Since the millennium, it has become the custom at the turn of the year for singers from All Saints' and St. Nicholas, Greys, to join together for choral evensong at Peppard. Nowadays, singers from St. John's, Kidmore End and Christ the King, Sonning Common also participate. The singers rehearse from 4.30 p.m., break for coffee and mince pies and then sing the service.

Please come along at 6.30 p.m. on Sunday, 2nd January 2005 and support your choirs who put so much work into church services throughout the year, and especially over the Christmas period. The music will include:

It seems that the anthem which the Parochial Church Council commissioned from Grayston Ives in 2000 is set to become an even firmer favourite. Already recorded by the RSCM Millennium Youth Choir on the Lammas label, published in print by RSCM and their best selling single anthem of 2003, it is now to appear on the Harmonia Mundi label as track 1 of a CD of compositions by Grayston Ives, recorded in March 2004 by the Chapel Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford.

Some of us have been extolling the qualities of Magdalen Choir in recent years. It seems that we are not alone as the choir's recording of music by Orlando Gibbons: With a Merrie Noyse (Harmonia Mundi), has been nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Small Ensemble Performance category. The awards will be made in Los Angeles on 13th February.

Three of us from All Saints' spent Saturday, 15th January at a choral workshop in Reading. The event was organised by Making Music South East, part of the National Federation of Music Societies, and held at The Abbey School in Kendrick Road.

Bob Chilcott is a well-known choral conductor and composer. Much of his music has been written for the church. His own background is one of thorough immersion in church music as both boy and undergraduate in the Chapel Choir of King's College, Cambridge. A few years in the famous King's Singers preceded a career in which he has specialised in conducting choirs of children and young people, both here and in North America.

Chilcott's music is attractive to the ear but not always easy to learn! During the workshop, he concentrated exclusively on works of his own. They included All my trials, a spiritual arranged for the Reading Phoenix Choir, and Ev'ry time I feel the spirit; a carol entitled For him all stars have shone, in which the composer has set words by the Oxford poet, Elizabeth Jennings; the three-movement Canticles of Light; and his well-known Irish Blessing.

The day passed with alarming alacrity, the music interspersed with useful background information drawn from a wealth of experience. A total of 230 singers had registered for the workshop, of whom 27 were tenors! The arrangements and food on the day were excellent. Such opportunities, so near at hand, need to be grasped when they occur.

On Sunday 23rd January, Royal School of Church Music ribbons and medals were presented as follows:

• Red ribbons to Jamie Bell, Felicity Cunningham and Melissa de Haan
• Light blue ribbons to Anna Clayphan and Jenny Martin
• The award for best attendance in 2004 went to Helena Bell.

On Saturday 5th March, singers from a number of churches in Henley, Wycombe and Sonning deaneries will gather in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Hambleden for a choirs' festival, conducted by Grayston Ives, Organist and Informator Choristarum, Magdalen College, Oxford. Organist for the festival is Christine Wells, FRCO. The festival music is:

Festival Evensong is at 5 p.m. when the preacher will be the Reverend Malcolm MacNaughton, Rector of Hambleden. Everyone is most welcome to attend. Please park in the field to the north of Hambleden Church.

Regular visitors to these pages will recognise that the anthem is that which the PCC commissioned Mr. Ives to compose in 2000. The Choir of All Saints' will be represented by 21 of its members, with another nine singers from St. John's, Kidmore End taking part.

On Good Friday, 25th March, the Devotional Hour at 2 p.m. will include the Stabat mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736). It will be sung by Rebecca Bell and Marion Olsen, and accompanied by Nigel Wallington.

The Stabat mater is probably Pergolesi's most famous composition. The text is of 13th century origin and it tells the Passion from the viewpoint of the Virgin Mary. Like Mozart's Requiem, it has always attracted attention as a religious work from a young composer near to death.

On Easter Day, 27th March, the Choir of All Saints' will be joined by the trumpeter Maddie Cottam in the anthem Awake, thou wintry earth from Johann Sebastian Bach's Cantata 129. It is 300 years since the 20 year old Bach famously walked the 200 miles from Arnstadt to Lübeck to listen to Buxtehude's Abendmusiken concerts. That Bach overstayed his leave of absence by three months may have been rather poor behaviour, but mankind has benefited ever since. Also on Easter Day, the setting for the Eucharist will be Heathcote Statham's service in D. Statham (1889-1973) was organist of Norwich Cathedral from 1928 until 1966.

In spite of the many and various dates of school Easter holidays within the area covered by RSCM Thames and Chilterns, roughly equated with the Diocese of Oxford and the (old) counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, the week beginning Sunday 3rd April 2005 seems to be a holiday for the majority of schools. The RSCM Three Day Course for Boys and Girls is being held at Magdalen College School, Oxford from Monday 4th to Wednesday 6th April.

Five children from the Choir of All Saints' Church will attend. They are Jamie Bell, Felicity Cunningham, Melissa de Haan, Megan Hill and Caroline Southern. Each day, about 80 children will sing a service in the beautiful Chapel of Magdalen College at 4.15 p.m. when parents and friends will be most welcome.

The date of birth of Thomas Tallis is uncertain but he may have been born in 1505. This year is being regarded as the 500th anniversary of his birth. Prior to the Dissolution, he seems to have been Organist or Master of the Choristers at Waltham Abbey. Later in life, together with Willaim Byrd, he was granted a monopoly by Queen Elizabeth to print music. Tallis died at Greenwich and is buried in the parish church there.

During May, we shall mark this anniversary by singing some of Tallis's music. His setting of the Litany will be sung on Rogation Sunday during Morning Prayer. On Whitsunday, his anthem If ye love me will be sung at both services, while on Whitsunday evening, during Festal Evensong, the office hymn Thou wast, O God, and thou wast blest will be sung to his Third Mode Melody. It is this haunting tune which inspired Ralph Vaughan Williams to compose his Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis, a work which, on its first performance in Gloucester Cathedral in 1910, so moved the young Herbert Howells.

Also this month, we mark the 60th anniversary of Victory in Europe on 8th May. The anthem that evening will be Now thank we all our God from Cantata No. 79 by Bach.

Congratulations to Jamie Bell (Silver Award [1] with merit), Felicity Cunningham and Melissa de Haan (both Bronze Award [2]) on their success in the recent examinations for the RSCM Bishop of Oxford's Chorister Awards. Well done - we are very proud of you!

The choristers will be presented with their awards during Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, on Saturday 5th November 2005 at 6.00 p.m. Please come along and support them.

[1] previously known as the Senior Award
[2] previously known as the Junior Award

Those who sing in churches are familiar with this comment and others like it. But what may be the "usual" tune in one church is never heard or sung in the church just down the road. Organists and clergy have to wrestle with the problem, sometimes under the pressure of making arrangements for a funeral. "Please can you sing the tune to me?" becomes part of a telephone conversation in order to establish which tune is intended or preferred.

Our own hymn books, Ancient and Modern Revised and Songs of Praise, often provide alternative tunes or suggestions for tunes to accompany the words of a hymn. Indeed, in AMR, the music of three tunes is printed for "Lead, kindly Light". AMR and SP each provide two tunes for "Love divine, all loves excelling", none of which is Blaenwern.

On Mothering Sunday and again on Rogation Sunday, we sang "For the beauty of the earth" to the tune Lucerna Laudoniae. According to J. R. Watson, Emeritus Professor of English in the University of Durham, in his book An annotated anthology of hymns, Lucerna Laudoniae is one of "two fine modern tunes" which have been attracted to these words. It is a tune which is frequently heard on radio and television programmes. It was composed by David Evans, a professor of music and music editor of the Church Hymnary (1927). However, one regular and faithful member of our congregation told me that she thought that the tune was a dirge. She was supported by a gentleman who said that he much preferred "the usual tune"!

The "usual tune" at Peppard is probably Dix which Dr. Ian Bradley, in The Penguin Book of Hymns, regards as "slightly boring and predictable". The intention, in choosing "a fine modern tune" was to vary our diet and improve on a tune which has its shortcomings. Dr. Bradley says that no two hymn books that he has consulted offer the same tune for "For the beauty of the earth". He goes on to cite NINE tunes which are in use in different hymn books. So which of them is the "usual tune"?

Answers to the Editor on a post card (or by email)!

Keith Atkinson

The 60th anniversary of VJ Day falls on Sunday, 14th August. Services that day will, in part, reflect our thanksgiving for the end of the Second World War in 1945. Hymns will include Let saints on earth in concert sing, O God, our help in ages past and To the name of our salvation while, at Evening Prayer, the Choir will sing Sir William Harris's anthem, Vox ultima crucis. This is a setting of words by the English poet and monk, John Lydgate (1370? - 1447):

Ten choristers from the Choir of All Saints' Church are expected to attend an RSCM Singing Day for Children, held at Pangbourne College on Saturday, 3rd September and directed by Darren Everhart, Director of Music at the College. The children will sing music in a variety of styles and the day will end with a performance in the Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel.

At auditions for membership of the Royal School of Church Music Southern Cathedral Singers, held on 1st October at Cleveland Lodge near Dorking, Jamie Bell achieved the highest grade and will be taking his place with the Singers (Boys and Men) for Evensong at Southwark Cathedral on Saturday 22nd October.

Congratulations to Jamie for maintaining the connection between All Saints' Church Choir and the RSCM in this way.

Members of the Choirs of All Saints' Church, Rotherfield Peppard and the Church of St. John the Baptist, Kidmore End, along with 300 other singers, will be taking part in the RSCM Annual Choirs' Festival on Saturday 8th October in Dorchester Abbey:

The music will include:

Festival Evensong will take place at 5.00 p.m. Everyone is most welcome to attend the service and to support their local choristers.

The 200th anniversary of the great British victory at the Battle of Trafalgar falls on Friday, 21st October. The anniversary of this momentous day in British history will be marked at All Saints' Church at Evensong on Sunday, 23rd October, as it will be during services in cathedrals, churches and chapels throughout the land that day. Some of the content of the service will be taken from the State Funeral of Viscount Nelson KB which took place in St. Paul's Cathedral within the context of Evensong on Thursday, 9th January, 1806.

At a recent choir practice in Topsham, near Exeter, the singers were rehearsing 'our anthem' (There is a land of pure delight by Grayston Ives) when one of the choristers, reading its dedication to All Saints' Choir and the late Vernon Openshaw, asked "Where the h*** is Rotherfield Peppard?"

As it happened, the Rev. Canon David Evans (formerly of Henley-on-Thames, then Rector of Nether Heyford, and a very good friend of All Saints') was on hand to explain EXACTLY where Rotherfield Peppard is!

Because Christmas Day falls on a Sunday this year, it is not easy to arrange suitable times for our usual carol services. There will be a Service of Seven Lessons and Carols as usual on Christmas Day at 11 a.m.

However, instead of the traditional Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, there will be a service devoted to music and readings for the Advent Season at 6.30 p.m. on Sunday, 11th December. Readings, Advent hymns and music by Vaughan Williams, Bach, Gibbons, Berkeley, Goldschmidt, Terry and Pettman will be included in the service and it is hoped that this departure from our usual arrangements will meet with good support from members of the congregation.