1461 Not Out - Christ is Risen! 25th April 2011

Over Holy Week record numbers of people attended services at All Saints' Church. In addition to the hundreds of people who took time out to pray in the Church over the week, we recorded 1461 attendances and 696 "Communions". The Choirs led eight of the fourteen services that were held during the week, despite this being one of their school vacation weeks (the other week was spent recording a CD in Oxford, and Sunday choral services continued regardless - a mark of the commitment shown by our choristers and their parental taxi services!). On Palm Sunday the choirs sang music by Tomás Luis de Victoria, marking the 400th anniversary of his death in 1611. From the Passion according to Saint Matthew, the Missa 'O quam gloriosum' and the motet O Domine Jesu Christe at the Mass to the Magnificat Tertii toni (alongside Palestrina's Nunc dimittis on the same tone) and the motet Pueri Hebraorum at Evensong. Victoria was also sung on Good Friday, in the presence of the Bishop of Peterborough, at the Liturgy of the day. Here we heard the Passion according to Saint John and the Reproaches, and such were the numbers, that not only were all fourteen verses of the Reproaches sung, but some of the earlier ones had to be repeated. We were delighted that the Bishop was able to visit us for the first time on this most Holy of days, and his leading of the first two hours of our devotions, in readings from the King James Bible (also celebrating 400 years), traditional hymnody and preaching.       A recent addition to our Holy Week liturgies is the Office of Tenebrae, which was sung for the third time this year. This is one of the few opportunities in the year to visit the Church in complete darkness; the only lighting is to enable the choir to sing and the officiant to lead the said parts of the service. At the very conclusion we were delighted to hear Allegri's Miserere mei, Deus, sung from the West Gallery, followed only by the remarkable evocation of thunder provided this year by an extraordinarily-engineered sound from the West Gallery organ. On Maundy Thursday the Boys and Men led the Mass of the Last Supper in a feast of Russian music - the setting of the Gloria was from Stravinsky's Mass, accompanied by a remarkable array of colours from the organ, and the ringing of bells and cymbelstern, and the remainder of the Mass was from a lesser-known setting by Arthur Hutchings, which derives from the intense, traditional and unaccompanied chants of the Russian Orthodox Church.     At the Easter Vigil the Girls and Men gave a stirring performance of Langlais' Messe solenelle and on Easter Day the Boys and Men sang the Ordinary to Philip Moore's vibrant Missa in Tempore Paschali, and contributed three of Vaughan Williams' Five Mystical Songs (the other two having been performed earlier in the term). The Mass began with the Great Processional Hymn of Easter - "Hail Thee, Festival Day" - where our visiting Preacher's dog accompanied the choir, servers and Sacred Ministers as they circumnavigated the Church! Evensong concluded the celebrations of the First Day of Easter with Wesley's Blessed be the God and Father, with a delightful treble solo from one of the younger boys. We offer thanks for our Flower-arrangers who did such a wonderful job with the Altar of Repose on Thursday and the Easter displays which appeared for our Vigil.