faith holds wide the door,
the dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
   and Christmas comes once more.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
   descend to us, we pray;
cast out our sin and enter in,
   be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
   the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
   our Lord Emmanuel!

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

Labels: 12 Carols for Christmas, Christmas, Phillips Brooks

More often than not at Christmas, I find myself reaching for “Sing lullaby,” a modern carol text by Sabine Baring-Gould. If that name is familar to you, it may be because you know his carol “Gabriel’s Message” or, perhaps, his book on were-wolves.

The Director of Music of St. James Cathedral, Chicago, writes that this carol has become a regular feature of Christmas in that cathedral.

Particularly as Christmastide nears its end, it is fitting to look ahead to the whole of Jesus’ saving work, including his death and resurrection. This carol does that beautifully beginning in the second stanza.

The juxtaposition of the infant Jesus with his death is an affecting one. It appears in various places: the gift of myrrh at Epiphany, one elaborated in Peter Warlock’s carol, “Bethlehem Down”

Sing lullaby.
Lullaby baby, now reclining,
sing lullaby.
Hush, do not wake the infant King.
Angels are watching, stars are shining
over the place where He is lying:
sing lullaby.

Sing lullaby.
Lullaby baby, now a-sleeping,
sing lullaby.
Hush, do not wake the infant King.
Soon will come sorrow with the morning,
soon will come bitter grief and weeping:
sing lullaby.

Sing lullaby. 
Lullaby baby, now a-dozing, 
sing lullaby. 
Hush, do not wake the infant King.
Soon comes the cross, the nails, the piercing,
then in the grave at last reposing:
sing lullaby.

Sing lullaby.
Lullaby, is the babe awaking?
Sing lullaby.
Hush, do not stir the infant King.
Dreaming of Easter, gladsome morning.
Conquering death, its bondage breaking:
sing lullaby.

I am more familiar with the Willcocks arrangement of this tune (as I suspect many of us are), but it’s very good to spend some time with the original, too.

Labels: 12 Carols for Christmas, Christmas, Edgar Pettman, St James Cathedral (Chicago), Stephen Buzard, Warlock, Willcocks

In these days of Christmastide, we have been sharing a carol every day on the blog. It just so happens that, along the way, we’ve made a list of five carols that are in E minor that you should know!

1. God rest you merry, gentlemen - David Willcocks
   Come for a great tune. Stay for the three-part descant.
2. Personent hodie - Gustav Holst
   It's a tune so good that no one minds the whole thing is in Latin (although, yes, it can be sung in English, too)
3. What child is this - GREENSLEEVES
   The quintessential E minor carol. Or is it? What mode will you sing it in?
4. Make we joy now in this fest - William Walton
   Walton’s carols are second to none. This is his first.
5. The Oxen - Jessica French
   A newer, reflective carol.

BONUS: After beginning this list of five carols, we realized one in E minor had already made an appearance this Christmas: Dormi, Jesu - Jaebon Hwang—so let’s just call it six carols in E minor that you should know!

Labels: Christmas, Holst, Jaebon Hwang, Jessica French, Walton, Willcocks

In the latest volume of the Carols for Choirs series is found a work by Seattle composer Jessica French. The words are “The Oxen” by Thomas Hardy.

This carol was recently recorded on the popular new Christmas album from Trinity, Boston. The work is for unaccompanied choir with tenor and soprano solos. The first stanza of the poem serves as a refrain.

And, sure enough, this completes our list of...

Five Carols in E minor That You Should Know
   1. God rest you merry, gentlemen - David Willcocks
   2. Personent hodie - Gustav Holst
   3. What child is this - GREENSLEEVES
   4. Make we joy now in this fest - William Walton
   5. The Oxen - Jessica French

Labels: 12 Carols for Christmas, Christmas, Jessica French, Trinity (Boston)

English composer William Walton wrote four Christmas carols at various stages of his long and illustrious career.

The first, “Make we joy now in this fest”, was written in 1931. Crucially, it is in E minor.

In my eventual arrival in the world of Anglican church music, this album of Walton’s sacred choral music was a crucial signpost along the way. It includes all four Walton carols, and I have come to believe they are among the best modern carols we have.

The list so far: Five Carols in E minor That You Should Know
   1. God rest you merry, gentlemen - David Willcocks
   2. Personent hodie - Gustav Holst
   3. What child is this - GREENSLEEVES
   4. Make we joy now in this fest - William Walton

Labels: 12 Carols for Christmas, Christmas, Walton

And now for our third carol in our E minor sequence — it might have been the one you thought of first!

The list so far: Five Carols in E minor That You Should Know
   1. God rest you merry, gentlemen - David Willcocks
   2. Personent hodie - Gustav Holst
   3. What child is this - GREENSLEEVES

Labels: 12 Carols for Christmas, Christmas