The Gabrieli Choir

This year’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols will take place at St Columba’s Presbyterian Church, Budapest VI, Vörösmarty u. 51 on Friday 16th December, at 6.00 p.m.

The service will last until about 7.15 pm, and admission is free of charge (although there will be a retiring collection). It will be led by The Reverend Frank Hegedus, Chaplain of St. Margaret’s Anglican Church, Budapest, and carols will be sung by The Gabrieli Choir (director: Richárd Sólyom), and the Exsultate Boys’ Choir, from the Zoltán Kodály Hungarian Choir School (director: Márton Tóth). The choirs will be accompanied by organist Alan Sutton, and readings will be contributed by representatives of the British and American Embassies, of Budapest’s resident Anglican and Presbyterian communities, and of the two participating choirs.

In Britain the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has become a staple ingredient of many millions of people’s preparations for Christmas.  It was devised in 1918 by Eric Milner-White, Dean of King’s College, Cambridge and it has been sung there every Christmas Eve since.  It has been broadcast by the BBC since 1928, and now, in the age satellite and the Internet, it is listened to (and watched) by people throughout the world.

The service is based around nine short Bible readings telling the Christmas story.  Interspersed with these are carols, both familiar and new, some sung by the choir alone, others by the choir and congregation together.  There are short prayers towards the beginning and the end of the service.

The Bible readings remain the same year in, year out, reflecting the timelessness of the message they contain.  Whilst it has become traditional that the first be read by a boy chorister, the remainder are shared between the clergy, dignitaries and lay people. The musical items, on the other hand, show a great deal of diversity.  The King’s College service always contains at least one piece that has not been heard before, and over the years, many of these have gone on to become well-loved Christmas pieces. The congregational carols also change from year to year, with the exception of the first one and the last two.  The service always begins with Once in Royal David’s City, with the first verse sung solo by a boy chorister; the choir enters in verse two, and the congregation from verse three onwards.  The final hymns are two perennial favourites: O Come All Ye Faithful and Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, both featuring glorious descants soaring above the massed voices during the last verse.

In Cambridge, the service is still sung every Christmas Eve in front of a packed congregation in the Chapel of King’s College. However, it has also been adopted by churches all over the United Kingdom, and indeed throughout the world where there are Anglican communities. In Budapest, the service has been held in its current form now for four years. For the Gabrieli Choir it is both a delight and a privilege to be involved. In its regular concerts, the choir derives great pleasure from introducing repertoire unfamiliar to Hungarian audiences, but this is even more true with the joyous music written to celebrate Christmas, heard here in its original – liturgical – context.

• Gauntlett - Once In Royal David’s City
• Britten - A Hymn To The Virgin
• Sandstrom - Det Ar En Ros Utsprungen
• Trad./arr. Rutter - Child In A Manger
• Villette - O Magnum Mysterium
• Trad./Willcocks - Unto Us Is Born A Son
• Trad./Willcocks - Gabriel’s Message
• Holst - In The Bleak Midwinter
• Whitacre - Lux Aurumque