SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Whatever you might be doing at 3pm today, turn on BBC Radio 3. But don’t be late, says STEVEN DOWNES
Heavenly voices: the choir of Croydon Minster is on BBC Radio 3 this afternoon
So this must be what a choir of angels sounds like when you arrive in heaven.
As I am never going to arrive in any heaven, I will just have to make do with the heavenly sound from the choir at Croydon Minster, when the BBC was broadcasting choral evensong live on Wednesday evening.
The service, and its glorious musical performances, are available on BBC Sounds, and will be broadcast again on BBC Radio 3 from 3pm today. Set your cassette tape recorder, or whatever does the job these days, and have a listen.
In these grim and murderous times, there remains some things in Croydon which are very well done, and the Minster and its musical offerings are close to top of that (albeit short-ish) list. Mozart’s Requiem, performed with the London Mozart Players and raising thousands of pounds for the Lives Not Knives charity just before Christmas, was a special treat.
But the choral evensong, something which is performed a couple of times each week as a “routine” part of the Minster’s worship, was very special, too.
The BBC likes coming to Croydon, or at least Croydon Minster.
Sound practice: the BBC’s outside broadcast truck at Croydon Minster this week
This was the latest live recording at what used to be known as Croydon Parish Church, in a succession of broadcasts in recent times that has included possibly the most-watched religious broadcast of any year, BBC Television’s Christmas Midnight Mass. Return visits by the BBC must be a sign of true excellence.
And it is not to take anything away from the hard work, long hours of rehearsal and careful coaxing of Justin Miller, the relatively new director of music at the Minster (a star of the “show” who had his back to the congregation throughout the performance), and George Inscoe, the organist, to say that the Grade I-listed Minster building itself plays an important part.
Those medieval builders, engineers and stonemasons knew a thing or two when they constructed the great Gothic-style cathedrals of England and across Europe all those centuries ago. The great vaulted ceilings create a special space, one that sends a tingle down the spine simply when you look up into it.
It might be a beast for the priests of the 21st Century to heat on freezing January days, but acoustically the building somehow provides some special magic – touched by the hand of a god, perhaps? – that sends good music soaring to the heavens.
George Gilbert Scott well understood this when designing the rebuild of Croydon’s church in the 1860s, following the great fire. So it is today that from the chancel, just below the grand altar, the heavenly voices of the Minster’s choir resonate through the building as if funneled through some specially blessed megaphone.
Whatever you do, don’t miss the beginning of today’s repeat broadcast.
From the very start, with Gibbons’ Introit: Almighty and everlasting God, you are in the presence of something which, at least artistically, is almost transcendental.
It’s like the perfect soundtrack from one of those all-star Hollywood Biblical epics
I digress: it is said that when John Wayne played the Roman centurion in the 1965 movie, The Greatest Story Ever Told, the most lavish Bible film ever made, after the cowboy actor delivered his one and only line in the entire movie, director George Stevens called “Cut!”, and asked Wayne to try to deliver his line with a bit more awe. So it came to pass: “Action!” cried Stevens. And Wayne drawled: “Awwwww, for truly he was the son of God.”)
The Minster’s choral evensong this week, as heard on the BBC, is also notable for two “firsts”.
Teacher and composer: Minster organist Martin How spent much of his life encouraging others in their love of music
The Anthem, towards the end of the service (using the Gospel text of the Transfiguration of the Lord, which relates to this particular Sunday in the church’s calendar) is a piece written by an American composer, Larry King (no, not him).
It, too, has a touch of Hollywood about it: it uses pre-recorded electronic music of a type you probably have heard in 1970s movies which starred Peter Fonda and referenced some kind mind-expanding drugs misuse.
It is the first time that King’s piece has been broadcast by the BBC. It might also be the last…
And there’s a lovely, warm touch with the final hymn, as the version uses a harmonisation written by Martin How, the long-time Organist Laureate of Croydon Minster, who died in 2022. Having his work remembered on the BBC is a fitting memorial. And even he, surely, will have been impressed by the heavenly sounds made by those who have succeeded him in fostering church music at Croydon Minster.
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