Abbey and Cathedral choirs join for Evensong
Friday, 21st September 2012
The choirs of Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral sang a joint Evensong at the Abbey on Thursday 20th September.
The Reverend Professor Vernon White, Canon of Westminster, read Isaiah 53: 5-12 and Canon Christopher Tuckwell, Administrator, Westminster Cathedral, read 2 Corinthians 4: 1-10
The Choir of Westminster Abbey was conducted by James O’Donnell, Organist and Master of the Choristers and the Choir of Westminster Cathedral was conducted by Martin Baker, Master of Music. The organ was played by Robert Quinney, Sub-Organist, and before the service by Edward Symington, Organ Scholar, Westminster Cathedral and afterwards by Peter Stevens, Assistant Master of Music, Westminster Cathedral.
The Benedictine monks of Westminster Abbey sang in Latin each day seven services, or ‘offices’, consisting of psalms, canticles, prayers, and biblical readings. When the monastery was dissolved, and re-founded as the present Collegiate Church of St Peter by Elizabeth I in 1560, daily prayer continued in the form of the two offices of Matins and Evensong.
Evensong is an Anglican office, conflating the monastic evening offices of Vespers and Compline, and set out in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549, the first Prayer Book to provide for services in the English language. The two canticles, Magnificat (The Song of Mary, St Luke 1: 46–55) and Nunc dimittis (The Song of Simeon, St Luke 2: 29–32), form the invariable heart of Evensong, and have, together with the Versicles and Responses, been the subject of a wide range of musical settings.
The service provides a juxtaposition of liturgical music from two traditions which have developed independently of one another, but which are also closely related.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster was established in 1850, with the building of the Cathedral commencing in 1895. Since 1903 the Latin office of Vespers has been sung daily in the Cathedral.
See also:
