More Candles

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 10 February 2011 12:00:21

This Sunday, the service was taken by one of our retired priests. He has a reassuring way of speaking which makes you believe that all is right with the world. All was right with the anthem, too (Elgar's 'Ave Verum Corpus') with a particularly lovely soprano solo, interspersed with SATB. The children dressed up as figures from the Candlemas story, so only a week behind the rest of us, but you can never have too many candles.

The choir outnumbered the congregation at Evensong, for the first time in many years. Perhaps they were saving themselves for next week's Schools Songs of Praise service. After three weeks of Festival Evensongs, the congregation must have been much relieved to return to the Ferial responses and canticles to Anglican chant, so they could join in. We sang one of the simpler Howells anthems, 'My eyes for beauty pine' – mostly in unison but with a middle section of harmony. Fortunately, with a fearsome rhythm, the choir and organist managed to agree and stay together. It is difficult not having a conductor during accompanied items, at times.