Music at Christmas

Once in royal David's city
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her Baby

In a manger for His bed.

The audience sat hushed as the ethereal, solo voice of a boy soprano reverberated throughout the austere interior of Seattle's St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, joined in the second verse by the full choir as it filed down the aisles in two parallel lines from the rear to the front of the church.  The Northwest Boychoir, in its 44th season, presented yet another annual Christmas "Festival of Lessons & Carols." 

Advent is traditionally a season of penance, and I decided to walk in the dark from my house to the cathedral.  The distance was only 1.5 miles, but the temperature was near freezing and the sidewalks were icy -- I came close to slipping to the ground as I started up one steep and treacherous stretch.  But the air was clear, and many of the houses I passed were brightly illuminated with holiday lights.

My timing was good, and I arrived forty minutes after setting out -- cold but bright-eyed, wide awake, and clear-headed.  Ready for the hour and a half service that each year transforms me into Christmas mode.

I like the fact that the format is always the same, based on the Christmas service of the choir of King's College, Cambridge, England.  It always commences with the solo first verse of "Once in Royal David's City."  After a couple of introductory carols, nine members of the choir -- beginning with younger and ending with older -- always offer the same nine readings from the books of Genesis, Isaiah, Micah, Luke, Matthew, and John.  Each reading is always followed by a carol sung by the choir, followed then by a familiar popular carol in which the audience joins in.

The choir consisted of 29 young members of Northwest Boychoir proper, 33 teenage boys from the associated group Vocalpoint Seattle, and 18 teenage female singers, also from Vocalpoint.  All singers were masked as a precaution against Covid and the flu.  This year, the proportion of teenage boy singers seemed higher than in the past; at least to my ears the tenor and bass voices, when all singers were singing together, seemed more predominant.  (At King's, there are equal numbers of each age group.)

My opinion is purely subjective, obviously, but -- even though the singers were still masked -- the singing impressed me as being sharper and more clear than it was last year.  And the excellent piano accompaniment sounded appropriately supportive, rather than dominating.

I was again moved and impressed by the entire performance.  After a final carol -- "O Holy Night" -- the audience burst into an extended applause, an applause appropriately delayed until the end out of respect for the religious context -- and another round of applause after the choir had filed out singing "Joy to the World."

Poised youngsters, still dressed in their choir gowns, greeted us as we left the cathedral, thanking us for our attendance.  My mind was full of musical phrases as I embraced the freezing air outside, and began my walk home.