13th October 2013 by St Augustine's Choir

published on 2013-10-14T16:30:04Z

13th October 2013 An excerpt from the article by the Vicar, Matthew Tomlinson, in the October edition of the Parish Magazine. In 1968, to celebrate the centenary of our church, two extraordinary gifts were made. One was the extension of the church at the west end to create the Narthex, an enhancement which has been greatly valued since. The other acquisition was a remarkable piece of music written for the church. It was commissioned from the composer Herbert Howells, who had a family connection through the marriage of Rev’d John Cuthbert Lucas who had been vicar of St Augustine’s from 1938 to 1949. Howells was by that time a very well established composer of church music and had stamped on it his own very original style. I am told that he did what he did when he composed music for other places, and that he spent a whole day sitting in the church and taking inspiration from the architecture and atmosphere of the building. The resulting piece of music was posted to the PCC some months later - and we still hold that original manuscript as one of the church’s treasures. It appears to be written in biro and is flawless - a work of art in itself. The only drawback was that on first inspection it appeared to be a dauntingly difficult piece of music, which would challenge many cathedral choirs. A request was made to Howells that he might simplify it to put it more in reach of the ability of a good parish choir but he felt unable to change it without damaging its artistic integrity. As a consequence the St Augustine’s Service was not performed in the church it was written for until 1980 under Norman Dyson, then choirmaster, and then with a choir augmented by other singers. It has only been sung here twice since then, most recently in 2002 by the choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge. It is therefore an immense achievement that our own choir has now learnt the piece and will be able to sing it for our Dedication Festival on 13th October. Our choir is a small one, consisting of just 3 basses, 3 tenors, 2 altos and 7 sopranos. While three of our choir members have professional music qualifications, the others are all amateur singers and mostly drawn from our congregation. It is a testimony to their commitment and to the leadership and enabling ability of our choirmaster Thomas Keogh, so all praise to them!

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