For the first time in ages I went to evensong at Bath Abbey, sung by a visiting choir in residence for the weekend, in this case the University of Bristol Church Choir. They proved to be one of the better such choirs I’ve heard at the Abbey, with nice tone, balance and tuning. I felt they could have afforded to be more ambitious in their choice of music and the quality of performance would not have suffered. It was also good to see a (clergy) friend in the congregation, so I could sit with someone who was participating fully. But there were three things that stopped this service from being an uplifting occasion.
Firstly, it was sad only to be given 8 verses of Ps. 136 for the psalmody. Why could this more than competent choir not have sung the whole psalm? It’s not particularly long and the rest of it doesn’t say anything nasty. As it was, it stopped abruptly, so much so that God was praised for creating the sun, but never got round to the moon or the stars. Evensong just isn’t evensong if there’s only a handful of verses from an abridged psalm. It’s patronising to the congregation to assume that people can’t handle listening to 20-odd verses of Anglican chant, and the psalms are complete poems and should be treated as such (OK, apart from 119).
I also winced when the hymn was announced. I’d been expecting a seasonal hymn, suitable for the first week of Lent, but we got The day Thou gavest. I hope we haven’t returned to the days when this hymn was relentlessly sung at Saturday evensong at Bath Abbey throughout the liturgical year, without thought for the regular worshippers at this service (there are some). My patience with it ran out long ago as a result.
Finally – I suspect this was not intentional, but the continuous video showcasing the Abbey’s activities in the North transept wasn’t turned off during the service, even though there was no one there to watch it. It was distracting to have it flickering at the edge of my vision, although I managed to shift slightly so that someone in the pew in front blocked my view of it.
I have the impression that the service music for these Saturday evensongs is carefully planned, and the psalmody and hymnody neglected. But they are all part of the act of worship and should be chosen with the same care as the rest of the music.