New CD of 2018 KCC Lessons & Carols service

The choir of King’s College Cambridge has released a CD of their complete service (with lessons) from last year’s Christmas Eve service, the 100th anniversary of the first Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s.

The CD, entitled (appropriately), “A Festival Of Nine Lessons & Carols: The Centenary Service,” was released on the captive King’s College label. It is available on CD from Amazon US or Amazon UK, as a SACD hybrid disk with both regular and surround sound. The digital download is available only on iTunes. Both include a PDF program booklet, which includes a small-format version of the seat bulletin as well as some general background information.

The download captures the last year’s complete service, as does the CD (with two exceptions†):

1. Once in royal Davids City (Congregation Hymn)
2. The Bidding Prayer, Lords Prayer and Benediction
3. Up! good Christen folk
4. First Lesson
5. Adam lay ybounden
6. Jesus Christ the apple tree
7. Second Lesson
8. In dulci jubilo
9. I Saw Three Ships†
10. Third Lesson
11. Nowell sing we
12. Unto us is born a Son (Congregation Hymn)
13. Fourth Lesson
14. A Spotless Rose
15. The Lamb
16. Fifth Lesson
17. Joys Seven
18. Bogorditse Dyevo
19. Sixth Lesson
20. What sweeter music
21. Stille Nacht
22. Seventh Lesson
23. In the bleak midwinter
24. While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night (Congregation Hymn)†
25. Eighth Lesson
26. O mercy divine
27. Sir Christmas
28. Ninth Lesson
29. O come, all ye faithful (Congregation Hymn)
30. Collect and Blessing
31. Hark! the herald angels sing (Congregation Hymn)
32. In dulci jubilo, BWV 729 (postlude)

† Included on iTunes but not CD; CD owners can use a special code to download the files in either WAV or MP3 format

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).