This Christmas I did some outdoor carol singing, something I don’t do every year. First came half an hour of carols to the shoppers at Bath’s Christmas market. We got some appreciative comments as we explored the limits of the Carols for Choirs arrangements for unaccompanied singing. The tricky one is the arrangement of We wish you a merry Christmas which goes up to a top B flat!
(I once did some pre-Christmas carol singing in one of the main shopping arcades in Manchester, for which the choir funds received a handsome cheque. ‘Don’t think of the notes’, our conductor said, ‘think of the banknotes!’).
On Christmas Eve it was carol singing door to door in the village where we are spending Christmas. In previous years the leader of the group tended to pitch the carols very low, forcing me to sing bits an octave up. This time it had been taken over by a tenor, so no such problem. We raised nearly a hundred pounds for charity.
In between I sang at St. Mary’s Bathwick’s Nine Lessons and Carols service, performing alongside ‘Bathwick Brass’ (who this year included a percussionist). I nearly pulled out of this because I’d had little voice the previous week. It’s a few years since I cancelled a singing engagement altogether for this sort of reason, though there have arguably been times – particularly in autumn 2004 – when I should have done. This time, as usual, the low notes were the first to go and the quiet high notes were the last to come back.
As organist and choirmaster of St. Mary’s, Bathwick, I think it’s high time that I penned a public note of appreciation of Virginia’s support of the choir, particularly at the Community Carol Service each year. It’s a great encouragement to us all to have such an enthusiastic friend to join us on these big occasions: long may we all enjoy reading of her musical exploits!
Colin Hunt