Streaming ethereal Advent music

We are ending the first week of Advent. In the larger society, Advent (i.e. the pre-Christmas season) is marked by Christmas trees, decorations, slogans and music.

As liturgical Christians, we get to celebrate Advent on four Sunday mornings in December. At some churches — or metropolitan areas — we can also attend a service of lessons and carols. (However, in some cases these services are late-Advent tellings of the Christmas story. rather than a focus on Advent, per se.)

And then there are the great English church choirs, particularly at cathedral schools and universities. For Anglican Music, these are the ne plus ultra of music for the liturgical seasons.

The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge is one of the oldest performing organizations for English choral music. As their website says (links added)::

Voted the fifth best choir in the world in Gramophone magazine's "20 Greatest Choirs", The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge comprises around thirty Choral Scholars and two Organ Scholars, all of whom are ordinarily undergraduates of the College.

The College’s choral tradition dates back to the all-male choir of the fourteenth century, when former Chapel Royal choristers studied in King’s Hall, which later became part of Trinity College. Directors of Music have included Charles Villiers Stanford, Alan Gray, Raymond Leppard and Richard Marlow. Female voices were introduced in the 1980s by Richard Marlow, in a new departure for Cambridge choral music.

On Sunday, these undergraduates performed an Advent Carol Service on the first Sunday of Advent. The service (including hymns, anthems and readings) is available for web streaming. The musical components of the service were:

• Responses by Richard Marlow
• Anthem: Creator of the stars of night (text: 7th century; tune: Conditor alme siderum)
• Hymn: Of the Father’s heart begotten (text: Prudentius; ttune: Piae Cantiones)
• Hymn: Come, thou redeemer of the earth (text: Ambrose; tune: Praetorius)
• Anthem: There is no rose (text: 15th century; tune: anon.)
• Anthem: A great and mighty wonder (text: Germanus; tune: Praetorius)
• Hymn: O come, O come, Emmanuel (text: 15th? century; tune: Thomas Helmore)
• Anthem: There is a flower (text: 15th century; tune: John Rutter)
• Anthem: Ave, maria stella (text: 8th century; tune: Owain Park)
• Hymn: On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry (text; Charles Coffin; tune: Winchester New)
• Anthem: Wachet auf! (text, tune: Phillip Nicolai; arranged by J.S. Bach)
• Anthem: E’en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come (text: Ruth Manz; tune: Paul Manz)
• Hymn: Come, thou long expected Jesus (text; Charles Wesley; tune: John Stainer)
• Anthem: Benedicamus Domino (text: 15th century; tune: Peter Warlock)
• Hymn: Lo! he comes with clouds descending (text: Charles Wesley; tune: Olivers)
• Anthem: Puer natus est

The hymns are not included in the program, because the arrangements by David Wilcocks (1919-2015) and various descants are not in the public domain.

When school is in session, they broadcast live (and recorded) on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Their next live broadcast will be January 22, 2017.

Favorite recording of the all-time favorite All Saints hymn

Of course, it wouldn’t be All Saints’ Day without Ralph Vaughan Williams' greatest hit, “For All the Saints.”

Unlike my daughter, my work schedule did not allow me to attend services and hear this hymn live this week. So on the way to work I decided to look for what recordings I had on my laptop among the 426 hymns.

I found four distinct performances. All were from English choirs using (as far as I could tell) boys for the trebles. Here the the performances, ordered from most basic to most ornate:

1. Worcester Cathedral Choir, from the “Vaughan Williams: Hymns and Choral Music” (3 verses, 2:12). Other than only three verses, a model of what I would want a small church choir or medium-sized congregation to do
2. Trinity College Choir, Cambridge, from “A Vaughan Williams Hymnal” (8 verses, 5:32) has several variations, including men only and an a capella verse. This is the straight-up version that I would hold as the aspirational goal for all but the most experienced church choir.
3. Wells Cathedral Choir, from “Christ Triumphant: The English Hymn 1” (6 verses, 4:23) is similar, but a more pronounced retard at the end.
4. Wells Cathedral Choir, from “Favourite Hymns from Wells Cathedral” (6 verses, 5:03) is all out, with trumpet flourishes before the beginning, between the 5th and 6th verses, and with trumpets and organ blasting over the choir in the final verse.

The first three have an almost identical tempo of 0:40 per verse, while the last one is noticeably slower (10% by my copy of iTunes).

Overall, I think I like #2 the best, in between #1 and #3. While #4 would probably be the one I’d prefer to experience live in a cathedral — or perhaps blaring on my high-end stereo in the music room — it’s just not the same with headphones on my laptop or iPod, and the drama actually gets a little tedious after a while.

Update: If you listen closely to these English choirs, you’ll notice a difference from The English Hymnal (#641) original and American practice. The choirs match this text in verse 1 of TEH:

For all the Saints who from their labours rest,
Who thee by faith before the world the confest,
Thy name, O Jesu, be forever blest,
Allieluya, Alleiluya!

So while there are obvious spelling differences, when listening it is noticeable that the English sing “O Jesu” rather than the “O Jesus” used with this text and RVW’s Sine Nomine in Hymnal 1940 (#126.1) or Hymnal 1982 (#287).

It turns out Hymnal 1916 was first American hymnal to use “O Jesus,” but still used the older 1868 tune (Sarum) which was retained in H40 (#126.2). When I went back to Hymnal 1892, not surprisingly it has Sarum — it couldn’t know about the tune that Vaughan Williams composed in 1906 for TEH — but it used the British “Jesu” (while keeping the other American spellings).