News ‘A Ceremony of Carols’ Heralds the Arrival of Christmas at Godolphin 05.12.2025
On Thursday 4 December, our Junior Chamber Choir and Senior Chamber Choir gave breathtakingly good performances in our concert ‘A Ceremony of Carols’. The Junior Chamber Choir sang Part II of John Rutter’s tuneful Dancing Day, and the Senior Chamber Choir gave a complete performance of Benjamin Britten’s evocative A Ceremony of Carols.
In Dancing Day, Izi and Clemy sang a beautiful duet, while Andrea, Gigi, and Emily sang their semi-chorus with great skill; and in A Ceremony of Carols, Sky, Maya, Chloe, Honor, Sabrina and Sofia sang exquisite solos. The Senior Chamber Choir was expertly accompanied by Meredith and Giselle, as well as our harp teacher Miss Jones. Large-scale works such as these are rarely attempted by school choirs, and we are immensely fortunate to enjoy performances of this calibre here.
Mr Langworthy’s and Miss Edwards’s programme note is printed in full below:
‘As the nights draw ever nearer, and winter settles gently around us, we are delighted to welcome you to our concert this evening for a moment of seasonal evocation, good cheer and (hopefully) a little yuletide magic.
‘There are many similarities between Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and Rutter’s Dancing Day (indeed, Dancing Day was composed as a companion piece to Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols). Both works are collections of carols combining medieval texts with fresh, contemporary musical settings. Each composer writes for a choir of upper voices with harp accompaniment, creating an angelic, ethereal sound inevitably associated with Christmas. Structurally, both cycles balance lively, rhythmically vigorous movements with gentler, more contemplative ones, and both are eminently singable – yet also present technical challenges in terms of intonation, texture and rhythm.
‘Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols was composed on a journey from America to England in May 1942, using texts from The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, which Britten had purchased in Canada. Although many of these derive from the 15th and 16th centuries, the processional and recessional chant ‘Hodie Christus natus est’ is, at least, 1000 years old!
‘John Rutter’s Dancing Day was composed in 1973 after being commissioned by harpist Muriel Liddle. Built around arrangements of traditional carols rather than original compositions, it features well-known melodies such as the poignant 16th-century ‘Coventry Carol’ and the traditional ‘Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day’, all revitalised through Rutter’s distinctive and sensitive re-imagining.
‘It feels so impressive that tonight’s performers are able to present a programme of this length and complexity, just weeks after evensongs in Holborn and Winchester and only seven days before our highly anticipated Festival of Lessons and Carols. We are particularly delighted that tonight’s performance also features accompaniment from two of our student harpists, who have worked so hard to prepare for tonight. Many, many congratulations to all of them.
‘We hope that you enjoy our concert this evening.’