Sunday, December 15, 2013

Advent Carol Service
Trinity College Chapel
Cambridge, England



Prelude on Es ist ein Reis' entsprungen - Brahms
The Advent Matins Responsory - Richard Marlow
Creator of the stars of night - Plainsong
Hymn: Of the Father's heart begotten - arr Willcocks
Hymn: Come, thou Redeemer of the earth  - arr Willcocks
There is no rose  - Anon arr Stevens
Hymn:  O come, O come, Emmanuel  - arr Willcocks
Bogoróditse Djévo  - Part
Ave Maria - Parsons
Hymn: On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry - arr Ledger
Wachet auf! - Nicolai arr Bach
E'en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come - Paul Manz
Hymn: Come, thou long-expected Jesus
Seek him that maketh the seven stars - Jonathan Dove
Hymn: Lo, he comes with clouds descending
Puer natus est  - Plainsong
Brich an, o schönes Morgenlicht  - J.S. Bach
Organ voluntary: Possibly Marcel Dupré?



Conductor: Stephen Layton
Organ Scholars: Simon Bland and Jeremy Cole

For more information about the choir, please visit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoIz6veXL5g

10 comments:

  1. I left a post over at AoW's about my friend NG who applied to King's College, got accepted to Trinity, but then transferred to Churchill College.

    I wonder what kind of songs they sing their.

    from Wikipedia (on the subject of Churchill College, Cambridge):

    At the farthest end of the college grounds is the Chapel. Sheppard's original design placed it within the main building complex near the college main entrance. The idea of having a religious building within a modern, scientifically-oriented academic institution deeply annoyed some of the original fellows, leading to the resignation of Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick in protest. Eventually a compromise was found: the chapel was sited just to the west of the Sheppard Flats, and funded and managed separately from the rest of the College itself, being tactfully referred to as "the Chapel at Churchill College". The chimney of the heating system at the front of the college substitutes visually for the missing chapel tower.

    Crick had agreed to become a fellow on the basis that no chapel be placed at Churchill. A donation was later made by Lord Beaumont of Whitley to Churchill College for the establishment of one, and the majority of fellows voted in favour of it. Sir Winston Churchill wrote to him saying that no-one need enter the chapel unless they wished to do so, and therefore it did not need to be a problem. Crick, in short order, replied with a letter dated 12 October 1961 accompanied by a cheque for 10 Guineas saying that, if that were the case, the enclosed money should be used for the establishment of a brothel. This story was repeated by Crick in an interview with Matt Ridley (Crick's biographer), quotes from which are reported in the Daily Telegraph.

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  2. So, Thersites, the Curse of Godless Modernity has planted itself even at venerable old Cambridge, eh?

    Ironic that it Winston Churchill of all people was instrumental in the founding of an upstart institution obviously inferior in quality --architecturally, culturally and academically -- to the rest of the place.

    I read that the new college (started in 1958) covers far more ground than any of the other, more venerated segments of the institution. What a pity! From the photos it looks more like a cheap American trade school or Junior college in a jerkwater town than a proper part of Cambridge.

    Winston wanted it to be Britain's answer to MIT, didn't he?

    A shame it couldn't have been planted somewhere in the Midlands near a sooty old manufacturing city -- where such a place properly belongs.

    Sorry! But this unwelcome information was ill timed. It violates my idea of keeping the Spirit of the Season alive on these pages.

    Nothing personal, old friend. I'm just fed up with society in general. It's pathetic at best, surly and inconsiderate at worst. Stick around. Better days are sure to come. If not, we'll be shutting up shop again soon in the New Year.

    I've had to eliminate twice as many posts as I've permitted to stay. I don't suffer fools -- or vandals --- gladly.

    Hope things are going well for you and yours?

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  3. Oh, I meant to say earlier that it can't be an accident that CRICK rhymes with PRICK, can it?

    The Brash New Breed. How I hate them!

    PS: DID appreciate Zizek's article on the ultimate failure of Mandela's vision for South Africa. I have to give him credit at least for making an honest effort, but symbolism is never a proper substitute for substance, and the poor are just poor as they ever were. The Power Elite just has some new members, that's all.

    Always the way, isn't it?

    After all, look what has happened to US! The Founders must be spinning like tops in the graves.

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  4. What makes you think it academically inferior?

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  5. I didn't have time yesterday to listen to this. I shall make time to watch and listen in the next few days. I love this choir!

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  6. Good morning, AOW. It is possible to listen to selected parts, if you don't mind skipping around and hearing a raggedly cut, helter-skelter version.

    When I listened to it yesterday, was startled to learn that the "organ voluntary" (we would call it "the postlude") at the end was NOT the one listed in the program provided.

    I eagerly anticipated hearing the Great G-Major Prelude and Fugue of J.S. Bach, a particular favorite, and was sorely disappointed. What we get, instead, is a strikingly-brilliant-but-very modern toccata or toccata-like piece that sounds as though it may have been written by Marcel Dupres, possibly Louis Vierne or even Olivier Messiaen, though I doubt it's the last.

    I had to chuckle, because as a lifelong lover of serious music and long time organist, myself, I remember always feeling annoyed that the congregation seemed to think the postlude -- usually a florid, majestic work -- was their cue to start yapping. It bothered the hell out of me, even when I was a small boy attending church with my parents. I could NEVER understand why everyone didn't just stop dead in his tracks, stand at attention and LISTEN -- but ...

    Anyway, it struck as funny that even in such exalted surroundings as the chapel at Trinity college, Cambridge, the reaction was just the same -- YAPPING ferociously s soon as THE most brilliant music of the service began.

    It's that way with most things. People so often MISS the BEST things in life altogether, because they're too busy YAPPING or MOANING and GROANING they're rendered deaf and bind by their own foolish preoccupations.

    I know J.S. Bach, himself, suffered similarly from a general lck of understanding and appreciation n his day. There he was performing MIRACLES, and most people, if they thought about it at all, regarded his work as litle more than "background noise" that got in the way of their vain, banal, workaday preoccupations.

    The Brutal Ironies of Life!

    Really FUNNY, if you stop to THINK about it.

    HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

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  7. , the Curse of Godless Modernity has planted itself even at venerable old Cambridge, eh?

    Sorry. I'm an Oxford man. Cambridge is the very embodiement of godless modernity. :P

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  8. The Power Elite just has some new members, that's all.

    You would think...

    ...in British cabinets in the twentieth century, Oxford men and women outnumbered Cambridge graduates nearly two to one ... Of eleven prime ministers counting back from Tony Blair, eight were undergraduates at Oxford, and none were at Cambridge ... Oxford has been second to none as a gatekeeper to the political elite.

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  9. Sorry, Jez. Just noticed your question.

    Apparently, Churchill accepts those who attempted to enter Kings College and were rejected, and gives full scholarships to one who was accepted at Trinity bit not given such generous remuneration.

    I'm afraid I was guilty of flippancy. I do so dislike the impudent imposition of twentieth century "functional modernism" on venerable institutions be they religious, scholastic or commercial.

    I'm not really a Luddite, but plead guilty to being a Reactionary. If you saw my house you would understand, although we are not lacking for modern creature comforts all of which are discreetly hidden from view the way servants quarters used to be located below stairs." ;-)

    Like E.A. Robinson's Miniver Cheevy I was born too late, but at least I don't try to console myself with excessive doses of alcohol or worse forms if dissipation. I merely revel in the abundant riches left to us by the Old World.

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  10. I wouldn't take that as an indication of inferiority, all the colleges accept each others' candidates through pooling.

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