Music at All Saints Parish Sunday, December 31, 2006
Christmas I
From All Saints Music Director Donald Teeters
After an absence of two years, we restore the lovely custom of presenting a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at the 10:30 a.m. service on the first Sunday after Christmas. Rather than give all the details of the readings and music that will be performed that day, I will print here some information about the history of the development of this very popular liturgy. The quotes below are excerpted from the program booklet for the service that was presented on Christmas Eve this year at King's College, Cambridge, England, where it has become a world-renowned symbol of the beauty and universal appeal to be found in the Biblical texts and the vast repertoire of music that reflect upon the prophecy and birth of Our Lord.
The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was first held on Christmas Eve 1918. It was planned by Eric Milner-White, who, at the age of thirty-four, had just been appointed Dean of King's after experience as an army chaplain which had convinced him that the Church of England needed more imaginative worship. The music was then directed by Arthur Henry Mann, Organist 1876-1929.
A revision of the Order of Service was made in 1919, involving rearrangement of the lessons, and from that date the service has always begun with the hymn 'Once in royal David's city'. In almost every year the choice of carols has varied, and some new ones have been introduced by successive Organists
... The backbone of the service, the lessons and the prayers, has remained virtually unchanged. The original service was, in fact, adapted from an Order drawn up by E. W. Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, for use in the wooden shed, which then served as his cathedral in Truro, at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1880. A. C. Benson recalled: 'My father arranged from ancient sources a little service for Christmas Eve - nine carols and nine tiny lessons, which were read by various officers of the Church, beginning with a chorister, and ending, through the different grades, with the Bishop.' ... Almost immediately other churches adapted the service for their own use.
A wider frame began to grow when the service was first broadcast in 1928 and, with the exception of 1930, it has been broadcast annually, even during the Second World War, when the ancient glass (and also all heat) had been removed from the Chapel and the name of King's could not be broadcast for security reasons. Sometime in the early 1930s the BBC began broadcasting the service on overseas programmes. It is estimated that there are millions of listeners worldwide, including those to Radio Four in the United Kingdom.
Although the readings and music we use at All Saints will vary in some particulars from those in use at King's, we do try to capture the dignity and the beauty that have made that service so memorable for all who have ever experienced it via broadcast, recording or in person.