This year's Kings College Cambridge carols

I just got through listening to the 2025 edition of the iconic Lessons & Carols service from King’s College Cambridge, broadcast live by the BBC since 1928. (KCC published a 16-page history of the service for this year’s broadcast).

This is the 7th year the choir has been led by Daniel Hyde, who took over in 2019 before the untimely death of Stephen Cleobury (1948-2019). 

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. I’m a sentimental traditionalist, but I get that the goal of any music director — and certainly the temporary trustee of this historic treasure — must do things that are novel and creative, or at least mix it up with unfamiliar classics. At the same time, I have often found it jarring when an in-your-face dissonant modernity was thrown in with the most familiar and influential sacred music of the English-speaking church.

This year, as in 2023 under Daniel Hyde, there was both new content but continuity with what made the service so well-loved and influential for more than a century.

This Year’s Music

I looked up all the music in the booklet. Here is what was performed (hymns in bold)

1. Once in royal David’s city. Irby. Henry Gauntlett, harm. Arthur Henry Mann†. descant (V6) David Willcocks†
2. The blessed son of God. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1967)
3. Adam lay ybounden. Boris Ord† (1957)
4. Nowell, Nowell, Nowell. Elizabeth Maconchy (1967)
5. On Christmas night all Christians sing. Sussex Carol. arr. Philip Ledger† (1978)
6. It came upon the midnight clear. Noel. adapt. Arthur Sullivan, descant (V4) John Scott
7. The Darkling Thrush. Rachel Portman (2025)§
8. The Lamb. John Tavener (1982)
9. Ave Maria. Anton Bruckner (1861)
10. There is no rose of such virtue. arr. John Stevens (1963)
11. A boy was born. Benjamin Britten (1933/1955)
12. Unto us is born a Son. Puer Nobis. from Piæ Cantiones, arr. David Willcocks†
13. Nativity Carol. John Rutter. (1963)
14. The Shepherds' Farewell. from Hector Berlioz, L’Enfance du Christ, Op.25.
15. Dormi, Jesu! John Rutter (1999)§
16. I saw three ships. arr. Stuart Nicholson
17. O come, all ye faithful. Adeste, fideles. John Francis Wade. arr. and descant (V6) David Willcocks†, descant (V7) Daniel Hyde†
18. Hark! the herald-angels sing. Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn. descant (V3) David Willcocks†

† KCC composer. § KCC commissioned

Reflections

For congregational singing, the most important thing was that (as in normal years) there were five congregation hymns for those lucky enough to attend. This year, the melody is printed in the booklet (but as always in England, no harmony for the congregation). Four of the five had a descant, including the double descant for “O come all ye faithful.”

"Unto us is born” had revised harmony in the final verse rather than pure descant; I realize that the Willcocks arrangement is a local favorite, but I don’t care for V3 and don’t find it an improvement over the original. Ditto for the Nicholson arrangement of “I saw three ships.” OTOH, the Ledger arrangement of Sussex Carol was and is a keeper, as is Stevens’ adaptation of “There is no rose.”

First, the elephant in the room. The new carol by Rachel Portman (OBE) from a text by Thomas Hardy was surprisingly good — something worth considering for a parish service. Unlike the normal transgressive modern music by “proper” composers, this Academy Award-winning film score composer has an ear for harmony and thus found a reasonable medium between noveaux and familiar. Similarly, the 1967 carol by Elizabeth Maconchy was unfamiliar but definitely fun. I’ll take both of these over Judith Weir any day. 

Another surprise was the prominence of Sir John Rutter, who turned 80 in September. I love much of his work, particularly the Requiem. However, on an unfamiliar piece, I just never know which Rutter will show up: like Mahler or Stravinsky, it can be a tonal piece with novel and sparing dissonances, or it can be so out there that I’ll flip the station. I already knew and loved “Dormi Jesu,” which was written for KCC but not for Lessons & Carols; his Nativity Carol was also quite nice. I generally find Britten even less tonal, and so “A boy was born” was also pleasant surprise.

It was also great to get back the Boris Ord version of “Adam lay ybounden,” the one I sang as a choirboy in the 1960s with the St. Paul’s Choristers in San Diego. I’m certainly glad to be rid of the Peter Warlock (1894-1930) version — sung by KCC in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2022 — which was written by a composer with an affinity for the demonic.

The other type of surprise (disappointment) was the classical music. I spent four years as a music minor in college (across three majors) and it was a very formative period of my life. Tavener is a brilliant composer, but I guess like Britten I like (grok) some of it and not others; today was the latter. In contrast, I rarely like Bruckner and today was no exception.

What was really surprising was the Berlioz: I love Hector stocked up on his key works my freshman year, and took a 4-person seminar on him my senior year. This particular carol is lyric, but the melody from his sacred oratorio L’Enfance du Christ doesn’t seem any more sacred than “White Christmas.”

I enjoyed the works by two other English composers. I had never heard “The blessed son of God,” by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), but it was tasteful, solemn and reverent. But it felt odd to hear it four pieces before Noel — the British tune for this American text and the second most famous hymn of Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) — given RVW’s (largely successful) effort to banish Sullivan. (I just finished an article on Sullivan’s hymns and will say more when it is published).

References

• Peter Relph, "A list of carols commissioned for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge, 1983 - Present,” updated Dec. 8, 2025, https://www.peterrelph.com/post/a-list-of-new-music-commissioned-for-the-festival-of-nine-lessons-and-carols-at-king-s-college-camb 
• David Sinden, “Carols”, updated Dec. 24, 2025. https://www.sinden.org/carols  (the definitive resource for comparing the recent KCC and St. John’s carol service music)

Congregational singing at Advent lessons & carols

This weekend, our family attended an Advent lessons and carols at another church where we knew some people. I normally just go to the one at my church, so it was a chance to see how other people interpret it.

I’m not sure there is a standard set of lessons for Advent lessons (as King’s College Cambridge has set the standard for Christmas lessons). While the lessons differed from St. John’s Cambridge, I did find a 2018 Advent L&C service with identical lessons (and other US churches that had nearly-identical lists):

1. Genesis 3:1-15
2. Isaiah 40:1-11
3. Jeremiah 31:31-34
4. Micah 5:2-4
5. Isaiah 11:1-9
6. Zephaniah 3:14-18
7. Luke 1:26-38

Congregational Singing

One great thing was that this church has a strong music tradition (apparently with a special fund) and one that emphasizes congregational singing. We sat about 1/3 of the way from the front, and there was strong singing throughout. In contrast, this month at my home parish, I can recall the congregation was tenative on the early verses of some hymns (perhaps less familiar) until they got the hang of it.

The music director had two hymns where verse 3 was a capella, and two other hymns where men and women alternated. This is not rocket science, so I'm surprised more parishes don’t do this, particularly on longer hymns.

With the seven lessons, there were only four choir-only pieces. I only recognized one: the Peter Warlock version of “Adam Lay Y Bounden,” which KCC did on Christmas Eve in 2002, 2004, and 2006 (according to David Sindon’s latest report). My wife asked me if this is the one that I and her younger brothers sang as St. Paul's Choristers in San Diego decades ago, and I said no. I went to my KCC iTunes playlist, and we did the more tonal Boris Ord version (that both our daughter and I prefer). Still, a reasonable choice, and the Brahms anthem “The White Dove” had possibilities.

Hymnal 1982

There was a great choice of hymns and lots of chances for the congregational to sing. However, this was a service at a parish where they use my least favorite hymnal, Hymnal 1982 (when compared to Hymnal 1940, Magnify the Lord or even Sing Unto the Lord). And the music we sang out of the booklet (straight from H82) was a reminder why.

Here are the six hymns that we sang:

1. O come, O come Emmanuel to Veni Emmanuel. In 2018, I posted a detailed discussion of how (unlike H40 and also MTL) Hymnal 1982’s idiosyncratic phrasing (breaks only on every other phrase) is unnatural and hard to sing, and my daughter & I felt it again this week. There is a compromise position, which I heard this fall at another H82 parish for an ordination: do a lift (gentle pause) in the middle of the doubled phrase, to keep the energy moving forward but allow everyone to catch their breath. Instead, we plowed like a metronome to the end of the long phrase. To its credit, SuTL uses the H82 notational look, but maintains two beats at the end of every phrase. (yes!)
2. Comfort, Comfort me my people. A worthy hymn that's not in H40, but in H82, MTL and SUtL. However, H82 (as is its wont) omits the harmony for the pews and the choir, while both MTL and SUtL include the 4-part harmonization (which SUtL attributes to "Johann Jeep, 1659"). (The tune is variously listed as Genevan 42, Psalm 42, or Freu Dich Sehr.)
3. Savior of the Nations, Come! This Martin Luther adaption of an Ambrose (4th century) text is sadly not in H40. Both H82 and SUtL use Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland without harmony (sigh), while MTL includes four parts for a different tune, Antioch. The former is more familiar — but needs parts.
4. Come thous long expected Jesus. Everyone has Wesley's text with the familiar Stuttgart. That wasn't so hard, was it?
5. Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding. Everyone uses Caswall's translation with Merton. Ditto.
6. Lo! he comes with clouds descending. This is where my daughter and I agreed to disagree. I prefer the four part St Thomas, while our true Anglophile loves the flowing Helmsley sung by all the English choirs. All four hymnals provide both (the correct choice), leaving it to the choirmaster or priest to decide. However, H82 omits the harmony for Helmsley. H40 directs unison but the organ part becomes SATB in MTL. SUtL follows MTL, except (for an added treat) includes the Rutter descant(!) on verse 4.

At this week's service, there was the other (milder) disappointment: no descants! And I can't blame that on H82, because descants are a choir thing that doesn't require (although can be helped by) a hymnal descant. Our parish is an H40 parish, but we are blessed with descants several times a month, particularly during festal season.

The Rutter descant for Helmsley is beautiful, but I can't find an Oxbridge descant for Veni Emmanuel. The Oxford Book of Descants includes one by Robert Gower, and in my library books by Antony Baldwin and Charles Webb include one. For this historic plainchant, I have heard (and prefer) a descant sung only on the last two refrains — providing additional emphasis to our vow that "Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel."

References

David Sindon, “Carol Service Spreadsheets,”  https://www.sinden.org/carols/

J.W. West, "Veni Emmanuel out of sync thanks to Hymnal 1982," December 19, 2018, https://anglicanmusic.blogspot.com/2018/12/veni-emmanuel-out-of-sync-thanks-to.html