Singing like angels

Christmas is packed with traditions.  One of my more recent traditions -- interrupted for a couple of years by the pandemic -- has been attendance at the annual "Festival of Lessons and Carols." presented by the Northwest Boychoir and its teenage affiliate, Vocalpoint! Seattle.

The combined choirs present their concert at eight Seattle venues each December, leading up to their final concert downtown at Benaroyal Hall.  Last night, I attended their concert at St. Mark's Cathedral, not far from my house.

The singers this year included 29 boys from the Northwest Boychoir, and 32 teenage boys and 15 teenage girls from Vocalpoint!.  The concert each year is based closely on the Christmas Eve service at King's College, Cambridge -- portions of which are available for viewing on YouTube.

In the versions by both King's College and the Northwest Boychoir, the most striking moment -- for me, at least -- comes at the very outset.  At St. Mark's, the singers enter a short distance into the cathedral from the rear, behind the congregation, and pause before advancing farther.  The congregation is hushed as the solo, ethereal voice of a very small boy begins the first verse of "Once in Royal David's City," his voice swelling as he nears the end of the verse, filling the volume of the entire cathedral, from the congregation on the floor all the way to the high rafters above. 

At the second verse, the entire choir joins in as they enter and file to the front of the cathedral, lining up in rows and singing all six verses without accompaniment.  Their singing becomes more complex with each verse, and the final verse is sung with a soprano descant soaring high above the pitch of the main melody.

After singing three more carols, the choir proceeds with the lessons.  A boy -- this year, also a girl for one of the readings -- begins each lesson with a reading from the Old or New Testament.  The choir then proceeds with a carol, related to the reading,  followed by a well-known and popular carol in whose singing the entire congregation joins. 

The overall effect  is magical, and is concluded -- after nine such readings -- with the choir's singing of "O Holy Night," and -- as they file back out through the rear of the cathedral -- "Joy to the World."

As I've mentioned in a past year's blog, I have reservations about the piano accompaniment, although the accompaniment is quite musical in its own right -- not merely a support for the singers as  in a typical church or Sunday School service.  These singers need no support, as was well illustrated in the two carols that were sung without accompaniment -- the initial "Once in Royal David's City" and a Gregorian chant with challenging polyphony, "O Magnum Mysterium."  Both pieces illustrated the skill and musicality of the singers, young and older, beautifully.

But all the carols were beautifully done, with or without accompaniment.  As we filed out of the Cathedral, we were greeted by smiling Boychoir singers, still dressed in their gowns, who were distributing small candy canes.  

All of us, in fact, were smiling.  Even Ebeneezer Scrooge, had he been present, would have been smiling as he walked out the door.