St Clement Danes, Thursday 14 December 2023
ALL: Once in Royal David’s City – H. J. Gauntlett (1805–1876)
Once in Royal David’s City is a Christmas carol originally written as a poem by Cecil Frances Alexander. Since 1919, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at the King’s College Chapel, Cambridge has begun its Christmas Eve service with Dr Arthur Henry Mann’s arrangement as the processional hymn. The carol was the first recording that the King’s College Choir under Boris Ord made for EMI in 1948, and features a Willcocks descant that makes the final verse a particular favourite for many.
In Dulci Jubilo – arr. Bob Chilcott (b. 1955)
In Dulci Jubilo (‘in sweet rejoicing’) is a traditional Christmas carol; in its original setting, the carol is a text in German and Latin dating from the Middle Ages. Subsequent translations into English broadened its fame and Robert Pearsall’s 1837 Latin/English translation is also a mainstay of the Nine Lessons and Carols repertoire. Bob Chilcott’s ‘joyful and dancing’ arrangement features various combinations of voices, sparkling organ and a descant in the last verse fully in keeping with the title of the music.
The Virgin’s Song – Hermione Roff (b. 1947)
The Virgin’s Song employs words adapted from a fifteenth century text, a mixture of 2/4 and 3/4 time, and frequent temporary changes out of the prevailing key to evoke the mixed but ultimately tender emotions of the Virgin Mary at bringing new life into the world in ‘poorful’ surroundings. The carol won the Waverley Care Carol Competition, 2010, heading a field of 129 entries.
Ding Dong! Merrily on High – arr. Mack Willberg (b. 1955)
The tune of Ding Dong! Merrily on High first appeared as a secular dance tune, with words by the English composer George Ratcliffe Woodward. Woodward took an interest in church bell ringing, which no doubt aided him in writing it, while the multilingual text is characteristic of his delight in archaic poetry. The piece is particularly noted for the Latin refrain: ‘Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis!’ where the sung vowel sound ‘o’ of ‘Gloria’ is fluidly sustained through a lengthy rising and falling melismatic melodic sequence. Tonight’s performance is a particularly vibrant arrangement by Mack Willberg guaranteed to tease out those who cannot tell apart a ‘ding’ and a ‘dong’!
Silent Night – Franz Grüber (1787–1863), arr. Jonathan Rathbone (b. 1957)
Silent Night is a popular Christmas carol, composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Grüber to a text by Joseph Mohr in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria. It has been celebrated repeatedly in cover versions, in theatre and film and controversially arranged for piano and violin by Alfred Schnittke in 1978. Jonathan Rathbone’s arrangement, originally for The Swingle Singers, remains in the spirit of the original while featuring crunchy harmonies and a second bass part so consistently low as to call to mind Rachmaninoff.
ALL: O little town of Bethlehem – arr. R. Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)
O little town of Bethlehem is a Christmas carol based on an 1868 text written by Phillips Brooks, an Episcopal priest, then rector of Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, and later of Trinity Church, Boston. He was inspired by visiting the village of Bethlehem in the Sanjak of Jerusalem in 1865. The carol is popular on both sides of the Atlantic, but is set to different tunes. Tonight’s performance features the familiar tune arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1903.
A Ceremony of Carols – Benjamin Britten (1913–76)
Benjamin Britten composed A Ceremony of Carols on a sea voyage from the United States to England in 1942. It is an extended choral composition for Christmas originally scored for three-part children’s chorus, solo voices, and harp. The text, structured in eleven movements, is mainly in Middle English, with some Latin and Early Modern English. Many of the movements are written as rounds or call-and-response pieces to help the young singers. In 1943, an SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) arrangement was published for a mixed choir.
There is a vast range of atmospheres in what is, essentially, a processional, nine brief carols, a harp interlude and a recessional. The music sounds joyful, tender, reverent and defiant in short order. One might highlight in particular Movement 4, ‘That Yongë Child’ which, using one voice part and a repeated minor second on the harp, evokes both a tender lullaby sung to a baby and a sense of precariousness. This contrasts strongly with many choirs’ favourite movement, Movement 7, ‘This Little Babe’, which is by turns martial and dizzying, expressing the joyous hope that one may ‘foil thy foes with joy.’
ALL: Good King Wenceslas – arr. Bob Chilcott (b. 1955)
Good King Wenceslas tells the story of a Bohemian king going on a wintry journey to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (26 December, the Second Day of Christmas). The legend is thought to be based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935). As a hint to the audience, Bob Chilcott’s arrangement is marked ‘rhythmic and strong’ and we are grateful that John Mason Neale (1818–1866) translated the words from the original Czech.
My Lord has Come – Will Todd (b. 1970)
My Lord has Come – marked ‘with feeling’ – is a highly expressive setting by the Durham-born composer Will Todd of words he, too, wrote. The simple words are set to a bass drone over which are laid shimmering harmonies, building to convey a sense of profound awe.
Christmas Improvisation – Richard Hills
Our Associate Director of Music, Richard Hills, performs an organ improvisation inspired by Christmas.
ALL: O Come, All Ye Faithful – J. F. Wade (c. 1711–1786)
O Come, All Ye Faithful (originally written in Latin as Adeste, fideles) has been attributed to various authors, including not only John Francis Wade but also King John IV of Portugal. The English translation by the English Catholic priest Frederick Oakeley, written in 1841, is widespread in most English-speaking countries. The carol has served as the penultimate hymn sung at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and is tonight performed as arranged by English choral titan Sir David Willcocks.
Performers
Vivamus
Vivamus is a small, London-based chamber choir who singing a diverse and challenging range of repertoire, from well-known classics to new works by living composers. We rehearse weekly at St Clement Danes RAF church and aim to perform at least four times a year at venues in and around central London, including St Martin-in-the-Fields and St James’, Piccadilly. We also organise away weekends to sing in UK cathedrals. We’ve visited Belfast, Lincoln and York in recent years, and we thoroughly enjoyed singing services at St Albans Cathedral over the Bank Holiday weekend in August 2023.
Our next concert will be on Friday 19th April 2024, at St. Mary’s Church, Bourne Street SW1W 8JJ, and will include the Duruflé Requiem.
Rufus Frowde, Musical Director
Rufus read music at Oxford University (where he was Conductor of the Oxford University Philharmonia, Organ Scholar of Merton College and a tenor in Schola Cantorum. He performed his Finals Recital as a violinist). He subsequently became Organ Scholar of Worcester Cathedral. In 2003, Rufus took up his post as Organist and Assistant Director of Music at the Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace. He combined this with prize-winning postgraduate study in Choral Direction and Church Music at the Royal Academy of Music before embarking on a freelance career as a conductor, organist, accompanist and composer. He joined Vivamus in 2008.
He is a passionate educator and is heavily involved in the work of Hertfordshire Music Service as an orchestral conductor and animateur (most notably as Artistic and Musical Director of the Hertfordshire Schools’ Galas at the Royal Albert Hall) and with the Chorister Outreach Programme at St Albans Cathedral. He also delivers the music curriculum at Samuel Lucas Primary School, Hitchin.
Rufus appears as a conductor and organist on the Divine Art, Diversions, Resonus Classics and Signum Classics labels and has broadcast on national television and radio. Contemporary music features highly in Rufus’s diary and he has conducted and played for numerous premieres including works by Judith Weir, Richard Allain, Ben Parry, Anne Dudley, Graham Ross, Sasha Johnson Manning, Richard Sisson and Will Todd. He has given organ recitals at numerous UK cathedrals and at Westminster Abbey. He is also active as a composer. His carol ‘Adam lay bounden’ was given its premiere at the Annual Carol Service for the Royal Academy of Arts.
Daniel de-Fry, Harp
Daniel de-Fry started harp lessons at the age of five with Professor Daphne Boden. In 1995 he became a student at The Purcell School, where he was subsequently made a Leverhulme Scholar. He then joined the Royal College of Music, where he was a Foundation Scholar supported by The Leonard & Margaret Boden Harp Award.
Daniel furthered his studies at the RCM on the Integrated Masters Programme in Performance and was made a Leverhulme Orchestral Mentor supported by the Leonard & Margaret Boden Award for Harp. He consequently graduated with distinction in 2008 and was awarded the RCM’s most prestigious award, the Tagore Gold Medal, which was presented to him by HRH the Prince of Wales in May 2009.
After winning the Royal College of Music harp competition in May 2008, he made his solo debut at Cadogan Hall and in the same year reached the string final of the Royal Over Seas League Music Competition and won the Marisa Robles Harp Prize. Since then, he has enjoyed building his orchestral experience.
In May 2010, Daniel was given the opportunity to record Sting’s album Symphonicities as part of the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra at Abbey Road. Following this, he toured as part of the RPCO for Sting’s world tour, Symphonicity, playing over seventy concerts in the United States, Canada, Europe, Russia and Belarus.
Since then, Daniel has continued to expand his orchestral experience and enjoys regularly working with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Opera House Orchestra, Sinfonia of London, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and London Symphony Orchestra.
Richard Hills, Organ
Richard Hills is widely acknowledged as one of the very few musicians to have bridged and mastered the divide between the classical and theatre organ worlds. Having studied with William Whitehead at Rochester Cathedral he went on in turn to the organ scholarships of Exeter College Oxford, Portsmouth Cathedral and Westminster Abbey where his teachers included Rosemary Field and David Sanger. He now combines a freelance solo career with continuo, choir-training and teaching work and is the Organist of St Mary’s, Bourne Street, a central-London church noted for its Anglo-Catholic Liturgy and fine musical tradition. In January 2022 he also took up the position of Director of Music and Organist of the West London Synagogue, and is only the fifth holder of that post since 1859.
Richard’s career in the theatre organ world has been equally prestigious. He has numerous prizes and awards to his credit, both in this country and in the USA, where he was named ‘Organist of the Year’ in 2010 by the American Theatre Organ Society. He has appeared many times as a soloist on national and international TV and Radio in programmes as diverse as BBC Radio 3’s ‘Choral Evensong’ and BBC Radio 2’s ‘Friday Night is Music Night’, and he made his solo debut at the BBC Proms in 2013. He returned again to the Proms as a soloist in 2015, and appeared with the BBC Scottish Symphony and John Wilson Orchestras during the 2019 Proms season. 2019 also saw a solo recital at London’s Royal Festival Hall, alongside concerts in the USA, Europe and Sweden. His many recording credits include, most recently, a disc of British music made on the magnificent dual-purpose Compton organ of Southampton’s Guildhall, which earned a five-star review in Choir and Organ magazine.
Richard is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and a strong supporter of the work of the UK’s Cinema Organ Society, to whom he serves as Musical Adviser.
Support Vivamus
If you are interested in supporting the choir or any of our future concerts, please let us know.