I don’t think I’ve ever spent Christmas within easy reach of a Cathedral before. But this year I managed it by staying just outside St David’s, with a 10-minute stroll through some lanes to the Cathedral. I went to three services, sometimes accompanied by others in the family.<\/p>\n
I enjoyed the standard of singing, particularly from the trebles, but perhaps what was most striking musically were the organ improvisations at Midnight Mass – it’s a long time since I’ve heard any that extravagant. There were other incidental pleasures such as the apparently rather stylish Welsh translation of O little town of Bethlehem<\/i>, which preserves the internal rhymes in the third and seventh lines of each verse. George Malcolm’s Missa ad presepe<\/i>, which I introduced to Priory Voices. And a chance to go to Matins on the morning of Christmas Day.<\/p>\n
I’d make a couple of pleas:
\na) check that only the microphones that are needed are switched on. At the 9 Lessons, it was only after lesson 6 that I found out what the choir sounded like. Until a stray microphone was switched off at that point, all I could hear from where I was (right up at the east end) was the amplified voice of one of the tenor lay-clerks.<\/p>\n
b) one of your vergers on duty at Midnight Mass must be among the tallest men in St Davids. If he’d swapped places with the verger next to him and sat in the end of a row, he would not have blocked anyone’s view!<\/p>\n
This was also a useful opportunity to case the joint for the Ereigh Cantors’ weekend in St David’s next July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don’t think I’ve ever spent Christmas within easy reach of a Cathedral before. But this year I managed it by staying just outside St David’s, with a 10-minute stroll through some lanes to the Cathedral. I went to three … Continue reading