It’s not every day you get to go to a 750th birthday event. I attended the dedication evensong for the new organ in Merton College Chapel in Oxford, at which one of my friends and contemporaries was preaching.
The choral pieces overlapped with what I’ve heard the choir sing on previous occasions, but the anthem was Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens, sung enthusiastically yet precisely, although there was a point when the ensemble with the organ failed for a few bars. There were lots of hymns for the congregation, and otiose descants (a common problem nowadays) were avoided. We had Psalm 150 to the gorgeous 5-part chant by Parratt.
The service ended with the congregation moving to the antechapel for the blessing of the organ by the Bishop of Oxford. Congregational procession is always a dodgy business in Church of England churches. It just doesn’t come very naturally to English people, who tend to shuffle around in an embarrassed way, many of them clutching coats and bags that they have brought in and don’t want to leave behind in their pew. The Bishop was very efficient anyway, though after the service the holy water was hastily wiped off lest it damage the instrument. Maybe he would have done better to use one of those misters that hairdressers have.
I hadn’t actually heard the choir singing from the choir stalls recently, because when I have attended broadcasts, they have stood in front of them and near the screen. The acoustic has the same trick as Bath Abbey, that you can be near the choir (I was in the next rank of stalls) but yet the sound appears to be coming from much further away. I notice that the Chapel now has discreet amplification, which on the whole the large Oxbridge chapels have tended to eschew.
It would have been nice, given that the service showcased the organ, to have had the pieces played before the service (some of which I recognised) listed in the order of service. (It turned out that they were listed in the Chapel music list for the term.) I’m not really qualified to comment on its sound except that it met with general approval. I haven’t yet heard it in French repertoire which requires a rather different sound and I had of course been a bit spoilt by hearing the newly restored Festival Hall organ the previous week. The service both began and concluded with a tinkle on its Zymbelstern.