{"id":50919,"date":"2024-12-18T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/e2fbcab9-a79e-44b2-8755-3cf5f0b618ca"},"modified":"2024-12-18T11:09:22","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T10:09:22","slug":"festival-of-nine-lessons-and-carols-how-the-beloved-christmas-service-began-in-a-lowly-cornish-barn","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/festival-of-nine-lessons-and-carols-how-the-beloved-christmas-service-began-in-a-lowly-cornish-barn\/","title":{"rendered":"Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols: how the beloved Christmas service began in a lowly Cornish barn"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 18 December 2024 at 09:30 AM<\/p>

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Read on to discover all about the origins of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols…<\/strong><\/p>

When and where did the first Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols take place?<\/h2>
Anyone even half-interested in the origins of the world-famous King\u2019s College Cambridge Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is aware that the format was borrowed, for Christmas 1918 and thereafter, from a Truro Cathedral<\/a><\/strong> original. That ground-breaking occasion in Cornwall took place at 10pm on Christmas Eve 1880, the shape of the \u2018Nine Lessons with <\/em>Carols\u2019 having been masterminded by Truro\u2019s bishop-cum-dean, Edward Benson. \u2018Appropriate lessons from the Scriptures were read in the intervals [between carols]\u2019 was the understated way in which a local newspaper heralded the birth of\u00a0a\u00a0Christmas\u00a0institution.<\/p>
What is the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols?<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul>
What may nonetheless surprise many is that King\u2019s was remarkably tardy in taking its cue from Truro, for all that the college\u2019s dean, Eric Milner-White, imaginatively refashioned the Cornish template. Parish churches, especially, had long been inspired by the Truro precedent. For example, at Christmas 1897, Holy Trinity Church in Maidstone staged \u2018the festival service, consisting of nine lessons with carols, according to the use of Truro Cathedral\u2019. In December 1909, St George\u2019s Cunningham Park, Harrow, put on the \u2018festal service of the nine lessons and\u00a0carols\u2019.\u00a0And so on.<\/p>

<\/div> <figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"> Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge <\/figcaption> <\/figure> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/when-was-the-first-christmas-carol\">When was the first Christmas carol?<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The first Festival… in a lowly Cornish barn-like structure<\/h2> <p>The Nine Lessons with Carols enjoyed no grand debut on that midwinter Truro evening in 1880. The venue was a \u00a3448 wooden structure, barn-like, holding no more than around 400 people. This was Truro\u2019s new \u2018pro-cathedral\u2019, a temporary place of worship being used while the neo-Gothic cathedral we see today was being built. After a gap of more than 800 years, Cornwall was once more blessed with a bishopric. However, the historic parish church of St Mary wasn\u2019t deemed adequate to serve as the cathedral of the new diocese of Truro, formally constituted in December 1876, with Edward Benson as its first bishop from the following year. St Mary\u2019s was duly all but demolished by the end of 1880 \u2013 save for the south aisle, which would be incorporated into the new building and\u00a0named \u2018St Mary\u2019s Aisle\u2019.\u00a0<\/p> <p>A grainy, blurred 1880 newspaper photo of the bare interior of the \u2018Temporary Wooden Church of St Mary\u2019 conveys the impression of a large, rough-and-ready barn\/village hall with a simple pitched roof, the space poorly illuminated by natural light. Once the new Truro Cathedral was habitable, the stop-gap structure had been moved to nearby Redruth in the 1890s, purchased by a footwear company which promptly changed its trading name to the Cathedral Boot Works. The building later served as the showroom and store for a brush-making business, before it burnt down in 1981.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/worlds-best-choirs\">13 of the world’s best choirs<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols… music director Somerset Walpole<\/h2> <p>In its brief reign as a cathedral, the old St\u00a0Mary\u2019s church in Truro hosted Christmas Eve singing of carols in 1878 and \u201979. This was hardly an original notion \u2013 carol services happened everywhere \u2013 but an innovation here. Previously the cathedral choir had simply sung door-to-door around Truro. At both the 1878 and \u201979 occasions the choir was conducted by one GHS Walpole, an individual who deserves no little credit for the birth of the Nine Lessons with Carols \u2013 someone who was probably considerably more musical than Benson.<\/p> <p>Somerset Walpole arrived in Truro in 1877 in his early 20s, ready to be ordained by the bishop. Once received into holy orders, Walpole was appointed the cathedral\u2019s \u2018vicar-choral\u2019, with overall responsibility for the choir and music. WJ Margetson\u2019s 1930 memoir of Benson relates that \u2018Walpole felt something was needed on Christmas Eve, both as a counter attraction to the public houses and as a right prelude to Christmas. He suggested to Bishop Benson the holding of a Carol Service, and the bishop drew up the present service, compiled largely from medieval service books.\u2019 Margetson seems to elide the initial 1878 carol service and the 1880 Nine Lessons with Carols, but Walpole\u2019s pivotal\u00a0role is clear enough.<\/p> <p>Walpole had a passion for music and music-making. On his arrival in Truro, he was soon banging heads together to bring about the formation of a Truro Philharmonic Society, which he helped run. He was a decent enough tenor to be able to tackle solos in, for example, the society\u2019s performance of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/felix-mendelssohn\">Mendelssohn<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s <em>Lobgesang. <\/em>Walpole gave lectures to Truro audiences on <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/joseph-haydn\">Haydn<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/ludwig-van-beethoven\">Beethoven<\/a><\/strong>, organised a local music festival and conducted a performance of John Farmer\u2019s brand-new <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-oratorio\">oratorio<\/a><\/strong> <em>Christ and His Soldiers <\/em>in the\u00a0doomed\u00a0St\u00a0Mary\u2019s.<\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols… Bishop Edward Benson<\/h2> <p>So, in 1878 Walpole put the idea of a carol service to Edward Benson, whose liturgical magic was duly sprinkled on the 1880 event. The bishop was an energetic, innovatory perfectionist. Born in Birmingham, he transcended a humble family background to demonstrate academic brilliance at Cambridge and then make his mark as headmaster of\u00a0Wellington College. \u2018As a former public school headmaster, he rather expected deference at Truro,\u2019 says Canon David Miller, an authority on Benson\u2019s episcopate in Cornwall. \u2018Maybe some found him dictatorial. However, he was a born leader, with great organisational talents and an ability to relate to people of all classes and churchmanship.\u2019 As soon as 1883, Benson\u2019s qualities would see him translated to\u00a0Archbishop of Canterbury.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/the-best-cathedral-and-abbey-choirs-across-the-uk\">The best cathedral and abbey choirs across the UK<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <p>The bishop\u2019s son, AC Benson (famously the writer of the \u2018<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/land-of-hope-and-glory\">Land of Hope and Glory<\/a><\/strong>\u2019 text to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/edward-elgar\">Elgar<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s music), wrote of how his father \u2018arranged from ancient sources a little service for Christmas Eve \u2013 nine carols and nine tiny lessons\u2019. What exactly the \u2018ancient\u2019 or \u2018medieval\u2019 sources were is unclear, although <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/stephen-cleobury-1948-2019\">Stephen Cleobury<\/a><\/strong>, the late director of music at King\u2019s College Cambridge, suggested the inspiration might have been \u2018the monastic office of Matins with its three groups of three lessons each followed\u00a0by\u00a0a\u00a0responsory\u2019.<\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols… Methodist inspirations<\/h2> <p>Maybe this was the case, but there very likely was another fascinating factor in the shaping of the service. As the bishop presiding over a predominantly rural county, Benson would have endorsed the Victorian Anglican church\u2019s concern for the needs of country areas suffering impoverishment as urbanisation advanced inexorably. \u2018Benson was also conscious that Methodism had deep roots in rural Cornwall,\u2019 observes David Miller. \u2018So, it seems he borrowed the time-honoured \u201chymn sandwich\u201d from Methodist church services for the structure of his Nine Lessons with Carols, consciously reaching out to the community around him. A hymn sandwich would run something like hymn-introduction-hymn-prayer-hymn-reading-hymn-sermon-hymn, and so on. You\u00a0can see that it\u2019s a model.\u2019<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/what-is-a-hymn\">What is a hymn?<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols… the creation of a brand<\/h2> <p>The impetus for Benson to create something distinctive in 1880 may have been his desire to help the grieving congregation of St Mary\u2019s move on from the lightning-quick demolition of their historic church that autumn. What then set apart his version of the common-or-garden carol service?<\/p> <p>The first thing to say is that framing things as \u2018Nine Lessons with Carols\u2019 was a smart piece of packaging. At a stroke, a brand was created which caught the imagination. Inside the packaging was Benson\u2019s forensically assembled sequence of intertwined words and music, setting the Nativity firmly in the context of Biblical prophecy and God\u2019s redemptive purposes for mankind. The nine lessons (five from the Old Testament, four from the New) were read by nine members of the Truro cathedral community,\u00a0a pattern that was essentially adopted at King\u2019s in Cambridge, although Dean Milner-White opted for a greater emphasis on conveying the Nativity narrative than Benson.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/carols-kings-behind-scenes\">Carols at King’s: behind the scenes<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <p>Was the appropriately knowledgeable Somerset Walpole consulted over the selection of music? More than likely. After all, at that 1880 Christmas Eve \u2018festal service\u2019 he conducted the cathedral choir, which was very much centre stage. It delivered three choruses from<em> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/best-recordings-handel-s-messiah\">Messiah<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, four carols (includin<em>g The Lord at first had Adam made <\/em>and <em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/good-christian-men-rejoice-lyrics\">Good Christian men, rejoice<\/a><\/strong><\/em>) and a magnificat. The congregation was allowed only to join in the choruses of two carols and the singing of the hymns <em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/o-come-all-ye-faithful-lyrics\">O come, all ye faithful<\/a><\/strong> <\/em>and<em> Bethlehem, of noblest cities.<\/em><\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The first Festival and its surroundings<\/h2> <p>We can imagine the scents and sounds in the air on this celebrated Truro occasion. There was surely the aroma of the wood from which the building had just been constructed. A local newspaper reported that the smell of the paint used for the interior decoration \u2018makes the atmosphere rather unpleasant\u2019. Did the midwinter cold in this Cornish \u2018barn\u2019 evoke thoughts of a Bethlehem stable?<\/p> <p>As to the look of the wooden cathedral, the same newspaper report informs us that various items of furniture including benches and the pulpit (which survives) had been transferred across from \u2018the old church\u2019; likewise the \u2018canonical stalls\u2019 and Bishop\u2019s throne, both placed in a designated chancel \u2018within the altar rails\u2019. In a corner was the old St Mary\u2019s organ. Built around 1750, it had just undergone renovation by local firm Brewer & Co but was apparently still feeling its age. Certainly at the console for the Christmas Eve service was the St\u00a0Mary\u2019s organist, William Mitchell, soon to be superseded by the first official Truro Cathedral organist, teenager George Robertson Sinclair.\u00a0<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/who-is-anna-lapwood\">Who is Anna Lapwood? Meet the organist and TikTok star<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols today<\/h2> <p>Just a few of the sounds from the organ heard on that historic 1880 occasion can still be enjoyed today. The instrument now sits in the cathedral\u2019s St Mary\u2019s Aisle. \u2018Not much of the original 1750 organ survives,\u2019 explains the present Truro Cathedral director of music, James Anderson-Besant, \u2018but the core of the instrument remains, and there are definitely stops and therefore sounds which can take us right back to\u00a0that occasion in 1880.\u2019<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Nine Lessons and Carols Service\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gdnO_WYv7HI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"> Nine Lessons and Carols from Truro Cathedral, 2020 <\/figcaption> <\/figure> <p>Anderson-Besant is looking forward to finding innovative ways of marking the 150th anniversary of the famous Christmas Eve service, in 2030. One gratifying element will be the inclusion of Truro Cathedral\u2019s celebrated girl choristers. \u2018Our boy and girl choristers sing at separate Nine Lessons and Carols services each year, with separate repertoire, but they\u2019re connected in both celebrating the living tradition of what happened here in 1880.\u2019\u00a0<\/p> <p\/> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Published: Wednesday, 18 December 2024 at 09:30 AM Read on to discover all about the origins of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols… When and where did the first Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols take place? 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