MoT Music at Christmas - Online 

Tuesday, 20th December 2022


Christmas is a time for sharing

This selection of music videos is for sharing among followers of my two great interests, Leatherhead's Weekly Lunchtime Concerts, known as
Music on Thursdays, and ​The Westminster Society,
former alumni & staff of Westminster College, Oxford & London

Please feel free to share this page with your own friends and family.
Some of the links can only accessed from this page. 

We are going to make the potentially rash assumption that you are up to speed with popular Christmas music. Here come some less frequently heard parts of the season's repertoire, beginning with a pleasingly understated performance of: 

​Buxtehude's lovely In Dulci Jubilo,
performed in St Peter's Lutheran Cathedral, Hamburg,
by Catherina Witting, soprano, Tiina Zahn, alto, Dávid Csizmár, bass
Katharina Wulf & Verena Fischer-Zernin, violins
Lukas Henke, directing from the organ:

​Our next vocal piece is the traditional Coventry Carol, Lully, Lulla, Lullay.
Philip Stopford composed this musical wonder in 2008.

I first heard his utterly beautiful setting a few nights ago at St Peter's Church, Vauxhall, and I immediately fell in love with it. It feels very English, as indeed it should, with perhaps a hint of the late John Tavener's influence.
​I hope you will like it too.

​VOCES8 sing Philip Stopford's setting of the Coventry Carol in St Stephen's Walbrook Church, in the City of London:

The first visitors to the stable in Bethlehem were shepherds, ordinary folk who had been looking after their sheep on the nearby hills.

Let's hear a couple of items about shepherds. First, from the Westminster Chapel, formerly the Methodist Chapel of Westminster College, 
Oxford Brookes University Chamber Choir sing
Bob Chilcott's setting of The Shepherd's Carol
words by poet Clive Sansom

(recorded at the University's annual carol service on 1st December 2022)

Standing under the Great Octagon is the Choir of Ely Cathedral. They will help us to cover one of the ethnic minorities we so rarely consider.

How will they do so? Why, by singing While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night, to a great Yorkshire tune. Please enjoy this familiar melody and this wonderful choir and organ:


Do you find you cannot stop yourself thinking of alternative words to that carol? Even while singing the right words? Don't worry. Choristers all over the world share the problem.

​That made me wonder whether you might like to see how Pianists Dry their Socks by Night:

For the next item, let's stay IN a church, but not with churchy music. Here is Thomas Trotter's arrangement for organ of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride. The organist in Waltham Abbey Church is Jonathan Lilley.

We recorded a second item from this year's carol service in the Westminster Chapel.

Most of the members of the University's Multifaith Chaplaincy Team were there. I sat behind the Imam (although I moved to the lean against the wall to shoot the videos). Beside the Imam was the South American Roman Catholic Chaplain, two of the Anglican Chaplains were there, as well as Methodist Chaplain Rev Miriam Moul, who led the service.

A surprise item was this performance of a traditional Austrian Yodelling Song, arranged by Emily Gee

I know it isn't properly Christmassy, but please forgive me for squeezing in this item which I recorded in the Westminster Chapel in September 2022.

Former RAF Chaplain Rev Will Bissett gained his BA Hons in Theology while at Westminster College, Oxford, in the 1980s. Alongside a demanding day job, Rev Will is an Associate Minister at St John's Church, in Egham, Surrey.

​He is also a fair talent on the pipes, as this rendition of Amazing Grace will confirm:

Here comes a lockdown special from our very own Jonathan Holmes, playing the Father Willis organ at St Mary's Ewell (on which he gives frequent recitals). It is Canadian composer Denis Bédard's Toccata on Il Est Né le Divin Enfant.

Georgi Muschel's Toccata from his Suite Ouzbèke builds to a proper bit of "chucking out music" - a less polite interpretation of the term "postlude". It does quite nicely what is required after the end of a service, and it fits well for Christmas.

The organist here is Marie-Agnès Grall-Menet, and the organ is in the church of St-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet Paris 5e.

​The instrument has had so many builders, rebuilders, and restorers over the centuries that you are best watching the screen closely at the start if you want to know who has had a hand in it!

You are probably ready for a cup of tea by now.
There should be a table free in this food court:


From all of us at Music on Thursdays

and

The Westminster Society

​we hope you have a wonderful Christmas
​
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To share this selection of videos please copy this link and paste it into email text:

musiconthursdays.org/20-december-2022-christmas-selection.html
We invite you to explore our website for more recorded music.

​Each concert webpage includes relevant music videos when you scroll down the page. Here's the link to this year's concert diary page.
​
Previous live concert
CarmenCo Trio, flute, mezzo, & 2 classical guitars - click here
Next live concert
AGM (2pm) & Piano Concert (3.30pm)
23rd February 2023 - click here (event page not yet available)