Being a chorister is the finest way to get Christian liturgy into your bones. Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
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In April I wrote about the prospect of Easter 2020 being an Easter unlike any other. As I said then, with the churches shut and services either cancelled or live-streamed from empty buildings, people were going to have to find their own places for contemplation. Now, unfathomable though it might have seemed back in April, most of the UK is once again in total or near lockdown.
Not only have many of the churches remained closed, but unlike Giles Fraser’s, many — it is now clear — will not be reopening. Church administrators have used the opportunity that the Covid crisis has presented to do some of the things they had wanted to do anyway. My own family’s church, where worship had been continual for some 900 years, was closed by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster during this crisis: the choir dissolved, the congregation disbanded and all future services cancelled.
As it happens, St Margaret’s Westminster was the church in which I sang as a chorister, and as everyone else who has been through that experience will know, singing in a choir is not only one of the best ways to learn music but one of the finest ways for the liturgy and fabric of the Church to get into your bones.
Although Easter may be the most important festival for Christians, today’s feast is the most significant for cultural Christians. For many, the Christmas service was the only time in the year that they would go through the doors of their local church. Midnight Mass, or the service of Nine Lessons and Carols, would suddenly be filled with people who the church hadn’t seen for a year. And in a way that makes the absence of services and carol singing this year even sadder still. People who were only holding on to the church by a thread risk having that last thread frayed as well.
So I thought that, as at Easter, I would list some of the musical moments that always made Christmas special for me. I have — you might note — avoided all the most obvious ones. Anyone can find “Hark the Herald”, “O come, all ye faithful” and company on Spotify or YouTube. For many of us the beginning of Christmas was always the first notes of “Once in Royal David’s City” floating through the church, with the congregation and choir holding their cold breath in the hope that the chorister soloist wouldn’t go wrong.
But, as I say, you can find these easily. The selection below doesn’t include any rarities, but it includes music that shows that the Christmas music tradition is an ancient and very much a living thing. Even as we close a year in which singing has been made impossible.
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SubscribeThank you Douglas, for this and so many other great pieces this year, not to mention your appearances with Bret Weinstein, Michael Malice and others. Nobody understands and describes the ongoing collapse of the western mind in quite the way that you do.
There are some great tips here, and I’m delighted to know that you like Messiaen, whose Quartet For The End Of Time (I think that’s the correct title) is one of my favourite pieces of music – a masterpiece of anticipation and release not unlike Wayne Rooney’s free kick goal against Norwich City earlier this season.
The piece that I play endlessly at this time of year, always in the background when hosting, is Mozart’s Grand Partita, KVK 361. It is not a Christmas piece, but it always feels very Christmassy to me and everyone else.
Love thy neighbor.
Wear a mask.
Merry Christmas.
Thankyou Douglas. You have once again given support to my belief that you are one of the commentators I most admire in this day and age. If you like choir and organ you should try David Briggs, Stephen Layton and the Trinity College Choir Mass for Notre Dame. Totally ethereal.
I fear that once Churches are allowed to re -open, the fall in numbers attending Church will be huge. Some people will forever feel frightened of being in close company with relative strangers. The lockdown will have blessed them with life-long OCD or other anxiety disorder. But another portion will have received a message form the Church itself, that physical attendance is not that important. For example in the Catholic Church attendance at Sunday Mass and on Holy Days of Obligation is compulsory. For the last 9 months however Catholics have been told it isn’t. They have been invited to be spectators at a TV event. A message has been sent about how the Church itself regards the Mass. They should not be surprised if they never see attendance very much reduced.
In the true spirit of Christmas, thanks to Douglas Murray for his fine piece. It will probably never happen again, such are his views, but I offer it gladly today.
The Coventry Carol had me in tears. So beautiful. There is something about medieval music that always gets me! As for Messiaen, I’m afraid I don’t share your love for his organ works. Give me some Buxtehude any day of the week; BuxWV218 ‘Te Deum Laudamus’ is particularly haunting, joyful, and epic all at the same time.
Apropos of Buxtehude, back in the late 1980s somebody (I think it was The independent when it was still a credible organ (excuse the pun)) ran a competition in which entrants wrote a short biography of a famous person, deliberately downplaying their achievements or damning them with faint praise. Somebody sent in a great entry for Bach, the killer line in which was ‘His technique as an organist was said to rival that of Buxtehude’.
Haha. Well, without him we wouldn’t have had Bach, so I think he must be celebrated for his teaching as well as his own work!
I’m a little bored with carols by now, but God bless you, Douglas, for leading me to the splendid Messaien recording.
Wonderful piece as a chorister who has sung many of these pieces to have them placed before me whilst away is much appreciated.
This piece may not be in the same category musically as some of those mentioned here, but it nonetheless moved me and others I told of it: The London African Gospel Choir singing Claudius Afolabi Siffre’s “Something inside so strong” for Julian Assange in front of Belmarsh prison last night, Christmas Eve. On Youtube.
Dear Mr. Murray, I am in the middle of reading your wonderful book, “The Madness of Crowds”. I would dearly love to get in touch with you by e-mail. Please contact me.
Try contacting him via his publisher.
He has a website, douglasmurray dot net, with a page labelled ‘Contact’ via which you can apparently do just that.
Thanks, Mr. Perkins. I’ve just written to him there.
This
I. f*****g. HATE. Darke’s twee, syrupy perversion of In The Bleak Midwinter. Completely destroys the meaning, the feeling the words generate. It’s Holst every time, by a country mile.
The rest I wouldn’t quarrel with, though I’ve heard pieces of Messiaen I prefer; this seems to descend into muddle too often to my ear (which will be different to others of course). He does convey the majesty & mystery of religious experience in an unparalleled way, only equalled by the great masters such as Bach.
Ambience!
This is such a lovely piece, Douglas. Thank you so much.
Although not generally a churchgoer myself, I lament very greatly the savage attitude of the current political, scientific and (let us be clear) health authorities, under the dubious excuse of a not especially deadly respiratory virus, towards the rights of churches and churchgoers to choose to continue to practice their faith in whatever manner they see fit, exercising their own judgment as to whether they wish to take the alleged risk of “disablement or death by covid.”
The simple question constantly evaded and ignored by all the authorities, both scientific/health and government, is as we by clear official admission have an epidemic that only has serious consequences on a very small minority of anyone but older or already seriously debilitated people, why are we not simply taking measures to protect the old and vulnerable, and letting everybody else get on with their life as normal?
This simple question needs to be asked over and over until the faces of those in authority turn red with shame and embarrassment, as I am 100% certain after studying all the evidence for 9 months or more now, that those authorities have absolutely no satisfactory answers to this question.
My own personal guess at to the real reasons this is being done are firstly, because those in and around government are likely to get very rich thereby due to their official or unofficial links with the vaccine and other healthcare providers; and secondly, governments are happy all round the world to use this allegedly unusually deadly pandemic as an excuse to exercise far more control over their populations, especially in regard of trying to shut down the (prior to lockdown) ever increasing protests against social and economic inequality, as the gap between rich and poor has got to such epic proportions, and shows every sign of getting worse, such that even in advanced Western nations like Britain, the children of even middle class professionals have difficulty getting on the housing ladder, and finding well paid jobs and opportunities, such that they can live a “normal” independent life.
Yes, I always preferred the Darke version to Holst’s although I like both.
Recently I have been listening to Polish carols, kolędy, as there is a staggering number and some of them are exquisite such as Lulajże Jezuniu. They should be much better known in Western Europe and elsewhere.
yeah nice one