Choral Evensong

Introit

O Sing Joyfully - Adrian Batten

Born in Salisbury, Batten became a choral conductor at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, augmenting his income as a music copyist for Westminster Abbey. A prolific composer, he is credited with saving many of the works of Weelkes, Tallis and Tomkins. Ironically, many of his own manuscripts have been lost. His O Sing Joyfully sets words from the psalms with bright, direct energy: a short Tudor-style invitation to praise that opens the service with clarity and lift.

Preces & Responses

Philip Moore

Philip Moore, born in 1943, served for many years at York Minster and is one of the most widely sung Anglican composers of recent decades. His responses balance liturgical simplicity with expressive colour, allowing the dialogue between priest and choir to feel both ceremonial and warmly human.

Psalms

Psalm 81

¹ Sing aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.
² Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery.
³ Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.
⁴ For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob.
⁵ This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out through the land of Egypt: where I heard a language that I understood not.
⁶ I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots.
⁷ Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.
⁸ Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me;
⁹ There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.
¹⁰ I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.
¹¹ But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.
¹² So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.
¹³ Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!
¹⁴ I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries.
¹⁵ The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever.
¹⁶ He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.

Psalm 84

¹ How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!
² My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
³ Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God.
⁴ Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah.
⁵ Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.
⁶ Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.
⁷ They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.
⁸ O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.
⁹ Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.
¹⁰ For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
¹¹ For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
¹² O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

Canticles

St John’s Service - Herbert Howells

Herbert Howells was one of the defining voices of 20th-century Anglican church music. Written for the choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, his St John’s Service sets the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis with long-breathed lines, luminous harmony and the unmistakable sense of evening light for which Howells is loved.

Anthem

Glorious and Powerful God - Charles Villiers Stanford

Charles Villiers Stanford, born in Dublin in 1852, helped shape the modern English choral sound through his work as composer, conductor and teacher at Cambridge and the Royal College of Music. Glorious and Powerful God shows his gift for sturdy architecture and generous vocal writing, clothing devotional words in music of confident breadth.