December 2001

Looking ahead to Christmas, we shall hold two carol services.The Service of Nine Lessons and Carols will take place on Sunday, 23rd December at 6.30 p.m. and, on Christmas Day at 11 a.m., there will be a Service of Seven Lessons and Carols. In addition to carols and Christmas hymns for choir and congregation, the services will include choir carols by Byrd, Pettman, Darke, Kitson and Terry, as well as music new to the Choir's repertoire by Timothy Hone (Newcastle Cathedral), Simon Lole (Salisbury Cathedral) and John Gardner. Copies of this last carol, Tomorrow shall be my dancing day, have been purchased as the result of the generosity of two members of our congregation.

Another carol new to Peppard, but of local origin, is Ted Allwright's Remenham Bell Carol. We have a connection with Remenham St. Nicholas through the common patronage of Jesus College, Oxford. The wife of a former Rector of Remenham, Mrs. Kate Rees-Jones, used to play tunes on the three Remenham bells before services in the 1930s and 1940s. Ted Allwright has incorporated one of these tunes in this attractive carol which uses Christina Rossetti's words "Love came down at Christmas".

November 2001

Sacred and Secular: Music for St. Cecilia's-tide is the title of a concert to be given by Cantus Orielensis in All Saints' Church on Saturday, 24th November at 8 p.m.

Several members of Cantus Orielensis have sung at All Saints' Church in the past while masquerading under other Latinate pseudonyms. The common factor for many was membership of the Chapel Choir of Oriel College, Oxford during their undergraduate days. Their most recent manifestation at Peppard was as Cantus Curiosus, a group which specialises in baroque music. There will be no baroque music on 24th November!

The sacred part of the programme will represent the work of 19th and 20th century composers for the church (Henry Balfour Gardiner, John Ireland, John Joubert, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Samuel Sebastian Wesley). The secular will be in marked contrast with close harmony and nonsense songs which will include Deep purple, Let's do it, Over the rainbow, Smoke gets in your eyes, Tea for two, Ol' man river, Nellie the elephant, The hippopotamus song and The animals went in two by two.

Refreshments will be available after the concert and a retiring collection will be taken for the work of the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution. Please come to support a worthy cause and to enjoy the music-making of an enthusiastic group of singers during the feast of the patron saint of music.

Each year, the Royal School of Church Music arranges a Celebration Day at which honorary awards are made. The event rotates around the regions of the British Isles and this year was again the turn of South-East England and specifically of Rochester Cathedral on 17th November at Evensong. Among the recipients of awards were Ralph Allwood (Eton College), the Rt. Revd. David Stancliffe (Bishop of Salisbury), Gordon Stewart (former Organist of Manchester Cathedral), and Father Joseph Gelineau, James MacMillan, John Barnard and Margaret Rizza, composers of church music.

The Choir of All Saints' Church was honoured to be invited to send a small number of singers to join the choir of 200 which, together with the Choir of Rochester Cathedral and members of RSCM Southern Cathedral Singers, provided the music for the service:

Our Patronal Festival on 4th November will, as usual, have two choral services. At 10.30 a.m., the Sung Eucharist will use the setting in D by Heathcote Statham and the gradual anthem will be This is the day the Lord hath made (16th cent. Anon.) At Festal Evensong at 6.30 p.m., the Evening Canticles will be sung to the setting in E by Herbert Murrill and the anthem will be There is a land of pure delight, composed for us in 2000 by Grayston Ives.

October 2001

Trafalgar Day, 21st October, falls on a Sunday this year and there will be musical echoes of Viscount Lord Nelson's funeral at All Saints' in the anthem Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts (Purcell) and organ voluntaries Dead March from 'Saul' (Handel) and Rule Britannia (Arne).

Rebecca Bell has now assumed responsibility for training the children in All Saints' Choir. Please encourage any children to join the choir if they have an interest in or aptitude for singing. Rebecca can be contacted on 0118 972 2967.

September 2001

July 2001

The Choir of All Saints' Church works very hard! At least choir members think so and, as a consequence, a ground swell of opinion resulted in demand for a social occasion and a large number of dates were canvassed for a choir dinner. However, because everyone leads such a full life with a never-ending round of social engagements and work commitments in far-flung places, no date could be found to suit a majority and dinner became lunch on Sunday, just so that we could spend the whole day in each other's company!

The day in question was St. Swithun's Day (there's faith for you) and nearly everyone was able to gather in the garden of Gary Magill's home, armed with an enormous variety of food and drink supplied by the participants and organised by Margaret Woodward. The weather was fine, but for six spots of rain and a flash of lightning, and a good time was had by one and all. We have had no reports of neighbour reaction to our after-lunch singing; perhaps they haven't yet recovered from the shock!

We are pleased to be able to report that Mrs. Rebecca Bell has been appointed Choirmistress for the children in All Saints' Church Choir. She succeeds Mrs. Barbara Crawshaw in a position we consider vital in the encouragement of singing among children in this area.

Mrs. Bell trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She has considerable experience of teaching children, both groups and individuals, in school and in church contexts. We hope that readers will wish to encourage children to join the Choir at All Saints' Church, to take advantage of the training on offer and to enjoy the excitement of making music along with other children and adults.

All Saints' has a long tradition of music making and excellent facilities for the purpose. Choristers gain small financial rewards, dependent on attendance and attainment. For older children, choral bursaries are available. Further opportunities exist through our affiliation to the Royal School of Church Music.

Please contact Mrs. Bell if you know of children who are interested in joining the Choir. We do hope that they will be.

June 2001

Whitsunday, 3rd June, 2001, marked the 25th anniversary of the induction and institution of the Revd. B. G. Butler-Smith as Rector of Rotherfield Peppard. By coincidence, Whitsunday also fell on the first Sunday of June, back in 1976.

This year, the day was fine and excellent congregations (and the largest number of Whitsun communicants for some years) helped to mark the occasion. During the services, 20 former members of the church choir returned to All Saints' and took a special part in the music at Sung Eucharist and Festal Evensong. It was good to see former churchwarden, John Fryer, among the congregation.

Sarah Woodward presented Mrs. Butler-Smith with a bouquet of flowers at the end of Sung Eucharist, and Hugh Garai, with words of appreciation on behalf of all parishioners, presented the Rector and his wife with a watercolour of All Saints' Church, commissioned by the PCC and painted by Steve Thompson.

The Rector chose some of his favourite hymns for the two sung services. They were Lord of beauty, thine the splendour (St. Audrey), Father, Lord of all creation (Blaenwern), Faithful Shepherd, feed me (Pastor pastorum), O Jesus, I have promised (Wolvercote), O love that will not let me go (St. Margaret) and O thou who camest from above (Hereford). The setting for the Eucharist was Heathcote Statham in D and the anthem was S. S. Wesley's Lead me, Lord. The soloist, Elizabeth Atkinson, was baptised by the Rector on Whitsunday 25 years ago when the choir sang the same anthem at her christening.

At Festal Evensong, the evening canticles were sung to Stanford in C and Stanford's well-known chant was used for Psalm 150. The Preces, Responses and Lord's Prayer were by Grayston Ives. Three anthems were sung by the choir. Barbara Crawshaw was soloist in O pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Blow) which was followed by Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace (S. S. Wesley). The service ended with Chilcott's Irish Blessing.

April 2001

Barbara Crawshaw relinquishes her responsibility for training the junior choristers at All Saints' Church at the end of April. She assumed the role of Junior Choirmistress in 1990, since when more than 30 boys and girls have benefitted from her musical skills in a Christian context. The whole church community is greatly in her debt and the Parochial Church Council recorded its gratitude to her at its meeting on 9th March. [That goes for the Choir and Organists too.]

The important work of maintaining All Saints' part in "the Church's largest youth movement" may appeal to readers. If anyone is interested in details of the remunerated post of Junior Choir Trainer, please contact the Rector or the Choir Secretary.

Several members of the choir enjoyed the valuable experience and enviable privilege of singing the choral services at St. David's Cathedral on Low Sunday. Directed by Christine Wells, organist at Hambleden, they provided half of the St. Thomas Cantilupe^* Singers for the occasion, with the other singers mainly drawn from St. Mary's Church choir at Hambleden. The Singers were accompanied by Michael Slaney, a former Assistant Organist at the cathedral, who proved to be a most helpful and sympathetic musician with a remarkable mastery of the superb four manual Harrison and Harrison instrument, installed at a cost of £680,000 during 2000.

Sung Eucharist at 11.15 a.m. was preceded by rehearsals on Saturday evening and Sunday morning in the cathedral. The introit, sung in the north transept, was This joyful Eastertide (Wood), the Communion setting was Darke in F and, during Communion, Come unto me (Chilcott) and Good Christian men (Ferguson) were sung. The sermon was preached by the Canon in Residence.

Another rehearsal preceded Evensong at 6 p.m. at which the preacher was Pfarrer Stoll, a Lutheran minister from Germany. He gave a remarkable account of new birth after the bombing of his Black Forest town during the Second World War, analogous to the resurrection at the first Easter. The music at Evensong included an Easter carol by Praetorius, Preces, Responses and Lord's Prayer (Ives), the Canticles (Brewer in D) and Blessed be the God and Father (S. S. Wesley).

^* Thomas Cantilupe (1218-1282) was born at Hambleden. Twice Chancellor of Oxford University, he became Bishop of Hereford in 1275. Although he died in Italy, his heart and some bones were sent back to Hereford where his shrine remains to this day. He was canonized in 1320.

"It all goes to show that modern technology is not the answer to everything. On its latest visit to sing choral evensong at Nether Heyford the choir found itself plunged, if not into darkness, then into gloom. The main fuse blew, and although the lights went out immediately, the organ kept going until its wind chest was exhausted. Torches and candles appeared, and then, like a miracle, the organ rediscovered its voice. The Fisherman's Friend this time, though, turned out to be a Church Officer who had, as a boy, regularly worked the pump for the services at the time. It goes without saying that there is no equivalent of a hand pump for an electronic organ.

The choir's reaction to having to sing in the failing light was highly professional. The service was seen through to end as if such things were a daily occurrence, and it could be said that the added concentration produced performances of heightened excitement and commitment.

The music had been chosen to mark the centenary - almost to the week - of the death of Sir John Stainer and included from his pen the introits ('God so loved the world', and 'Hail, gladdening Light'), the psalm chants, and the hymns. The Anthem was 'There is a land of pure delight' by Grayston Ives, which had been commissioned last year by All Saints' Parochial Church Council. The collection raised the sum of £85.50, which was sent to the Archbishop's Appeal at Stoneleigh.

Grayston Ives paid a visit to All Saints' for Evensong on 1st April to hear the choir perform the new anthem, which had been commissioned both to mark the millennium and in memory of Vernon Openshaw. Before the service, the composer, who is organist and Informator Choristarum at Magdalen College, Oxford, rehearsed the choir in the anthem and in his setting of the Preces and Responses and The Lord's Prayer. The composer's praise for the standard of the singing is a well earned laurel for our hardworking choir, choir master and assistant organist.

On Easter Day music played a major role in the celebrations at both the morning Festal Eucharist, and at the Festal Evensong. In the morning, the choir was supported by the trumpeter Maddy Cottam, who is to read music at Huddersfield, and David Cooke who sang 'The Trumpet Shall Sound' from Handel's 'Messiah'. The anthem for the Gradual was 'This Joyful Eastertide' by Charles Wood, and in the evening, Grayston Ives' Responses were paired with Samuel Sebastian Wesley's 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ'.

On the following Sunday, members of this hard-working choir travelled to St. David's in Wales to sing at the Cathedral there. We are lucky to enjoy the enthusiasm of this committed band of singers, their director and their organists."

Easter Day (15th April) services will include the welcome return of Maddy Cottam (trumpet). Maddy played to great effect during the Remembrance Day service in November. On Easter morning, she will play music for trumpet and organ and also accompany "The trumpet shall sound" from Handel's Messiah, to be sung by David Cooke. The setting of the Eucharist to be used at Easter was composed by Heathcote Statham (1889-1973) who, for 38 years, was organist of Norwich Cathedral. At Festal Evensong, the canticles will be sung to Brewer in D and the anthem will be "Blessed be the God and Father" (S. S. Wesley).

(Many of our choir members will be absent from All Saints' on Low Sunday (22nd April) when they will join with colleagues from the Hambleden Valley as the St. Thomas Cantelupe Singers in order to sing the services at St. David's Cathedral in Pembrokeshire.)

March 2001

On Saturday, 24th March, All Saints' Church Choir will sing Evensong at SS Peter and Paul Church, Nether Heyford, Northamptonshire. Our good friend, the Revd. Canon David Evans, known to many people at Peppard, is Rector of Nether Heyford. However, he will be retiring to Devon in a few months' time and so this will be a final opportunity to visit Nether Heyford during his incumbency.

February 2001

Three members of All Saints' Choir attended an RSCM workshop at Magdalen College School, Oxford on Saturday 17th February. This thoroughly enjoyable event was directed by Grayston Ives. He discussed a number of musical possibilities for these two seasons of the Church's year. The 70 participants were able to sing several anthems and carols, some of which would probably be new to any individual church.

The Easter music included an Easter Alleluia, Vidi aquam (plainsong), Most glorious Lord of life (Harris), the carol Now the green blade riseth (arr. Lindley), Mighty, glorious is God the Father from Cantata 207 (Bach) and the Negro spiritual The angel rolled the stone away. The selection for Whitsuntide ranged from Tallis's O Lord, give Thy holy spirit and Attwood's Come, holy ghost to Come down, O love divine (Harris) and Listen, sweet dove (Ives).

The workshop concluded with a short service, conducted by the Revd. Canon Timothy Wimbush, which included the Bach anthem and Come down, O love divine (Harris). Churches from many parts of the diocese were represented including Blewbury, Bow Brickhill, Gerrards Cross, Bisham, Steeple Claydon, Wallingford, Wargrave and the Wesley Memorial Church, Oxford.