December 2004
Church Music in Christ Church Dun Laoghaire	Show Menu

Ruth Maybury

I am a little envious of David Wilkinson with the numbers in his choir; however let me say that I too am lucky with my members. At present I have four sopranos, three altos, three tenors and three basses. I had another couple of sopranos who unfortunately had to leave over the past year, for various reasons. It is sad to lose members but as this sometimes happens, you either try to get new members or carry on with the faithful ones remaining.

As David wrote, music is a key element of worship in the Church of Ireland and this should be remembered whether the congregation be big or small. With a smaller congregation it means that everyone has to sing that little bit harder and louder, although this does not always happen as some people are hesitant to sing out! Shame!

In Dun Laoghaire we have two services each Sunday: 9 a.m. and 10.30 a.m. The 9.00 service every Sunday is that of Holy Communion. On the first and third Sundays the 10.30 is also Holy Communion and on the second and fourth it is Morning Prayer. We have rehearsals each Thursday evening in the Church, which generally last for about an hour, though when we are rehearsing for one of the festivals it can be a bit longer. We also have a short practice on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. lasting approximately 15 minutes before the service begins. This practice gives the choir the chance to go over some music that might have been newly looked at on the Thursday, and running through it once or twice brings it back to memory. A long time has passed between Thursday and Sunday! We try to sing an anthem on the last Sunday of every month especially over the winter months when we have a full choir. It is a bit harder over the summer with holiday period. The anthems are usually short and easy to learn quickly. I sometimes use a book of ‘One-rehearsal anthems for choirs’, which is great. I have travelled to Canada over the past years and picked up various anthems for the choir. The members always say on my return — "well what have you brought back this time for us?"

How does practice go on a Thursday? Well it can vary. We usually start off with a hymn to open the throats. Then I might get them to sing something like ‘Doe a deer’ a few times varying the singing between softly, loudly, staccato etc. Another one we like to sing is ‘Daisy, Daisy’. Amazing how you can stumble over the words sometimes especially ‘on a bicycle made for two’ if you are trying to sing it very quickly! We sing this as a ‘round’ sometimes with sopranos and altos starting and then the tenors and basses or using the four parts separately. Makes them sit up and watch me to see who is next to come in. I can change my mind very quickly!! Women can do this – it is allowed! We then go through all the hymns, psalm and canticles and then get going on the anthem. Sometimes when practising a chant we ‘bleep’ it. Good practice. Try it sometimes with your choir (no charge for this bit of information!) Time passes very quickly especially as I found out only on Saturday 25th September when we were decorating the church for Harvest that the sopranos keep a knife in the choir stalls. This I was told was kept just in case they needed to really make a point about something that they are singing. Do I believe them! Would you? I have been on my best behaviour since then.

Hard work and dedication! Yes that is everything. I feel I have that with my choir. Ask them to learn something and they get to it. They do not all read music so it can be challenging but this does not hold them back. I put the different parts on tape for them to listen to and this seems to help them.

We have a Christmas ‘get together’ which normally, over the last few years has been held in the Rectory with the kind permission of the Rector, but this year we decided to ‘break out’ and go to a restaurant for dinner. We had a most enjoyable time – food and drink enjoyed by all and a good bit of chat and no dirty dishes to wash up afterwards. Great!

Good luck to all you church organists and keep up the good work! It is a demanding job but very worth while and I am sure that nearly everyone appreciates your talent.

Any offers to write the next article in this series of music in various churches?

Jesus shall reign, where’er the Sun; Isaac Watts (1674 —1748)

Adrian Somerfield (St Thomas, Mount Merrion)

We sang this well known hymn one Sunday recently, and afterwards a member of the Congregation asked me if I had noticed that there was a mistake in the current Hymn Book? He claimed that the line “And praises throng to crown his head” should read what it had always been: “And princes throng to crown his head”. He maintained that praises could not throng whereas princes could. So I had a look in some other hymnals, with the results shown:

Irish Church Hymnal (1936 edition)	Hy. 433	princes
Irish Church Hymnal (1960)	421	princes
Irish Church Hymnal (2000)	97	praises
Hymns Ancient and Modern (1950)	220	praises
Hymns for Today’s Church (1982)	516	princes
Clarendon Hymn Book (1936)	203	praises
Methodist Hymn Book (1933)	272	praises
Public School Hymn Book (1949)	268	praises
With One Voice (Australian) (1979)	136	praises

Psalm 72, on which the hymn is based, might favour princes, but what did Watts write?

<<Previous | Next >>