I have never been able to go up the Octagon in Ely Cathedral before, but it is now open to the public on guided tours, and some of us in the Cathedral Chamber Choir seized the chance to do so on our recent choir tour. If you have a head for heights you get wonderful views back down into the building and the painted angels are surprisingly broad-brushed when seen at close hand.
But we were there to sing, and I joined the choir part way through its Cathedral week. On Friday we sang an unaccompanied service (Gibbons and Byrd) in the Lady Chapel to a congregation ranged round the walls. I’d forgotten just how resonant a building this is.
Saturday was a bit of a wallow with Blair in B minor and Brahms’ How lovely are Thy dwellings.
On Sunday we gave the premiere of a Missa Brevis by our conductor, Matthew O’Donovan. Actually it’s not clear that it was the premiere because it was also being performed at a service that morning in Germany, conducted by another member of the choir. But our performance was complete (the Cathedral varied its usual liturgical pattern to allow us to sing both Kyrie and Gloria). It’s an intriguing mix of French-style choral and organ writing with some vigorous Latin American-influenced rhythms.
Our final evensong was a big sing – Dyson in D and Give unto the Lord by Elgar.
We stayed in Bishop Woodforde House, which was comfortable and gave us a generous breakfast each morning. And I think this is the first Cathedral week I’ve been on where the choir got two drinks parties!
There are some audio clips (including parts of the Friday Evensong and Sunday Eucharist) on the choir’s web site (go to the ‘visits’ tab and look for Ely).