I believe that Chichester Cathedral is the only Church of England Cathedral in England with a detached bell-tower.* It’s not in the best of shape, being largely covered in netting at the moment. Perhaps it’s awaiting the attention of the Cathedral’s surveyor of a few years ago, Donald Buttress (could there be a better name?).
I spent two days at the end of the Cathedral Chamber Choir’s week there, getting up at 5 a.m. in order to make the Saturday morning rehearsal. I needed every minute because there was quite a bit of new music for me. Firstly a piece from my wishlist, Parry’s ‘Great’ service. This was only published in the 1980’s which may explain its gradual entry into the repertoire. Actually now I’ve sung it I rather wonder why I was so desperate to do so, but at least I have performed it now. The anthem was also one I’d never sung before, although I heard it earlier this year, Bach’s O Jesu Christ, meins Leben Licht.
On Sunday we paired the Vierne Messe Solennelle with an Ave Verum by Dupré, which was also new to me. It felt like a piece for women’s voices which had been rewritten for four-part choir. At Matins and Evensong we sang a recently-written set of Responses by our conductor, Matthew O’Donovan. Chichester does not patronise visiting choirs by cutting down on the full psalms for the day, so we had plenty of psalmody on Saturday. Sunday evensong posed the greatest challenge; we had booked an organist for the Sunday services but during lunchtime he had an accident and wasn’t able to play evensong. We were able to present an unchanged programme, with our conductor now playing the organ and one of our other conductors conducting rather than singing. The anthem was Elgar’s Great is the Lord, which I tend to confuse with Give unto the Lord and which I was singing for the first time, paired with Howells’ ‘Westminster’ canticles. Emergency re-arrangement of this kind is surely one of the greatest tests of a choir!
We stayed at the University of Chichester’s Bishop Otter College campus. It was an all too brief visit, and not as social as usual – I found myself eating alone more than I’d have liked. Not only are shared meals more fun, but this is also when I get a feel for where people would like to go on future visits, which I’m now planning.
*This is no longer true – it has been pointed out to me that St Edmundsbury has a brand new separate bell-tower, and Chester has had one since the 1970’s. On a recent visit to Salisbury I learned that there used to be a bell-tower there too.
While its true St Edmundsbury Cathedral has a magnificent new Tower – completed in 2005 – it is not a bell tower. The separate Norman bell tower was built between 1120 and 1148.
The Cathedral Chamber Choir is likely to visit St Edmundsbury in 2011 so we can look at the towers then. I hope the rather lovely Georgian houses South of the cathedral which I saw standing semi-derelict on a previous visit are now being put to good use.