Tag: Classical Music

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Manchester Collective: Rothko Chapel – Live Review

Manchester Collective perform Rothko Chapel at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

Friday 10 May 2024

Bridgewater Hall Manchester

*****

A musical art installation brings ‘a stillness that moves’ to Manchester

Manchester Collective perform Rothko Chapel at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

Manchester Collective first appeared on this Blog in December 2019, a review of a concert at The White Hotel in Salford, a small and (on the evening of the performance) very cold venue. Since then, this Blog hasn’t featured the Collective, for very boring reasons – partly due to the author being distracted by writing two books and by the joys of progressive rock (which, you will pleased to hear, will still be celebrated elsewhere on this Blog). In the interim, the group has continued to innovate, maintaining the highest possible artistic standards, deservedly performing to much bigger audiences, but never compromising its musical and artistic ambition. It remains one of the most exciting chamber groups on the UK classical music scene.

In 2009, the architect Zaha Hadid created a musical art installation for Manchester Art Gallery, turning an upstairs gallery into a temporary performance space called the JS Bach Chamber Music Hall, in which small-scale works by the great German composer were played live while the audience and performers were surrounded by a continuous, snaking piece of white Lycra. Lynne Walker in The Independent described it as ‘the perfect union of sound and space.’ Last Friday, Manchester Collective created, to adapt Walker’s phrase, the perfect union of sound and visuals at the Bridgewater Hall to recreate the experience of being in the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.

JS Bach Chamber Music Hall Manchester by Zaha Hadid
JS Bach Chamber Music Hall, Manchester © Zaha Hadid Architects. Photography © Piotr Anderszewski

Using evocative lighting designed by Lewis Hall, the stage was set with a series of upright lights to suggest the corners of the Chapel, and a suspended lighting structure to suggest the shape of the roof. The visual effect, with the colours of the lighting changing to match each piece of music, was spellbinding. The audience often sat in darkness, in rapt attention as if observing a sacred ritual, with shafts of light from the stage casting mysterious shadows.

The Interior of Rothko Chapel Houston, TX
The Interior of Rothko Chapel, Houston, Texas. Image © Rothko Chapel, Houston, TX

The Rothko Chapel opened in 1971, a year after the American painter Mark Rothko died. Known for his large-scale canvasses of single colours or blocks of colour, Rothko’s legacy in the Chapel was a temple of art, with 14 of his darker-coloured paintings on the walls of the octagonal building. The aim of founders John and Dominique de Menil was also to create a non-denominational chapel, open to all. According to the Chapel’s website, it provides,

‘A stillness that moves… A quiet disruption… A sanctuary for the seeker…’

The music in Friday’s concert often provided the same experience. The phrase ‘a quiet disruption’ was particularly apt for three new commissions by Isobel Waller-Bridge, Katherine Balch and Edmund Finnis. The concert took its title from a piece written in 1971 by the American composer Morton Feldman, Rothko Chapel which was first performed in the Chapel in 1972. The new commissions, scattered across the first half, were given the same brief of responding to the architecture and atmosphere of the Chapel. As Rakhi Singh, Manchester Collective’s Creative Director, said in a short introduction from the stage, it’s very unusual to hear three new works in one concert; it’s challenging to be faced with over half an hour of music of which no recordings exist yet; and all three composers brought a very different response to the brief. Hearing the pieces unfold in real time was a fascinating and rewarding challenge.

The first of the three works was No. 9 for choir, string quartet, celeste and percussion by Isobel Waller-Bridge. Viewing the Rothko Room installation at Tate Modern a while ago had a profound effect on me – standing in the middle of the room, not looking directly at the black and maroon canvasses, created a sense of oppressive claustrophobia; it was almost as if the paintings were breathing. Waller-Bridge quotes Rothko’s own words about his painting No. 9; White and Black on Wine,

‘When you turned your back to the painting, you would feel that presence the way you feel the sun on your back.’

No 9 White and Black on Wine by Mark Rothko
No. 9 (White and Black on Wine), 1958 by Mark Rothko © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photography: Tim NighswanderImaging4Art.com

The composer’s reaction to the painting was very striking,

‘I stood in front of this painting for a long time. Sound emanated from it.’

Rakhi Singh’s description of the new piece was that it was ‘very bold.’ There were moments when it felt as if we were watching a pagan ritual from a horror film, the lights causing members of the Sansara choir to appear in silhouette; all that what was missing was the cowls that are often worn in such rituals in films. The piece began with a simple falling motif from Sansara choir, which was soon joined by interlocking string passages as the choir reached a delicious cacophony with intense strings. The music rose to a horrifying, frenetic climax, with the ominous rumble of percussion, scampering strings and tubular bells that might remind some of the music for the 1973 horror film The Exorcist. Minimalist chanting recalled the feverish atmosphere of George Crumb’s string quartet Black Angels (1971). The clatter of drums led to the choir singing in fierce, nightmarish unison, before the music fell away with serene chords, then tone clusters that were reminiscent of music used in another film, Atmosphères (1961) by György Ligeti from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). A long held soprano note with more intense chord clusters ended the piece as it died away.

Rakhi Singh gave only one clue about the second commission – ‘the details are important’ – but it was helpful to know what to listen for in songs and interludes for choir (women only), harmonica, celeste and percussion by Katherine Balch. The piece has a fascinating set of influences, concepts and structural references, drawn as Balch says, from ‘a few disparate sources.’ Firstly, she adopted Feldman’s structure from Rothko Chapel, interspersing songs with instrumental interludes. Secondly, rather than using the dark colour palette from Rothko’s paintings in the Chapel, Balch was inspired by his earlier Color Field works from the 1950s which are painted in much brighter hues and warmer tones. Finally, to provide linking texts, she took words from Virginia Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) and using black-out poetry techniques redacted almost all the words on the page, leaving a fragmented version of the essay with only one or two words per page. She says,

‘The result resembles, in my mind, Rothko Chapel’s black triptychs – mostly monochromatic, with textural ripples.’

The piece began with overlapping bursts of voices, demonstrating strong harmonic invention. Resonant percussion led to a moving, magical section where various choir members played harmonica. It sounded as if the music was being beamed from a different dimension. A moment of profound stillness and beauty. A single, solo voice was followed by transgressive whispering and brittle percussion. Fragments of melody bloomed as the percussion became more fractured. If the devil was in the atmosphere of the Isobel Waller-Bridge piece, here the devil was in the detail of the tightly structured miniatures. The piece ended with high harmonica notes and a vocal fugue. Throughout, the virtuosity of percussionist Delia Stevens who did the work of two or three people at once, and the choir of women, was fully in evidence in a superb performance of the work.

Rakhi Singh didn’t provide any clues about the third and final Manchester premiere, Blue Divided Blue for choir, string quartet and tubular bells by Edmund Finnis. In the programme note, Finnis quoted Rothko’s description of the appropriate reaction to his paintings – they are about much more than the use of colour,

‘The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.’

Finnis uses a text, ‘assembled exclusively from words found in titles of paintings by Rothko’ to create a ‘lament.’

The piece began with solo viola played by Ruth Gibson, intently going round and back on itself, leading to dense textures in the string quartet, and the choir passing the words ‘blue divided’ around from singer to singer. Calm, contemplative strings led to vocals spiralling forever upwards until they fell back again with gorgeous textures. Yearning, ambiguous chords morphed into each other, with dense choral textures slowly evolving as they came in and out of focus. The singers’ voices dropped to the depths as a busy string theme led to the final motif on tubular bells.

It was a privilege and a profound pleasure to hear three such contrasting new works, and before the interval Singh made an impassioned plea for the importance of new music. All the rest of the music in the concert has been performed and recorded elsewhere, but was beautifully programmed, as is always the case with Manchester Collective, to create a unique, special experience.

The concert began with the choir singing Solfeggio (1963) by Arvo Pärt, a fairly early work in serialist style before the composer developed his later tonal. bell-like style, the tones floating on the air to belie the formal structure. Nick Trygstad immaculately performed two works for solo cello, the plainsong-like Ave Maria (1972) by Giacinto Scelsi, and 7 Papillons: No. 2 by Kaija Saariaho, graphically describing the fluttering first flight of a butterfly. But perhaps the highlight of the first half, apart from the three substantial new commissions, was Vespers for Violin (2014) by Missy Mazzoli superbly performed by Rakhi Singh on a heavily echoed instrument, with supporting electronics including a recorded female voice that lurk unsettlingly below the soaring, ecstatic violin line, suggesting a twisted ritual remembered in a fever dream.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, another piece with ritualistic elements that at times were similar in emotional depth to a later work, The Protecting Veil (1988) by John Tavener. Both works feature a solo string instrument, viola and cello respectively. In concert, they create a sense of communal contemplation, a collective gathering of thought. Appropriately then, after the enticingly challenging nature of the earlier works in the concert, the piece ends with a simple folk melody, a restatement of the basic humanity that lies behind the spirit of the Chapel itself, sending the audience out from the reverential darkness of the Chapel to the bright sunshine of a Mancunian evening. An uplifting ending to a stunning concert.

Creative team
Rakhi Singh – Creative Director
Tom Herring – SANSARA: Artistic Director
Lewis Howell – Lighting Designer
Tomoya Forster – Sound Engineer
Kate Green – Producer
Declan Kennedy – Producer
Alex Benn – Stage Manager


Manchester Collective
Rakhi Singh – Violin
Donald Grant – Violin
Ruth Gibson – Viola
Nick Trygstad – Cello
Delia Stevens – Percussion
Katherine – Tinker Celeste


SANSARA
Lucinda Cox – Soprano
Fiona Fraser – Soprano
Daisy Walford – Soprano
Clover Willis – Soprano
Laura Baldwin – Alto
Amy Blythe – Alto
Anna Semple – Alto
Jack Granby – Tenor
Will Wright – Tenor
Piers Connor Kennedy – Bass
Ben Tomlin – Bass
Tom Herring – Conductor, Bass

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BBC Philharmonic : Bach’s St John Passion (1724) – Live Review

BBC Philharmonic and Manchester Chamber Choir

Friday 29 March 2024

Bridgewater Hall Manchester

A moving and dramatic interpretation 300 years after the first performance

*****

BBC Philharmonic and Manchester Chamber Choir

Bach’s St John Passion was first performed 300 years ago, on 7 April 1724 at St Nicholas’ Church in Leipzig. Bach had moved to Leipzig the year before to take up a post at the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church) and to look after music at three other churches. The liturgical Passion of Christ recounts Jesus’ suffering (from the Latin ‘passus’) his trail at the hands of Pontius Pilate, his crucifixion by the Romans and his death. It was written for the Good Friday service in Leipzig, with a long sermon preached between Parts I and II. It is often performed – as here – on Good Friday and doesn’t describe the resurrection of Christ that is celebrated three days later on Easter Sunday. The St John Passion was the first of at least three Passions that Bach wrote in Leipzig, of which only two survive, the other being the St Matthew Passion, first performed in 1727. The St Matthew Passion is longer than the St John Passion, less dramatic and more contemplative. Both are masterpieces of Western art.

In this performance, to use composer Michael Tippett’s memorable description of first hearing the countertenor Alfred Deller sing in the 1940s, ‘the centuries rolled back.’ We were transported three centuries back – the work felt vital, contemporary, dramatic and moving. This was partly due to Bach’s masterful structure, interspersing the dramatic narrative from St John’s Gospel with more contemplative arias with words from more recent poetry, and hymn-like chorales in which the significance of events just described is amplified and deepened.

The orchestra, ably directed by veteran Early Music specialist Nicholas Kraemer, who began his professional career as a harpsichordist, was superbly fleet of foot throughout. In the recitative sections where much smaller forces accompanied the evangelist Benjamin Hulett, Kraemer sometimes sat back and allowed the performers to create their own chamber group, listening intently to each other like members of a modern string quartet. In the opening chorus, ‘Herr, unser Herrscher’ (Lord, our Redeemer), the orchestra was fast and lilting. The singers of Manchester Chamber Choir, over 50 in all, joined in robustly, with excellent dynamics, beautifully shaped, expertly prepared by baritone Marcus Farnsworth (a member of Manchester Cathedral Choir very early in his career) and Darius Battiwalla who played organ in the concert. Benjamin Hulett then took up the story, with a lovely, lyrical, agile and flexible tenor, with expressive word painting. The first aria came from contralto Jess Dandy, who shone recently in a performance of Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater with the BBC Phil in early March. Dandy is an exceptional talent, with a rich creamy, dark-toned voice that conveys great emotion.

The next aria, sung by soprano Hilary Cronin, provided a suitable contrast – Cronin has a lovely voice, light, agile, making the difficult rising passages of ‘Ich folge dir gleichfalls mit’ sound effortless. We first heard from Jesus himself when he was questioned by the High Priest about his disciples and doctrines. Jesus replied that he spoke openly to the world, never hiding anything. The role was played by baritone Roderick Williams who wore a plain white shirt to differentiate him from the other performers who were in black. But the whiteness of his shirt didn’t suggest that he was a sacrificial lamb, at the mercy of the of the Roman authorities. Rather, he was quietly dignified, addressing the audience directly and intimately, subtly arguing his case.

Part 2 began with the Chorale ‘Christus. der uns selig macht’ (Christ who brings us joy), powerfully delivered by Manchester Chamber Choir, whose attention to dynamics was again excellent as it was throughout the concert. This was followed by the most visceral section of the concert, the trial of Jesus by Pilate which was brought thrillingly to life here. The Choir captured their passionate devotion to Jesus in the Chorale ‘Ach, grosser König’ (‘O Mighty King’) and elsewhere were a rowdy crowd calling for the release of Barabbas, and later for the crucifixion of Jesus, almost operatic in their intensity. Perhaps the most effective part of this section was when Pilate asked Jesus ‘Von wannen bist du?’ (Whence art thou?) Williams’ dignified silence spoke volumes.

But the emotional high point of the whole concert was the moment of Jesus’ death, expressed by Roderick Williams with delicate simplicity, ‘Es ist vollbracht’ Jess Dandy was joined by the superb viola da gamba player Lucine Musaelian in the aria ‘Es ist vollbracht'(It is accomplished), picking up Jesus’ final words. Dandy’s performance was profoundly poignant, deeply moving, creating in TS Eliot’s phrase ‘the still point of the turning world’, a moment of contemplation outside time. Some tears were shed in the audience.

The rest of the Passion intermingled the continuing narrative of events immediately after Jesus’ death with more thoughtful passages about the effect of his death. There was gorgeous interplay between bass soloist Benjamin Bevan (who also played Pilate) and the Choir in the Aria ‘Mein teurer Heiland’ (My dearest Saviour). Benjamin Hulett was electrifying in his description of the curtain of the temple being torn in two, with its onomatopoeic falling cello motif. Hilary Cronin was accompanied by lovely woodwind in her aria ‘Zerfliesse, mein Herze’ (Dissolve then, heart). Hulett was beautifully tender in his description of the wrapping of Jesus’ body in linen clothes and spices before he was laid in the sepulchre. But the ending was, appropriately bearing in mind their contribution throughout, was left to the Choir, at first calmly contemplating Jesus’ death and then more robustly addressing the hope of heaven that Jesus’ death brings. An apt end to a very memorable concert which combined superb musicianship with a sense of reverence and deep humanity.

Performers

Benjamin Hulett (Evangelist)
Roderick Williams (Christus)
Hilary Cronin (soprano)
Jess Dandy (contralto)
Laurence Kilsby (tenor)
Benjamin Bevan (bass)

Manchester Chamber Choir
BBC Philharmonic

Nicholas Kraemer (conductor)

The concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and is available to listen online or via BBC Sounds for 30 days after the date of broadcast

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Manchester Collective: Cries and Whispers – Live Review

The White Hotel, Salford

Saturday 14 March 2020

Everything they touch turns to musical gold

*****

Dmitri Shostakovich

This was a concert for troubled times. Manchester Collective’s Managing Director, Adam Szabo thanked us for braving the weather and the virus. He said that this performance, the end of a short tour, would be the end of Collective concerts for a little while. He asked us to share our thoughts with freelance musicians. For those who work in the gig economy, everything is uncertain.

We had been promised dark music, unsettling art for unsettling times. We began with the deep dark twisted fantasy of a madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, set for string quartet, Moro Lasso whose original words began, 

I die, alas, in my suffering,
And she who could give me life,
Alas, kills me and will not help me.

The chromatic harmonies of the piece are as warped as the character of the composer, whose depraved history was mentioned in the introduction by violinist Caroline Pether. It would not be until the dark days of twentieth century when such harmonies be used regularly in western music again.

Caroline introduced the next piece, Benjamin Britten’s First String Quartet, as dark but also magical and human. Written in America during WWII, it began with sparkling partials from the upper strings, before the main theme appeared. At another point, the notes fell like gentle rain.

Throughout the piece, the variety of sound produced by just four string players was remarkable. Sometimes quiet and ethereal, at other times gutsy and grainy, always visceral. The playing was always passionately rhythmic, driven by a fierce musical intelligence. As the Collective themselves put it,

Our string quartet concerts are some of the most personal shows that we build. There’s something about that particular lineup which feels terrifyingly intimate – like there’s a direct connection between each of the four players, and every listener in the room.

This being the White Hotel, the venue itself provided its own soundtrack to the music. The garage door behind me rattled – was it just the wind, or spirits trying to get in, or out? Snatches of chatter, a ring pull on can snapping open, a police siren, a car rumbling past. In the middle of it all, the players sat undisturbed, watching each other with undivided concentration, external distractions somehow making the emotional power of the music even more focused.

The final piece was Shostakovich’s deeply personal eighth string quartet. It began with a doleful melody, then the sound of a wounded creature crying in the night. Painful sweetness led to stuttering, manic dance. Fierce sawing of bows, a lumbering rhythm, then eerie high strings. A nostalgic melody, then shimmering, aching beauty. Then a bitter calm. The performance was spellbinding, drawing us deep into Shostakovich’s dark and anguished world. It seemed to be over very quickly, as if we had stepped outside time for a while.

Having heard the Collective performing several times recently, I can now safely say that everything they touch turns to musical gold. Please come back soon!

Gesualdo Moro, lasso
Britten String Quartet No. 1
Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8

Caroline Pether Violin
Doriane Gable Violin
Ruth Gibson Viola
Jack Bailey Cello

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Britten The Turn of the Screw – Opera Review

Opera North

The Lowry, Salford

Wednesday 11 March 2020

A superbly creepy staging of Britten’s masterpiece

*****

Sarah Tynan as the Governess and Nicholas Watts as Peter Quint ©Tristram Kenton

The small scale of the forces involved in Benjamin Britten’s 1954 opera was evident when the whole cast came on stage at the end to take their well-deserved applause; rather than the usual choruses of flower girls, matadors and several principal roles there were just six people. The orchestra was equally small, just 13 players. This creates a peculiar intimacy, ideally suited to this intensely claustrophobic and atmospheric ghost story. Every singer and musician was exposed, and they were all equal to the task.

The set played a vital part in creating the unsettling atmosphere, dominated by a huge bed which cleverly doubled as a puppet-theatre, and a stage coach, perspectives and images distorted and exaggerated like terrifying visions from a child’s nightmare of a fairy tale. Even inanimate objects took on a sinister aspect – the rocking horse in Act I became animated on its own; the gramophone in Act II crouched malevolently.

Image ©Tristram Kenton 02/20

The nightmarish quality of the sets was enhanced by some surreal touches. The opening image of the Governess, seen from behind as she travelled in a stage coach to the country house could have come from a painting by René Magritte. The wallpaper on the vast wall at the back of the set could have been by William Morris but on a surreally large scale. When the wall disappeared to reveal the garden behind, the flowers unnaturally bright colourful as if from a painting by Henri Rousseau. The windows through which Miles stared, looking for Peter Quint, were like the windows of a pagan cathedral. Sometimes the characters cast huge shadows behind them, and even the floor sloped unsettlingly, like images from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

This production worked like the best horror films where the viewer’s imagination weds powerful visual imagery to unsettling music to create a sense of the uncanny. The two apparitions, the dead Miss Jessel and Peter Quint appeared suddenly at the window or at the door; combined with evocative lighting, a little dry ice and sinister music the two human figures take on a menacingly eerie aspect. An analogy from the world of cinema is the 2014 psychological drama and supernatural horror film It Follows, in which the disturbing score by Disasterpeace (Richard Vreeland) inspired by John Cage, John Carpenter and Penderecki, and Goblin (who wrote the score for the original 1977 version of Suspiria) makes the ordinary human form seem extraordinary and terrifying.

All this would have been for nothing if the cast hadn’t made the impressive set their own. Sarah Tynan was on stage for virtually the whole opera, and we saw much of the action through her increasingly anxious eyes. Heather Shipp was a suitably caring Mrs Grose. The children were superb – Tim Gasiorek’s movement as young Miles was outstanding, particularly when he danced to the gramophone in the second Act. Jennifer Clark as Flora had a memorable moment as she climbed on top of the four poster bed and dropped puppets down, an eerie puppeteer. They both moved convincingly like sometimes naughty children; another highlight was when a ghostly hand pulled back the curtain at the back of the bed, and it was revealed as a child’s hand, a delicious jump scare. All the singers were in fine voice, despite very occasionally being slightly overwhelmed by the orchestra. Nicholas Watts as Quint relished his melismatic melodic lines addressed to Miles, and Eleanor Dennis as Miss Jessel was suitably ghostly. Their line (from The Second Coming by WB Yeats) ‘the ceremony of innocence is drowned’ lives long in the memory. And conductor Leo McFall brought out the taut instrumental lines from his skilled ensemble with great clarity.

And so out into the real world, where appropriately, it was a dark and stormy night but without the raw emotional storms we had just witnessed inside the Lowry.

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My Father, John Charles Holmes 1933 – 1994

John Charles Holmes 1933 - 2024
John Charles Holmes 1933 - 2024

The festival of Christmas was central to my relationship with my Father who died thirty years ago, in April 1994. Every year, I used to listen to the Nine Lessons and Carols with him on Christmas Eve on BBC Radio 4. A week or so earlier, he would conduct his local church choir at St Werburgh’s in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester in his own version of the Nine Lessons and Carols. I was a proud member of his choir from age six until leaving for University 12 years later. My Father started me on the musical journey that still continues today.

I wrote this piece several years ago and first published it on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death:

It’s Christmas Eve and Durham cathedral is full. We got there early for the carol service but we’re still stuck behind the widest pillar.  We can’t see the choir singing the carols but it doesn’t matter. The lights go out and the choir comes in with candles. The sweet solo voice sings the first verse of Once in Royal David’s City, just as in the opening of the service of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College Cambridge.

The years roll back and I am with my Father again.

He always insisted we call him Father, not dad. We once played cricket with him in the park and two young urchins came to join our game. Cheekily, they called him Father Dear Father, mocking my use of the word. I hadn’t realised until then that his title was archaic. Later, when I was away at university, he wrote me letters and notes always signed just F, short for Father.

When I started to sign my letters simply with a letter N for Nick, my friends complained that this felt cold. Couldn’t I be bothered to sign my full name? But the simple F at the end of my father’s letters always seemed warm to me, a private, intimate code.

To others, he signed himself JCH, short for John Charles Holmes. He was the choir master of the local church and I was in his choir. The choir boys bought him a leather music case engraved with his initials. He carried it with him to every choir rehearsal. It got more and more battered, but you could still see the black letters JCH engraved on it.

I remember my Father walking home from church with me, carrying his music case as we discussed our visit to the local maternity hospital to sing Christmas carols. We went every year, to sing a carol service in the hospital small chapel. Then we came back to church to put away the robes we had worn for the carol service.

The choir vestry was a cellar beneath the church. We unloaded the robes from ancient suit cases and hung them up on long rails. We climbed back up the stone steps to the side door of the church and locked it with a heavy key. Then a shortcut across the grass to vault over a low wall, checking first that the Reverend Canon Ronald James Birchett – RJB – wasn’t watching.

RJB had been an army captain and took a dim view of civilians who took shortcuts across his churchyard. My father was in awe of RJB but they shared a deep belief in the true meaning of Christmas.

RJB is central to my childhood memories of Christmas Eve. He was tall, broad, proudly strong. His voice was deep and his face was sculpted from granite. So when this proud man went down on his knees to utter the words which marked the birth of Christ, the packed church was silenced by his humility before God.

After that, we choirboys could relax a little. We knew Jesus was about to be born and so Christmas presents were on their way. Midnight Mass actually started at 11:30 at night so there was a silent countdown until midnight came. Christ’s birth on the dot of midnight was marked by choirboys grinning and cheering silently across the choir stalls, always making sure RJB couldn’t see our celebrations.

So the service ended for another Christmas Eve, and my father greeted each choirboy with a cheerful happy Christmas and a box of chocolates.

Christmas Day itself almost seemed less important to him. Christ had been born, so the pagan rituals of exchanging presents, eating turkey and watching the Queen’s speech meant little to him. One year, he even forgot to buy me a Christmas present until my mother reminded him and he ran to the shops to buy something before they closed.

My father died 30 years ago and I don’t think about him every day now, although at the time I vowed I would. But he is still a part of me and at Christmas I feel particularly close to him. I said this to my wife as we were coming out of Durham Cathedral on Christmas Eve. She replied it was natural for me to remember him more at Christmas, because it was his time of year.