BBC TV “Westminster Abbey” 1: Westminster Abbey 2012 (James O’Donnell)

Westminster Abbey is a flagship institution is right there at the center national life in this country Westminster Abbey is the coronation church the Abbey has been the place where people commemorate the great men and women of our history here was the origins of Parliament I think of the Abbey as being of upbeats place the most unusual phone call is from Michelle Obama's Secret Service on a standard day we would probably process a thousand people per hour even though we are a massive tourist attraction we still are very much a living Church Westminster Abbey represents faith of the heart of the nation to think that there have been people with their eyes turned in the same direction towards worship of God in this case for over a thousand years there's a feeling of a really rolls-royce musical setup you know being the Queen's choristers we really can't afford to let her down quite a lot I see people crying when you sing it brings tears of joy and sadness if we wake up every day I think this is a fantastic place to be this is real even after 17 years and you've leave you've got that to the Gulf time there's a tremendous sense of being part of something that goes back all those hundreds of years there's a magnificent building I feel like I'm part fish people just being here [Music] [Music] Westminster Abbey has stood by the banks of the River Thames in London since the middle ages and follows a cycle of worship with traditions that stretch back to the birth of Christianity for the community who live and work here upholding these traditions and maintaining the quality of worship is their driving force being in the abbey early and day is a marvelous experience there's a feeling of calm and peacefulness and a real sense of prayer and you capture the essence of 900 years of worship in this place so it's a great privilege to be here early in the day but I have to do the washing up and tidy up some books for morning prayer and then I'll have some breakfast for over a hundred and sixty years Westminster Abbey has run a small boarding school for around 30 boys between the ages of 8 and 13 who live full time within the Abbey grounds [Music] they all have to instrumental practices a day and this first ones done all together after breakfast before going over to song school and the second practice we timetable during the course of the day so they're just five or six boys practicing with the director of music but at this point yes they're practicing in every nook and cranny hence the cacophony of sound good morning - can you get me please between 9:30 and 3:30 the boys here study like any other school children this is the forum one classroom at the moment we're just looking at the different parts that make up the UK so at the moment we're concentrating on the different flags and how they go together to make up the Union Jack and also how the Wales flag isn't represented which we all thought was a bit unfair because the Welsh dragon is the most exciting flag we've decided overall the reason the boys are here is that they've been chosen to sing in the abbeys world-famous choir the Abbess author is a Benedictine monastery and it goes back to the 1st millennium in fact and nobody knows exactly when a monastic community first began here but it goes back certainly beyond 960 and the rhythm of our life now is very similar to the monastic rhythm which was based on the monks coming to sing and they sang they didn't say things so there's a feeling of the same kind of daily rhythm of work going on every year there are over 1500 services at Westminster Abbey and every week in term time eight of them are sung by the choir being a chorus of Westminster Abbey is a bit like being part of a huge family with 31 boys because we're all so close [Music] it's amazing singing in the ap1 when people of sung here for years and years and years and it's carrying on a legacy that it's very daunting Westminster Abbey is a flagship institution because of its position it's in London it's right next to the houses of parliament after all it's it's right there at the kind of center of public life national life in this country and the music of the Abbey is part of the main mission of the Abbey as we call it which is worship maintaining that rhythm that continuity at the highest level that we can is our responsibility and specifically - director of music [Music] it's a fantastic place to work you know every day is different you can't mean you don't know what you're gonna do I can't plan a day 15 full time staff had the formidable task of maintaining this historic monument early in the morning this time of year you might get severe frost the lead can be very slippery so you might have to wait til the Sun comes up because it would be like a skating rink up here if it gets blocked up then it overflows inside the building and then we can get quite a bit of damage on the stonework any of the terrific ceilings we got here can be quite badly damaged you know at the moment we're on Henry ascents chapel roof and this tell me it's not so bad it's not a lot of rubbish at the moment but in the autumn you get a lot of leaves from all the plain trees around here you get an awful lot of rubbish for most of the year from those and it's a non-stop job [Music] like thousands of churches across the world the abbey follows a daily pattern of worship which reflects the Christian belief that Christ suffered died and rose from the dead to give eternal life to those who believe in him pray for the life and work of the abbey the abbey is governed by a body called the Dean and chapter made up of five senior clergy and a lay executive the Dean and spiritual leader is the very Reverend dr. John Hall we live in a curious way in a place like this with linear development but also is cyclical or circular development every day has its round of worship every week has its round of worship on Friday we remember the passion of our Lord every Friday and on Sunday we remember the resurrection of the Lord every Sunday so it has that round effect during the course week and during the course of a year [Music] today is the Feast of Candlemas which marks the end of Christmas and the start of a new season in the Christian calendar this is the Dean's cloth-of-gold cope it's the best cope that we have and we have gold for festival days and today's candle mass which represents the last official day of Christmas when Christ was presented in the temple and it was made especially for our Dean because he's well over six foot tall and some of our other copes don't quite fit him very well Cantor a Caesar is a lovely service in itself I was feeling where you light candles and think of the light of Christ shining in the darkness what we actually are remembering though is the presentation of Christ in the temple 40 days after his birth so it's the second of every is 40 days after the 25th of December and it's in a sense the culmination of our remembrance of Christmastime you get bounced with 202 to 300 but the trouble is with services like this it's very unknown so it's always better to cater for more and less one of the joys of being a church musician is being aware of the changing seasons of the church's year and the fact that there's a personality to them so the personality of candle must as the slightly poignant end of the Christmas season technically and also the beginning of Lent where things change quite dramatically that's a rather nice thing to to be aware of and I think to capture it's very nice it's like the changing seasons of autumn becoming winter and winter becoming spring and the sense this is the church is equivalent of that can you find the Candlemas sheet now this have you done any of this yet okay so page one you'd like to go into nameless Andrew [Music] Candlemas is an ancient feast when traditionally beeswax candles were blessed for the coming year the daily services at Westminster Abbey are open to the public at this one the congregation gathers in the dark by the great West door to wait for the blessing [Music] [Music] it's the end of the Christmas period and now we turn away from Christmas and we're beginning to face towards the next great moment in the church's year which is Lent and Easter as well as being the abbeys spiritual head the Dean is also responsible for a world heritage site whose buildings need constant attention architect Ptolemy Dean has just been appointed the new surveyor of the fabric the man in charge of upkeep I think that's really amazingly apparent and you suddenly take responsibility for these buildings is the scale of them look at the scale of it acres and acres of lead roof so it's a it's an incredible task and a huge responsibility just to keep the building going well I've never stood here before but turn your head and look at what beholds the Westminster Abbey [Music] we believe you've got that to look after one of the things I've got to do actually is the concur Niall survey that's a really big task that's the condition of the building and its carried out every five years hence Quinn cranial and I'm really looking for to actually because it needs to go over every single bit of the building and work out what needs to be done and I mean for instance look at this this is a classic that a cement you watched on to keep the profile of the malian but it's so hard you know so impervious and it just is in poor quality repairs particularly the mid twentieth century I mean they were so excited about using modern materials to repair all buildings because they didn't realize that these modern materials are completely incompatible chemically and minerally and of course the reason why it comes off in one's hand is because the moisture has got behind the cement and just trapped and therefore broken down the surface of the softer stone underneath the first person to hold the post of surveyor of the fabric here was the Christopher Wren who built simples Cathedral because anything to wear following in Rennes or gust footsteps Ptolemy Dean is about to be installed as the 19th surveyor and is preparing for a ceremony dating back to the 16th century and the reign of Elizabeth the first it culminates in the Deegan giving him his own seat in the choir stalls mr. Dean I presenter you told me deemed to be admitted and installed a surveyor of the fabric of his Collegiate Church and then I'll say the ancient and distinguished officer of severe the fabric to which you Ptolemy have been appointed it counts with a great privilege and responsibility it is your duty to care for the fabric and ornaments of this Abbey so these stones may speak to all of the beauty of God's holiness are you willing to accept these duties which you are something I am and will perform them by the help of God and then I say I said I John Robert Hall tear this College of Olive Dean etcetera to the officer severely fabric and place you in the stall assigned to it the qilin over the fan son do I say that here or do I take you up further we take him up first I think I take you up first I think I take you by the hand and lead you and if you you turn back you turn back and then I and then I push you forward [Music] [Applause] I John Roberts Hall Dean of this College admits you Ptolemy's Dean to the office of severe of the fabric and place you in the stall assigned to inquire in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit [Music] it's a wonderful privilege to be here and it is like all privilege you don't want to mess it up and you realize you're adding on to something that is absolutely in the forefront of this of national identity it's something that everybody's looking at watching all the time it's a double team privilege Ptolemy's Dean has taken a vow which harks back to monastic times when Dunstan a future Archbishop of Canterbury founded a monastery here his community lived by the rule of Saint Benedict who founded a religious order in Italy in the 6th century when King Edward came to the throne in 10:43 he couldn't leave his turbulent Kingdom to pay homage to the Pope in Rome so the Pope ordered him to build a church to Saint Peter the founder of the Catholic Church Edward chose to build it on the site of Dunstan's monastery by the Thames was one of the wonderful things about the history of Westminster Abbey as a brother confessor who's our Saint and who's here and he because he was King of England until 1066 and he rebuilt the abbey glorious Romanesque building the biggest building in the land I should have thought at the time as well as building his Palace here so he lived here beside the Abbey rebuilt the Abbey brought more monks here so it was a very great and wonderful building and Church buttressing States state budgeting church and out Church challenging state state challenging church but here together at the heart of our national life and that's how it always has been since the 11th century two hundred years later in honor of Edward the Confessor Henry the 3rd rebuilt the Abbey and much of the building we see today dates from his reign at the heart of the complex is the chapter house which has a remarkable place in British history the Abbey's archaeologist professor Warwick Rodwell has spent many years studying it the chapter house at Westminster is unique and unlike any other chapter house in an abbey because this served two roles it wasn't just the place where the abbot and monks met every day which is what a chapter house is for it's the meeting room of the abbey it was also a meeting room for the king and the King held his council here and he began to build this probably in 1249 it was finished by about 1253 and thereafter it began to serve as a chamber in which the King's Council met and so here was the origins of Parliament this is the place where the what we call today the House of Commons first began to meet under the king in the twelve 50s and the king or the abbot would have taken up his position here and in the centre facing west ready to address his audience or in the case of the abbot address the monks the architecture all around us on a day like this with the Sun coming in lighting up the wall paintings on all the sides around and imagine it not in its muted state that it is today but everything glowing and sparkling with paint and gilding and tapestry and it is one of the great architectural wonders of Europe by the time of Henry the eighth the business of Parliament had outgrown the Abbey and had moved to the Palace of Westminster Henry's reign proved to be a cataclysmic time for the Catholic Church when the Pope would have grant him a divorce Henry broke with Rome in 1534 he made himself the head of the church in England and ordered the destruction of Catholic monasteries Henry spared Westminster Abbey because so many of his ancestors had been crowned and buried here his daughter the Anglican Elizabeth the first supported the Abbey's unique status and since 1560 a deem a Church of England cleric has been in charge this is the long gallery the Deanery which was built as in the 14th century originally although there was a fire in 1941 so some of it has been rebuilt but this is where the Abbott's of Westminster lived and since 1560 has been the home of the deans of Westminster and the 38th Dean and one of the earliest of them is Gabriel Goodman who's here he came from a riffin in North Wales and he was Dean through most of the reign of careers of the first so he was the first person to be appointed Dean who'd not actually been a monk here beforehand and he was very close to the Queen's private secretary the Cecil family and so he was certainly an advisor and consultant to the Queen and it's lovely for me having so many of my predecessors around they give me a sense of of the extraordinary history of the place and and my small role in it here at early in the 21st century the ties between the monarchy and the Abbey went so deep but in 1560 Elizabeth the first re founded the Abbey as the Collegiate Church of st. Peter and roiled peculiar but it means in in in various ways that I'm not responsible to any bishop or Archbishop that's the first thing most most parts of the church figment of a see oh their allegiance to their Tarsus and Bishop and through lead are some bishops of the Archbishop but but the abbey is a royal peculiar and it's outside the diocesan structure it's outside the provincial structures bishops and Archbishop's so essentially I'm the spiritual and moral leader of the abbey community and answered to the Queen five centuries after Elizabeth the first granted this unusual status there's some unfinished business between the Abbey and the crown these are these statutes which have just been given to the Dean and chapter by the Queen they are as it were the bylaws of the Constitution by which the Abbey is to be governed and the reason that we've been given them now is that when Queen Elizabeth the first established the Abbey as a Collegiate Church in 1560 she did that by producing a Charter which laid out the type of foundation that she wanted there to be here that child has said that there would be statutes which would lay out in much more detail how the Abbey was to be governed those statutes were drafted but they were never signed by Elizabeth the first and so they never actually had legal legal validity and this has been an issue for the Abbey over the centuries from time to time and finally here at the beginning of the 21st century we have had statutes presented by the monarch then at the bottom there's this huge Great Seal which represents the Queen's signature which gives them the authority and means that they are legal and valid statutes this document is the latest addition to the Abbas archives which date back to the founding of the monastery here bison tunston over a thousand years ago this is an example of one of our earliest charters it dates from around 960 - it's a grant from King Edgar who's named here giving land to the monastery in the very early days of its foundation and among the witnesses who've signed at the bottom is Dunstan Archbishop of Canterbury so we have this extraordinary range of documents from over a thousand years ago right up to the present day [Music] [Applause] okay just follow you sorry future so it comes away from the accent and then back to the next one tomorrow's actual Wednesday and that means that as part of the mass when the congregation are ashed when they receive a cross of ashes on their on their head we sing the Miserere by Allegri sang for four generations in the vatican it was used to be a secret peace that nobody was allowed to transcribe but modern additions have been made in the last out of half a century and it's become a real sort of contemporary classic no doubt because it has this very distinctive hi-c sung by a solo trouble over and over again several times in the course of the piece so that inevitably becomes a focus for the boys especially because it's very exciting for me try to downplay that but it's really impossible to repress that every week there's about sort of three solos that come up in in canticles and but the Allegro solo is quite special so that's that's the sort of tough competition between all of us the choristers perform with 12 professional singers called lay vicars every year on Ash Wednesday two men and two boys that chosen to sing in a quartet in the musical centerpiece of the service to decide who will get the coveted high solo part the music staff have to run a selection process let's have a look at page four I'm Luis okay let's hear let's hear Andrew on the top line and Matthew on the second line down for this here we go now [Music] I think the difficulty was singing this piece and when the competition is that every year we do this piece and so it gets you try and improve from the year before and this year I think we're trying to do it better than we did last year last we're trying to do better than the owner before if you want to be doing the Allegri you need confidence and a high voice yes I'm hoping to get the solo I'm hoping to be the top pop you know it's quite high I'm hoping I'm gonna get it well I'm in contention with Matthew so so it's really up to the choir master Koth or met just let it flow on there please and [Music] no that's that's not coming out of it Andrews terribly keen to do it and he's so keen that when we've run through it in the rehearsals he's doing something I think what he's doing is just stopping the air flowing through his voice and so the notes don't come out and that becomes a vicious cycle for a singer if they stop the air flowing and that the voice stutters a bit then that a boy who is not as experienced as an adult singer at countering this will tend to tense up even more and that stops the air flowing even even more becomes even more of a problem now I'd like to hear bead and Luciana please [Music] [Music] fine so bead you're a late going up to the sea as well little bit more counting as needed in your case but that's very good I think let's send off then Andrew and Ben and bead and Hugh and Matthew and Luciano off to rehearsal mr. Ford we're going next door to rehearse Murphy Alegre solo we're a few boys try out and then we all learn at the solo and then whoever sounds the best we choose 4 so let's try everybody just so we get the sense of the words and then we'll split you up in a minute so let's once they've mastered the Latin words the boys are divided into pairs to sing the high and low solo lines [Music] make sure you're lifting a little bit more on those docile boots and that's what my bar is it about four bars top of top neckline a little bit more lifting there because if you're gonna be upper you organ off to make it clear downstairs we need to really overemphasize things it's a little bit more lifting there it's just mainly the high pot getting that top see if you're like I'm older than the younger boys it's gonna be harder for you because your voice is nearer to the breaking point you need to be aware that you're not locking your door because sometimes if you get if you get nervous you lock your door and the sound gets sort of jammed inside your throat and then it comes out as feeble sort of first thing I'm going to do now is talk to Martin my colleague who took the various candidates out and see what he thinks because he will have heard them closely and he'll have a recommendation or two I imagine Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent a time for reflection and self-denial in the build-up to Easter traditionally churches reflect the somber mood of the season and in the Abbey the verges lay employees are busy making changes to its appearance the practice is that we cover all the gold and all that elaborate things here Westminster all we do is just cover up the Last Supper scene on the main screen and then we put another section on the top Ben can you just go to your right yes please yep keep going all right yeah it's great we only get to really be up here from the day before Ash Wednesday it's quite a privilege to to actually get this fantastic view which not many people get at the Abbey and it's all part of the the cycle of our worship and the church here and today is involved not only the high altar but all the all the altars you can see the shrine altar from here that's lost its colour and the same for all the other altars in the Abbey there's no color there are reminders of Christ's crucifixion the implements used at his crucifixion the spear the sponge and again as a reminder of how Solomon busy and said how solemn the time is the cross has got to go behind for hanging one of the reasons why you have to do it at night because it's not very dignified when you see people having to climb over the altar it's always stage life isn't want to stage the choristers religious education is overseen by minor Canon Michael may see today he's explaining the significance of Ash Wednesday I'm hoping you'll never ever sit in a pile of ash especially not in your school uniform but if you do you'll discover how uncomfortable it is it gets everywhere and it upsets you and that's kind of the purpose of the part of of the ashes on Ash Wednesday to our preceptors we're trying to remind you in this up in the when the ashes go on your forehead of your baptism will promise to turn away from soon and turn to Christ let us pray our Father who art in that song school the process of choosing the soloists for today's service continues gradually they they cut away boys so like today myself and bead didn't get the solo but then only two boys can get it but but still unsure son Oh son brilliant your hands too but I can't actually see movement which is fine for this part of the phrase when we get to the next one you'll be a bit stuck I think okay so make sure there's actually a physical movement you'll feel it going in all the time so right from the side of the phrase as soon as you take that breath and in all the way okay next Mema's the next bit so [Music] [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] for that High Line will have either an ting or then they're both natural performers they both enjoy the feeling of singing on their own we often find that boys really want to do solos or verses as they're often called when it actually comes to it they they freeze a bit because they're not used to that sort of exposure but then there are others an Andrew and Benner among them who really thrive I think on on doing things on their own it's getting quite close to the service we've whittled out a number of boys who might be seeing that the state of this afternoon which is partially for their own sanity so they're not worrying about it all day at school they're not quite sure who's actually going to be singing it at this stage the congregation begins to arrive for the Ash Wednesday service and the lay vicars join the boys for a run-through at the last minute Robert Quinn II can finally announce who has got the solo parts then we'll sing the top part and Matthew will sing the part below they're both very reliable singers and they perform well and Ben clearly wants to do it Martin felt that they were that those two were certainly the top people to achieve the maximum acoustic effect Ben and Matthew will sing with the adult soloists in the organ loft high above the congregation the good thing about doing it then is that it's at the beginning of a rehearsal so I can simply send them off and then get on with some other music so there'll be no kind of reaction from the other boys they'll just have to sort of get over their their work so if any of them are disappointed they're professionally enough to understand that we simply have to choose the person who's going to do it best everyone likes doing solos but the main thing is because we require we sing together and we're sort of one big team because it's such a small community you almost don't want to push your best friend out of the line right you just accept that it's gonna be you next time hopefully or you will get another chance it's not the end of the world if you don't get that particular solo [Music] [Applause] [Music] they did well and they seem to be pleased with this if they're pleased bitten there's no point in my sake well the mutant petunia was a bit off on occasional notes because they obviously have a sense of achievement and they did actually achieve something quite considerable they stood up and did it in a confident way and under a lot of pressure and not just a normal amount of pressure but with cameras running as well which you know it does add a certain extra kind of free softer things what motivates me to be here is to write services so that people can engage we've got that's the purpose of any priest and that's what I love doing I'm very lucky that I have fabulous resources got a great building people want to come here we've got a fabulous choir got great Organists and organ so I've got good raw materials to work with Michael Macy is in charge of planning services at the Abbey he masterminded the details of the service for Prince William's marriage to Catherine Middleton the Dean he's in charge of all at worship but he's busy with other things so he divorces the responsibility to us and we therefore write for services choreographed them and make sure they happen make sure of it all the clergy are told what to do and where to go and and make sure the services happen our next big service is for corn Werth Day observance on the top of March and that service the Queen will be in attendance as is custom and it's a big service where all the Commonwealth nations are represented it's a celebration of the Commonwealth we're quite far advanced in the in the service we've got the structure we've we've got all the participants in line so we know that we've got Rufus Wainwright and Hugh Masekela rabbi Allen how are you this morning it's nan here one of the main things I've got to do today is to follow up on the letters that I've sent out inviting the faith leaders those letters went out earlier this week for the first time ever we're having not only them join us for the service but we're going to have a very informal lunch before hands because it's a it's a unique moment to gather a number of faith leaders together to discuss matters that may be pertinent to them so today I'm going to be following up with some phone calls just to give further detail for those who may not have been invited before and also to check people's dietary requirements to be honest with you because obviously we want to ensure that everybody's very comfortable in being here and that what we're giving them to eat is appropriate for them we've got the royal family coming I believe the Queen and beforehand we go around aiding the police searching for anything that may pose a threat oh they can come they can stagger down so that you've got contrasting colors to be able to sing in in Westminster Abbey solo just me in the piano at following the Queen's message it's a big moment for me so I'm very honored I'm up for pieces of high stage in place for four boards I'm from South Africa my name is Hugh Masekela I don't know how I got invited but we tried to do a solemn kind of song and they said no they know that one they didn't want any solemnity so where to come with something lively there's a little sing-along at the end so we hope the people at the end will you know repeat what I sing to them and and and hopefully the Queen - I think we're miles ahead of this is a really significant occasion it is an interfaith occasion and it's an occasion at the heart of our national life and of the Commonwealth and it's one that brings us all together and where we can recognize the reality and importance of God in our life we feel very privileged that we are the catalyst of that gathering of communities we're linking with people's around the world I mean what can be more uplifting than that really and and I think we we all appreciate the fact that this is an opportunity to make those connections and pull people together as a family as well as the faith leaders the service is attended by Commonwealth High Commissioners and youth representatives from each country honored to be among 15 countries people are coming this is such a historical place and to come here and be part of such a historical event and also it's like the Queen's Jubilee year so it shows that people from religions all different cultures ethnicity races can all come together as one nation it means a lot to be represented my country because I actually am in London on a common world scholarship and benefiting from one of the opportunities that the Commonwealth gives members of Commonwealth faiths human progress respect of human rights that actually drives us to come from all those different faiths you know to converge here in Westminster Abbey and I think it really gives a very powerful message of unity as head of the Commonwealth and Supreme Governor of the Church of England the Queen attends two or three services a year here and her former Lord Chamberlain is now an advisor to the Abbey on matters of national importance the abbey to the Queen and to the royal family means an immense March let's recall that her father of course was crowned here for her own coronation her in marriage and numerous other occasions whenever the con wealth comes up the Queen almost lights up with interest virtually every time has attended that service with the Duke of Edinburgh I think that without the rail of the Queen over the last 60 years I do sometimes wonder if the Commonwealth would have held together at all the Queen's sort of somehow epitomizes it brings it all together and it's the Abbey that brings us about and shows this and demonstrates this in its annual service [Music] I'm sitting up here following with the Abby's Twitter account observing what's going on and I was here earlier taking pictures of behind the scenes that's generally how I use Twitter I provide an insight to the world of what's going on which is quite fitting for today's theme which is connecting cultures I'm using technology in the way that it was designed to be to connect people around the world to what's going on inside the abbey in it it's a real successfully I'll be particularly cuz we launched the Twitter account on camera I'll stay in 2009 with great success inside we're continuing to do that as special services and when we can I know you can do that join me and shout out to the world [Music] I am just going to check to see if any of the artistes are still up this end which I think I can just see one and say thank you and try and clear people out the church so I can go home Oh today was such a beautiful day and in sunny and bright and it was just like being in Grenada okay so take care sir it went really well really well any slightly long maybe four minutes on the or five minutes on where they should have been and we try to be absolutely precisely I'm allowed to be annoyed you myself no one else's it's not quite a with me yet it'll be over once I've got a gin in my hands and it'll be over [Music] for the choristers services concerts and state occasions are all in a day's work today they're responding to a personal invitation from the Prime Minister that arrived out of the blue well we're in 10 Downing Street and surprisingly I'm last week we were invited to sing a few short thesis for some annual and faiths gatherings intend on history but the Prime Minister's office and obviously this is a wonderful thing to do and we're just gonna sing two short pieces for the faith leaders Primus will be present and then they'll have a little tour of 10 Downing Street now the rain and the refreshment table of its contents I need to I need to get them sorted out for their positions that's what I'll do no ok boys could you listen up please I need to tell you that the layout of the room that we're going to be singing in what price and the Prime Minister invited us to sing to the base because I thought the Prime Minister he doesn't really have time to do the sweeping inviting cars at sing and particularly welcome is James a novel and the choristers of Westminster Abbey who could have seen two pieces one which i think is a world premiere we were told on Friday and I never expected every day of them expected coming to 10 Downing Street and it's just amazing it's great [Music] to be emceeing the soda in front of the Prime Minister I felt it was I thought actually quite nervous about doing it I mean because there were lots of important people in that room and if I mucked it up I'd get very embarrassed [Music] the Prime Minister said that we sang very well and he was actually quite pleased to see us and he said it was a real honor for us to be there with him I thought dance rate would be a bit boring actually just all politics and stuff but it's actually quite shocking how big how cool is there's always the chance that something will come along that we're not expecting we have to be ready for that Downing Street lunches daily services and great state occasions are all part of the cycle of life at the Abbey [Applause] next year the nation will celebrate 60 years since the Queen's coronation here when she was anointed in a sacred ceremony to serve the people to mark the occasion the Abbey is planning to display the newly restored 700 year old coronation chair in a more prominent position it was made by order of King Edward the first in 1300 and has been used in coronation ceremonies ever since this is one of the I think most pressing conservation challenges that faces the new server of the fabric is how this fantastic coronation chair gets to be properly displayed the coronation chair historically used to sit facing the altar at the eastern end of the Abbey it has been moved about in the 19th century it was covered in glutinous brown varnish and if as you see has just been restored and all these incredible carvings have been scratched in by the students of Westminster school over the years so graffiti is nothing new but there are still traces of incredible gold paint and actually it isn't that it is a remarkable survival and you just think that the Queen was crowned here anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the presence of God and her people to serve the ruling of the country [Music] it's incredible that terror all those in Queen Victoria sitting there and I mean I had my installation here and walking down the quad to the Dean was terrifying enough imagine coming down and being the king all good like quite frightening just coming out of this wooden box unfortunately anything you do in Westminster Abbey there's never a clear wall everything has got plastered with monuments so if you were to move the coronation chair here you might be tempted to move this monument to a different location so that the chair would sit against a screen wall so one of the things we've got to do is to work out whether this monument can be moved if it could be moved then the chair would sit quite nicely here looking out towards the nave another challenge was how to light it is above us on that windowsill enormous great monument so yet another monument you have to negotiate around the abbeys conservation and building projects are always set against the cycle of Christian worship it's Holy Week the high point of the churches year this is one of the great and beautiful treasures of the Abbey this is the littling ttan missile there was commissioned by Nicholas littling ttan who was one of the great 14th century Abbot's and this is the most significant page of the book and it tells the story at the heart of our faith as Christians the story of Holy Week and Easter the big image here in the middle is the image of Jesus on the cross dying for our salvation there are angels with chalices cups catching the blood from his wounds and obviously that links directly to the idea of the the Eucharist the bread and wine which become the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and feed us as Christians and enable us to follow in his way but just around the edge we have the story of holy week starting on board a Thursday night the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and then when Jesus is scourge then he's carrying his cross and now he's died on the cross then he's laid in the tomb so this is now good Friday evening then holy Saturday which is important for us it's a it's a moment of a waiting as it were between the death of Jesus and the glory of Easter so between Good Friday and Easter day and here finally this lovely image this is the crucified body but now raised from the dead so it's at the heart of our story the festivities begin the night before Easter Sunday with the Easter Vigil the Easter Vigil is I think one of the most powerful dramatic services of the year let's just go from the word glory are pleased we celebrate the resurrection of the glory Oh which we've not Sun for forty days of Lent we sing hallelujah which we haven't sung during Lent we word hallelujah is not song during Lent so suddenly all these things which were taken away from us since Ash Wednesday are put back in a dramatic and very conspicuous fashion for for the Easter Vigil service James O Donnell has chosen a piece of music written for the Abbey by Jonathan Harvey the Harvey is very different piece to our repertoire because unlike other pieces there's talked him fits in it [Music] the shanty bits are much better now they got later they should make people smile I think it should be kind of like an outburst of joy musically the great thing is to capture that drama and capture that that's that's that's that sort of enormous ly cosmic thing the bursting of Christ from the tomb this is Holy Saturday we're preparing now for Easter day the flowers are there behind beside the high altar the lens and array is coming to home and so in the auto front will be going on so we're getting ready for all the glory and joy of Easter we're now fully dressing the altar because Easter Eve there I say it's a bit like having a dinner party you get all the best stuff out we work on figures from last year so last year we had about 400 communicants for the Easter Vigil with probably a congregation of six on so we work on those numbers probably tweeting a bit we haven't been caught out but we've become all aware that there's people that need new free wipers so and the round ones are the normal standard hold on there it's white square ones actually gluten-free [Music] the service begins with the lighting of a new fire and the lighting of a candle from the new fire a candle that represents Christ shining again in the darkness the risen Christ and we begin with with bells and with the organ making a great sound just to say you know this is in sound we have the celebration of Christ's resurrection and a lujah Christ is risen He is risen indeed hallelujah hallelujah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] as the piece was commissioned actually for us mince robbing the big sounds is supposed to fill up the churchmen bounced off the walls and so you can hear it right at the back of the church [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] some are very small and there are two large eggs sort of dodo size so are we ready on your marks [Applause] at the end of an extraordinary sequence of hurry konista money Thursday Good Friday then last night the wonderful vigil service and now the abbey absolutely packed once again fast crowds of people in so it's amazing how many people want to come and celebrate the joy of Easter over the next few months the cycle of life at the Abbey will continue with a wedding of one of their own when we had conversations with the Dean he said that we would be very welcome to be married here auditions are being held for new choristers there's a lot more to being a member of requirements than just singing and the Abbey receives a historic invitation from the Pope to sing in the Vatican you're engaged in the mission of vastly greater importance than you can possibly imagine the Pope inviting us is gonna be amazing [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Archive of Recorded Church Music

Views: 181,916

Rating: 4.7697673 out of 5

Keywords: Recorded Music Archive, Cathedral Choir, Church Choir, Sacred Music, Choral Music

Id: aYNNMxSOki4

Length: 59min 1sec (3541 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2019