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. At Easter I pointed readers to the classic Mengelberg recording of the St Matthew Passion. And I’ll start with Bach again, because he actually did write something for every season. The Christmas Oratorio was written for the Christmas period of 1734 for Bach’s church in Leipzig. There are a number of wonderful performances online. John Eliot Gardiner’s, from the Herderkirche in Weimar may be one of the cleanest musically.
But this performance recorded in the 1980s, led by the great Nikolaus Harnoncourt, takes some beating. Not just the performance, but the fact that the setting and some of the performers look as though Bach would have recognised them.
About The Author
Harrison Okafor
editor
Judith is a believer, a lover of Christ and a Gospel freak person. A passionate gospel blogger and press writer. I work with GospelHitsNaija.net Media, no 1 Gospel music platform.
