The Penultimate Word

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This the Chapel of King’s College at Cambridge University in England. We usually think of chapels as small spaces for worship, but this one is mammoth, the interior being 290 feet long and 40 feet wide. The foundation stone of the chapel was laid by King Henry VI in 1446, who caused it to be built and was determined that it be the largest and most beautiful college chapel around. Work was interrupted in 1461 when Henry was taken prisoner by Edward Duke of York during the War of the Roses. Work was begun again under Richard III, continued under Henry VII after he overthrew Richard, and eventually completed in 1547 under Henry VIII.

The world-famous chapel choir was part of Henry VI’s plan for the chapel from the beginning. It exists to participate in the worship life of the chapel, but its reach and influence is world-wide. The choir is in the English cathedral choir tradition, which means that, among other things, the trebles (sopranos and altos) are boys whose voices have not yet changed. The tenors and basses are music students at the college, the boys attend a boarding school run by the college.

Every year on Christmas Eve the chapel holds the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ using nine scripture lessons interspersed with congregational carol singing and anthems sung by the choir. The first Festival was held in 1918 and has been held every year since. It is so popular people begin lining up early in the morning on Christmas Eve for the 3:30 pm service. Except in 1930, it has been broadcast over BBC radio every year since 1928. It was broadcast even during World War II though the glass (and heat) had been removed from the building in case it was bombed. Every few years a shorter version is filmed for television. The service is now heard and watched by millions of people worldwide, and the format of the service has been adapted by churches worldwide for their own use.

Every year since 1919 the service begins with the carol Once in Royal David’s City. The first verse is a solo by one of the choirboys. The choir director never tells his charges ahead of time who he has chosen as the soloist, he simply beckons him forward at the start of the service.

Another carol sung at the festival is In Dulci Jubilo (Good Christian Men Rejoice), an old German carol dating back to the 14th century. One of the verses (”O Patris caritas”) was likely written by Martin Luther in the 16th century. It is a macaronic carol, which means that the text combines Latin and a vernacular language - German in the original, English in this arrangement written by R. L. Pearsall in 1837. Pearsall’s absolutely beautiful arrangement sometimes splits the choir into two 4-part choruses and sometimes combines it into one 5-part chorus. It also uses a small group of voices in the beginning of verse 3 (”O Patris caritas”) and an octet in the middle of verse 4 (”Ubi sunt gaudia”).

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