As with three years ago, this year’s 9 lessons and carols service featured brass, but now there was also a percussion section which I was standing in front of. To balance this, some local big guns were drafted in to boost the choir.
There wasn’t anything totally new to me, but there were some pieces with potential pitfalls for the unwary. We sang the Holst Ave Maria again. Andrews’ Before Dawn has a straightforward tune for the sopranos, but with subtle changes in melody and rhythm between verses to fit different harmony and words.You have to watch tones and semitones carefully in the Harker arrangement of Away in a Manger. Sweelinck’s Hodie Christus natus est was a piece I last sang with the Exultate Singers a couple of years ago; the second soprano part has a trap on about the fourth page which has caught me out in the past, when it’s the only entry on the beat with one particular phrase. Once you know it’s there it’s easy enough not to fall into it. In fact that was true of all the difficulties I’ve mentioned.