Held, it being a Sunday, in the choir of the cathedral, with both choir and candles. The choir being men and boys and not, on this day anyway, having moved onto to having girls, which last, I believe, do figure in some of our cathedral choirs. The congregation, perhaps as many as fifty, about half (respectful) tourists like ourselves, about half proper people, at least proper in the sense that they were regulars, if improper in the sense that they were not attending a regular parish church.
The cathedral provided yellow A4 cards printed with both the order of service and some explanation of what the service was about, sensibly recognising that around half the congregation would not otherwise know what was going on. We were asked not to take them away as souvenirs but to leave them for whoever might come next. We were also provided with envelopes in which we could provide a donation and on which we could provide our tax details for the purposes of Gift Aid. BH had a pencil about her person so we were able to contribute in the way suggested.
Service oddly moving, despite my being a long service unbeliever. We were invited to reflect on our sinfulness, to repent and to be sorry for it. To try and do better the next time. To be humble. Something which we unbelievers - which is most people these days, at least most people who come from Church of England backgrounds in so far as the Registrar General is concerned - do not do much of these days. We no longer have a place where we are reminded about such things. In which I am not trying to bring back the good old days, to revive something which I know to be obsolete, but am just recognising that we have lost something. Something has been chucked away with the bathwater, something to which we perhaps need to find a new way. But have so far failed.
Th music was good. I single out for special notice the 'Canticle of Zachariah', with music by Sir James MacMillan CBE, a Catholic from Scotland. I thought that there were negro spiritual influences at work.
Afterwards I wondered whether the sort of music which we had heard was the sort of thing that Trollope had in mind when he had his warden spend large sums of money on the private publication of church music, money which some thought, or who had at least been media prompted to think, had been intended for more obviously charitable purposes.
Browsing google for something with which to illustrate this post, I tried the search term 'nunc dimittis', which turned up the picture above, 'La Vierge au Lys', from reference 1 via reference 2. Or perhaps the other way around, with William-Adolphe Bouguereau appearing, on the basis of a quick peek, to be a French version of our own Alma-Tadema.
PS: the cathedral was up to date enough to include a lady as second officiant, rather more grandly dressed than the first officiant.
Reference 1: http://nunc--dimittis.tumblr.com/.
Reference 2: http://www.bouguereau.org/.
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