This year I’ve done/heard more carol services than usual; fortunately there was plenty of variety on offer. The festive marathon began with my singing at the Bathwick 9 Lessons, where there’d been a lot of illness in the soprano section. There were several settings which were completely new to me: John Marsh’s setting of Ding, Dong! Merrily on high (reminding me to contact him about the Lord Mayor’s Chapel Singers in the New Year), Our Blessed Lady’s Lullaby, a rather exposed piece by Bernard Rose, Dormi, Jesu by Dudley Holroyd, and A child is born in Bethlehem by Malcolm Archer, which seems to be well-known locally. Also some familiar numbers such as Ord’s Adam lay y-bounden and Here is the little door.
A few days later I heard the choir of Christ Church Bath perform among other things Tavener’s God is with us, a piece that is rather notorious for having a long unaccompanied section before the organ enters with a thunderous chord, although at least Tavener made the chord unrelated to what precedes, so there is some pitch latitude permitted. I’ve never sung it, so if they do it again I might try to get to insinuate myself!