September’s music choices continue to reflect our changing liturgical patterns as we emerge from lockdown, as well as themes that arise from the lectionary. The location of the choir in the morning service should facilitate the performance of settings with organ once again, so on Sunday 5th we plan to sing Harold Darke’s Communion Service in E, and on the 12th Haydn’s Mass no. 7 in B flat, often known as the ‘Little Organ Mass’ due to the solo organ part in the Benedictus. Best of all, we look forward to welcoming the Junior Choir back with us at morning services from September 12th.

Performing the superb music of the classical masses by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and others in today’s liturgical circumstances is far from straightforward, since the manner in which the Mass liturgy was conducted when the pieces were written required the composer to make some movements short and others long, not corresponding to the lengths of the texts: the Gloria and Creed were required to be short, whilst the Benedictus needed to be long. Composers even ‘telescoped’ the longer texts, with all the parts singing different texts simultaneously, so that the complete text could be sung with dispatch. Haydn’s Gloria for his Mass No.7 was so short that his composer brother Michael decided to remove the telescoping, and this is the version we will sing on the 12th. We will sing the Benedictus during the communion, in order to have time to include the extended soprano and organ solo. Some settings of the Agnus Dei in classical masses ended in triumphal style to mark the conclusion of the liturgy, and so seem ill-suited to use just before the communion today. However, Haydn’s Mass No.7 ends calmly, so fits well.     

On the 19th September we are delighted to be giving the first performance of the Hampstead Mass composed by local composer Ben Ponniah with funds from the Hampstead Church Music Trust. Ben will be attending the service and we look forward to seeing him then.

Evensong continues as in August, but now with a visiting organist each week. There is a mini-theme in the form of the so-called ‘Dresden’ Amen, which will be sung as the Final Amen and which also appears at the end of Stanford in B flat and in a psalm chant by Thomas Armstrong. We observe the readings with the spiritual ‘Go down, Moses’ on the 5th, motets with texts concerning the law on the 12th, and two pieces describing the heavenly hosts on the 26th, anticipating Michaelmas (29th). Fans of Edward Elgar will be pleased to see one of his epic psalm-anthems Great is the Lord alongside the superb first movement of his Organ Sonata on the 19th. Amongst less well-known composers featured this month are Philip Radcliffe (1905-86) who for many years was a Lecturer in Music at Cambridge and composed his Preces and Responses for the Edington Music Festival in 1971 (I sang in the first performance as a treble!), and the Italian organist Tarquinio Merula (1595-1665) who spent most of his life working in Cremona, and was renowned for his lively and innovative works for both voices and instruments. His Capriccio cromatico was not of course designed to be heard in our splendid organ’s ‘equal temperament’ tuning, but there are plenty of suitably spicy-sounding options on YouTube…

(The photos show Ben Ponniah and The Hospital Chapel in Eisenstadt where Haydn’s Little Organ Mass was first performed, with the composer playing the organ.