I joined the choir of St. Peter’s Caversham to sing a Saturday Evensong in Bath Abbey. Our canticles were Stanford in G and the introit and anthem were selected for Epiphany: Here is the Little Door by Howells, and Mendelssohn’s When Jesus our Lord. This latter made me regret how little of Christus Mendelssohn completed. Had he finished the oratorio, I’m sure it would have become a great choral society staple.
A week later I heard the girls of the Abbey choir singing evensong; nicely done, but I find upper-voice only services a little dull.
More recently I returned to my former church to sing at a funeral (curiously, during the 10+ years I went there, I don’t think I attended one!) We performed the Nunc from one of the canticle settings I used to sing there, Walmisley in D minor, and ignored the KJV psalm printed in the order of service in favour of the Coverdale pointed in the psalters. Not much had changed apart from the installation of some rather scratchy amplification, but the new priest failed the ‘week by week’ test. (When I hear this and related phrases in a sermon, I find myself switching off. They only ever occur in sermons, and are used in about half of the sermons I hear.)
Meanwhile I’d posted a comment on the blog run by one of the choirs who promised me an audition a few years ago, which produced a reply. It was clear though that they’d forgotten all about me, not even remembering whether I sang soprano or alto.
Re: “The week by week” test. Do you mean that the sermon actually contains the phrase “week by week”, or equivalent? That’s not something I’ve been aware of up to now, but I shall certainly listen out for it in future. I can’t immediately see why the inclusion of the phrase should be a predictor of a tedious sermon, though.
Robin
Yes, that’s the test. Of course it might not work north of the border. It doesn’t in itself make a sermon tedious, but suggests to me that the brain of the preacher may not have been fully engaged, and they are just repeating a phrase they’ve heard in lots of other sermons. It’s an interesting example of a phrase which I only ever hear in religious contexts, although it has no religious content in itself.