JOY
TO THE WORLD
Chelmsford
Singers at St John the Baptist Danbury
20.12.2014
Making
his first visit to the Church on the Hill, James Davy proved a genial
host for this seasonal mix of old and new.
Beginning
with a spectacular setting
of Joy to the World from the choir, sounding fresh and enthusiastic
in the charming, if slightly chilly,
church.
Other choral highlights were a crisply sung Sir Christemas, Sund's
tender Newborn Child [sung in the original Swedish] and
the timeless simplicity of Davy's own arrangement of There Is No
Rose, an
English carol almost as ancient as this medieval building.
The
pews were packed; the congregational singing was impressive, too,
joining the choir in a suitably schmaltzy version of White Christmas,
and John Rutter's imaginative I Saw Three Ships, with tuneful
whistling from the assembled gentlemen Josephs.
Weston
Jennings, accompanying on piano and organ, gave us a Baroque
Pastorale solo, and there were readings from Dylan Thomas and Robert
Bridges, whose
Christmas Eve 1913 seemed especially appropriate for this country
church.
The
old words came to me
by
the riches of time
Mellow’d
and transfigured
as
I stood on the hill
Heark’ning
in the aspect
of
th’ eternal silence.
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