A ceremony of carols

This Christmas Eve, Saint Philip’s Saint Nicholas Choir and members of the Schola Cantorum will preside at the 7:00pm Nine Lessons and Carols service with Benjamin Britten’sCeremony of Carols.

This really is a remarkable work for three-part upper-voice choir, and one that Saint Philp’s is thrilled for the youths to be learning. Britten famously penned this work while on a steam-ship journey to America with Peter Pears and W. H. Auden in the 1940’s, which as Andrew Gant points out, was the same journey on which Britten penned his Hymn to St Cecilia—a highly original setting of Auden’s ingenious poem of the same name. (O Sing Unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music, Andrew Gant, University of Chicago Press, 2017, p. 362.)

Gant correctly surmises that though the text is “more conventional” than the Auden poem, the composition, complete with an evocative harp accompaniment, musically bears a “texture unique and delicious.” Indeed, Britten’s special gift for finding quirky musical grooves, memorable melodies, playful rounds, and occasionally pungent harmonic combinations make this collection of choral miniatures truly special.

Please join everyone for Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve, when Christine Vivona will join the Saint Nicholas Choir on the harp for a liturgical celebration with Britten’s Ceremony of Carols.

—Justin Appel, Director of Music