CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

Stondon Singers at the Priory Church of St Laurence

19.12.17

This year’s concert of carols – a cherished advent tradition for many – was a fine blend of familiar favourites and fresh discoveries.

A score of offerings, including four congregational carols. Beginning with the much-loved We Will Rock You, and ending with a setting of Tennyson by the Finnish composer Jussi Chydenius.

The central work was Cecilia McDowall’s Christmas Cantata, A Winter’s Night, a sequence of five contrasting seasonal pieces, with plenty of work for the organ, played by Michael Frith. The instrument also featured in an assertive modern arrangement of We Three Kings.

The choir produced a precise, balanced sound, with good support from the lower voices. Amongst many other festive pleasures, we enjoyed the Song of the Nuns of Chester, of which the manuscript survives from the fifteenth century – an excellent choice for this medieval church. A rare performance of Imogen Holst’s Out of Your Sleep, two charming, melodic pieces by Alan Bullard and Pierre Villette [an excellent performance of his Hymne a la Vierge] and The Truth Sent from Above for divided choir by the Singers’ conductor, Christopher Tinker. A setting moving in its simplicity, redolent of the ancient world of plainchant and the folk tradition from which the words spring.

Voices In The Mist

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The time draws near the birth of Christ:

The moon is hid; the night is still;

The Christmas bells from hill to hill

Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,

From far and near, on mead and moor,

Swell out and fail, as if a door

Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,

That now dilate, and now decrease,

Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

The Stondon Singers at the Priory Church, Blackmore

20.12.16

The passing of another year is marked by this annual Christmas treat; as so often, the last of the carol concerts in the calendar.

The Singers, conducted by Christopher Tinker, began with the fifteenth century simplicity of Busnois' Noel, Noel, Noel, written when the Augustinian priory here was at its most prosperous, and ended with an equally simple, equally moving My Lord Has Come, written in 2010 by Durham composer Will Todd.

Loyset Pieton, of whom little is known, worked in Dijon at the start of his sixteenth century career; his O Beata Infantia was a wonderful discovery. Other highlights of a varied programme were Alan Bullard's Shepherds, Guarding Your Flocks, premièred here a year ago, Malcolm Archer's A Little Child There Is Yborn, with its haunting Alleluias, a nimble arrangement by Mark Wilberg of Ding Dong Merrily, and the sweet harmonies of Gabriel Jackson's lilting Christ-child. Michael Frith was the accompanist at the organ.

The capacity crowd got a chance to sing, too, and after a rousing O Come All Ye Faithful, the Stondon's traditional Christmas encore, an a cappella Silent Night from the west end of the nave.

As Nick Alston pointed out in his introduction, a choir is not just for Christmas, and the Stondon Singers' busy diary for 2017 includes a Marian anthology in Queen of Heaven, Evensong in St Paul's Cathedral, and the eagerly awaited William Byrd Anniversary in Stondon Massey.

William Todd - My Lord has come  from , A Christmas Eucharist from Bath Abbey, 25th December 2015. directed by Peter King

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

Stondon Singers 

at the Priory Church of 

St Laurence

22.12.15

Full house this year for the Stondon Singers' traditional concert of carols and Christmas music. As usual, a bracing mix of old and new, the familiar and the discoveries, conducted and introduced by Christopher Tinker.

New to me was Jacob Handl, 16^th century Slovene, whose Mirabile Mysterium was a challenging combination of the archaic and the modern. The evening ended with a favourite of mine since school days, Peter Cornelius's The Three Kings, sung from the west end of this ancient church.

A première: Alan Bullard's attractive setting of Shepherds Guarding Your Flocks, followed by Berlioz' Shepherds' Farewell. Two twentieth century pieces, beautiful in their simplicity, Rutter's Candlelit Carol and Britten's Hymn To The Virgin, with English and Latin alternating antiphonally.

Mark Ellis was the soloist in Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols, splendidly performed, with Michael Frith at the organ. It concludes with an old version of a well-known carol from Somerset – let the last verse stand as season's greetings to you all:

God bless the ruler of this house,
And long on may he reign,
Many happy Christmases
He live to see again!
God bless our generation,
Who live both far and near,
And we wish them a happy, a happy New Year.

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

The Stondon Singers at the Priory Church

16.12.2014

A delicate Christmas pot-pourri from this exceptional chamber choir, directed by Christopher Tinker.

The centrepiece was In Terra Pax, in which Gerald Finzi encases words from Matthew's Gospel in a poem by Robert Bridges, placing the Bible story in an English countryside setting. Beautifully sung here, with the significant solos – the Poet and the Angel - impressively handled by Mark Ellis and Michelle Arthur. And Michael Frith at the organ valiantly deputizing for the orchestra.

A similar theme in Peter Warlock's Bethlehem Down, which, like Jesus Christ The Apple Tree, featured exquisitely modulated pianissimo passages.

Tinker's own setting of I Saw A Maiden was tenderly phrased, and the folk-inspired Scots Nativity by Colchester composer Alan Bullard had a movingly eloquent simplicity.

There was a new Holly and the Ivy from Matthew Owens, and a different In Dulci Jubilo, “a multi-layered cake”, with a high soprano line the frosting on top.

We had several chances to raise our voices, from Advent hymn to Adeste Fideles, and the evening was bookended by Es Ist Ein Ros' – first in the Praetorius original, then in a magical, mystical arrangement by Jan Sandstrom, its beautifully sustained notes floating up to the ancient rafters.

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

CHRISTMAS AT BLACKMORE

The Stondon Singers in the Priory Church

18.12.2012

History and tradition were respected at St Laurence this year: ending with Stille Nacht to send us off into the night, and beginning with Gaudete, Ben Parry's arrangement of an ancient tune which may well have echoed round these walls when the great Priory still dominated the village.

But there was a healthy injection of new music, too. Conductor Christopher Tinker led us through Matthew Owens' very different setting of The Holly and the Ivy, Thomas Hewitt Jones' What Child Is This, with its haunting motif [Michael Frith at the organ], Will Todd's My Lord Has Come, and Bob Chilcott's lively Sussex Carol arrangement, rhythmic and harmonically interesting, the tune often in the lower voices. All performed with care and commitment, the voices of this chamber choir blending effectively in these lovely surroundings.

The reading this year, by Mavis Holmes, was Kipling's Eddi's Service [where the congregation – "such as cared to attend" – were the Ox and the Ass] looking back to an early Christmas at St Wilfrid's in remotest Sussex, a church even older than Blackmore's ancient Priory.

Eddi, priest of St. Wilfrid
   In his chapel at Manhood End,
Ordered a midnight service
   For such as cared to attend.

But the Saxons were keeping Christmas,
   And the night was stormy as well.
Nobody came to service,
   Though Eddi rang the bell.

"'Wicked weather for walking,"
   Said Eddi of Manhood End.
"But I must go on with the service
   For such as care to attend."

The altar-lamps were lighted, --
   An old marsh-donkey came,
Bold as a guest invited,
   And stared at the guttering flame.

The storm beat on at the windows,
   The water splashed on the floor,
And a wet, yoke-weary bullock
   Pushed in through the open door.

"How do I know what is greatest,
   How do I know what is least?
That is My Father's business,"
   Said Eddi, Wilfrid's priest.

"But -- three are gathered together --
   Listen to me and attend.
I bring good news, my brethren!"
   Said Eddi of Manhood End.

And he told the Ox of a Manger
   And a Stall in Bethlehem,
And he spoke to the Ass of a Rider,
   That rode to Jerusalem.

They steamed and dripped in the chancel,
   They listened and never stirred,
While, just as though they were Bishops,
   Eddi preached them The World,

Till the gale blew off on the marshes
   And the windows showed the day,
And the Ox and the Ass together
   Wheeled and clattered away.

And when the Saxons mocked him,
   Said Eddi of Manhood End,
"I dare not shut His chapel
   On such as care to attend."