Welcome
One way to keep tradition alive is to keep changing it. It’s been the task of King’s College’s director of music Stephen Cleobury to preserve the essence of the Festival of Nine Lesson and Carols but to ensure that each service remains fresh. Which is trickier than it sounds. The opening carol, closing voluntary and all readings are identical each year, organists/readers saddled with the responsibility of keeping the ship sailing on smooth waters. But even the most hardened of Nine Lessons veterans don’t want the music to slide far outside their comfort zone – after all, part of Christmas’s magic is its evocation of childhood memories, many of which are tied up with specific carol arrangements. And Daniel ★yde, Cleobury’s successor from 2019, tells me that he’s already been begged not to fiddle with the descants. What to do? For the past 35 years, Cleobury’s triumphant solution has been to commission a new carol each year (starting in 1983 with Lennox Berkeley’s In Wintertime). While some get all excited about a John Lewis advertisement, I must admit that the annual unveiling of the mystery composer is, for me, one of the highlights of Christmas.
Inspired by the annual King’s commission, we’ve been inviting composers since 2014 to pen you all a carol. This year, Dobrinka Tabakova has come up trumps with a scintillating piece (p50). Let us know how you get on!