# Once in Royal David's city
# Stood a lowly cattle shed
# Where a mother laid her baby... #
Carols From King's is beamed into millions of people's homes
throughout the world every Christmas Eve.
# Mary was that mother mild... #
It all started 60 years ago...
# Jesus Christ... #
..when a lone chorister took his first breath
to sing Once In Royal David's City.
This Christmas, another lone chorister
will take the same breath to sing the same carol.
The magic of the Carols From King's broadcasts
is that for an enchanted hour-and-a-half,
the world seems to stop,
and we're in the realm of Christmas, where everything is perfect.
But what has gone on behind the scenes over the decades
to create what for so many people is the start of Christmas?
# Hosanna in excelsis. #
BELL RINGS
Good morning, everybody. PUPILS: Good morning, sir.
Let's stand up first, shall we?
Every morning at ten past eight,
17 young choristers are put through their paces
by their Director of Music, Stephen Cleobury.
They make up half of the world-famous choir
of King's College, Cambridge, which dates back to
the university college's foundation by Henry VI in the 15th century.
THEY WARM UP
Good. And higher up.
THEY SING HIGHER
And lower down.
THEY SING LOWER
OK, good.
'I came to King's in 1982, and my main job is to recruit
'and train the choir for chapel services
'and the other activities that the choir undertakes.'
Good.
We're very lucky in that we are able to attract into the choir
young boys and choral scholars who have immense potential.
PIANO PLAYS SCALES
THEY SING ALONG
The boys all go to King's College School,
a co-educational prep school attached to the college.
They join the choir aged eight and leave at 13.
HE LAUGHS
Get away from me!
Action!
Hi, I'm Tim. I'm 12.
I like being in the choir
because it's fun to sing and I enjoy singing.
My name's Barney. I've been in the choir for four years
and I'm 13 years old.
My favourite sport is rugby, just because I find it really fun.
Hi, my name's Tom. I'm a chorister in my last year in King's.
My favourite thing would have to be food.
Fish and chips, class. Yeah, that's about it.
THEY SING
The choristers sing daily services in the chapel
alongside 14 choral scholars,
undergraduates and postgraduates at King's College, Cambridge.
Whilst I study music, the range of subjects that people study
in the choir is incredibly diverse.
We have someone studying natural sciences,
there's people who do philosophy
and theology and history.
Joel does history, yeah.
So although there are a lot of people who study music,
there's...I think about 50% do other subjects as well.
Sam's connection with King's dates back a long way,
and he's unique amongst the current choir.
I've been linked to King's for quite a long time, I suppose.
I started off as a chorister, and then, in the intervening periods
where I left King's as a chorister and came back as a choral scholar,
my three brothers became choristers, so in fact
I've been linked to King's and Christmas for about 12 years.
# Once in Royal David's city
# Stood a lowly cattle shed... #
When I hear the current soloist of Once In Royal having a go,
it brings back really good memories of when I did it.
It's amazing just passing the baton on from year to year.
There's a great deal of respect, I think.
There are two weeks to go
before the 2013 recording of Carols From King's.
You can hear Stephen rehearsing the Once In Royal David's City solo
in the next room, in the chapel, so that's always a magical moment.
He gets them all to rehearse it. The most exciting thing is the...
What's that called, the betting on it? It's not quite betting.
What's it called?
Sweepstake. A sweepstake. A sweepstake. We do a sweepstake.
There's a prize of a bottle of champagne at the end..
Did you win it last year? I won it in my first year.
It's probably the most exciting thing about Christmas Eve,
realising you've won a bottle of champagne. Yeah, I know.
BELLS RING
Carols From King's has always opened with the lone chorister...
..an honour granted only to the very best.
When you hear that Once In Royal David's City
on Christmas Eve, or you watch it on the TV,
that's the moment where you think,
"Maybe there is something in this whole business of
"peace on earth and goodwill towards men.
"Maybe it's not such a bad idea."
And for a moment, I think we're all transported
to a world that we'd all love to be in.
# Where a mother laid her baby... #
I was lucky. I did quite a lot of solos. Now, why, I don't know,
but I did. I did the Once In Royal David's City solo.
Actually, I did it three times.
# Mary was that mother mild... #
I'm always amazed at how confident they are.
I mean, it takes a tremendous amount of guts to do that.
My mother, who died this year aged 93,
always used to listen to it every year, and she'd say,
"The chorister, he sang quite well, but he wasn't as good as you."
She would always say that every year,
and of course, they're much better than I was.
THEY SING IN LATIN
As always, the soloist will be trained by the Director of Music.
The question of solo work is a difficult one for the director,
because obviously I want to give as many of the singers
an opportunity to sing a solo as I can.
But there's no doubt that some of them have more bottle than others.
So inevitably, you choose the ones who work well in those conditions.
But you don't know whether they're going to work well
until you ask someone to do a solo.
So through the year, I'm surreptitiously, in a way,
assessing people, but just by... giving turns to everybody.
The solo Once In Royal is usually a Year 7 or 8.
So I'm Year 7 now, so I...
There's a small chance I would get it, but it's very unlikely.
It's important in deciding to whom to allocate solos
that you don't ask somebody to do one too early.
Because if someone does a solo before he's really ready to do it,
it takes a lot to build up the confidence again after that.
So the ideal thing is to give somebody quite a simple solo
that he can do really well and then you build on that confidence.
And the journey that they make between
when they first come in as a regular in Year 6
and what they can do in Year 8 is sometimes spectacular.
THEY RECITE: Gospodh sh' toboyu.
Yes, no "H". It's "s' toboyu," not "sh' toboyu."
Chreva. Chreva.
"Shuh-ruh..." Chreva.
Chreva.
Tvoego. Tvoego.
Mr Cleobury is trying to get the rehearsals
so that the performance is perfect, without any mistakes,
although he's not always successful.
INTERVIEWER: You don't make any mistakes, though, Alex, do you?
Course not. I never make mistakes.
Since its first televised broadcast in 1954,
Carols From King's has been a service
consisting of carols, readings and poems.
The worship is led by the Dean of the college.
I think it's important to remember that Carols From King's
is a service, not a concert.
Of course we want people to enjoy the music,
to enjoy the readings, to enjoy the occasion,
but it is a service, and its first purpose, therefore,
is worship of God.
And everything in a sense is organised around that principle.
# So God imparts... #
In determining the content of the programme,
it's the words which lead.
So the first process is the selection of readings.
And it's at that point that I come in and select the music.
And, for me, it's very important that the music selected,
in some way or another,
reflects the words which have just been spoken.
# Where meek souls will receive Him still... #
The mixture of readings from the Bible and poetry
is as important as the music in the Carols From King's service.
Anywhere round here.
HE CLEARS HIS THROAT
Anywhere round here. Very good.
It's the Chaplain, Richard Lloyd Morgan's job
to audition the readers, drawn from members of the College.
Who would like to read first?
So much depends on the balance of gender voices,
weights of voices, colours of voices, accents of voices, and so on.
So if you don't get asked to read this year, there's...
I was going to say, "There's always next year,"
but some of you won't be here next year, will you?
HE CHUCKLES
No. All right.
In your own time, go for it.
The Father's wisdom willed it so
The Son's obedience knew no "no"
Both wills were in one stature...
That's nice.
And as that wisdom had decreed
The word was now made flesh indeed
And took on Him our nature.
Thank you so much.
The next question they always ask is, "Did you bring any Mozart?"
But we'll forget that.
Thank you so much, Ellie, very good. Very good, very good.
# ..Angels did say
# Was to certain poor shepherds in fields... #
There's always going to be a great mix.
There'll be something for everyone.
So you'll get your traditional carols on the one hand,
and perhaps some carols you don't know so well on the other.
# Hark! the Herald Angels sing... #
# Glory to... #
We're always going to start with Once In Royal David's City,
and there are other regulars
like O Come All Ye Faithful, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
# God and sinners reconciled... #
That wonderful sense of reaching back
and they're such mighty tunes to sing at that time
and when the entire congregation gets going, of course,
it only sort of spurs you on to want to sing them even louder.
# With th' Angelic Hosts proclaim
# Christ is born... #
Then there's a second group,
which might contain well-known carols,
like In Dulci Jubilo or Ding Dong Merrily On High,
not all of which can be fitted in each year,
but a selection of these well-known ones appear in most years,
and then there are opportunities for bringing in new material.
So it's getting a judicious mixture of those three elements
which I see as my main challenge.
# In dulci jubilo
# Let us our homage show!
# Our heart's joy reclineth
# In praesepio
# And like a bright star shineth
# Matris in gremio
# Alpha es et O!
# O patris caritas... #
Carols From King's takes its lead from
the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols,
first transmitted on the radio in 1928,
but it's a service specially designed for television.
I'm in front of you here.
That's right. You're there.
I've sung it.
Desperately trying to keep the cross steady.
Yes, and we had to keep everyone in step, didn't we?
There are two men who know better than most how it all worked in 1954.
72-year-old Rodney Williams was a chorister back then,
and 83-year-old Michael Keale
was the undergraduate who held the cross - the crucifer.
# Once in Royal David's city... #
That little boy, who sang the first verse of Once In Royal David's City
in 1954, was me.
Several of us were trained up to do it,
in case I lost my voice or had a frog in the throat or something
but, fortunately, I was all right and I did it.
# Where a mother... #
The Director of Music in 1954 was Boris Ord.
He had a thick, gravelly bass voice
and he took his tuning fork out and he went...
HE HUMS GRUFFLY
Then he went...
HE SINGS GRUFF, LOW NOTES
He sang the first three notes, and then he gave me a sort of nod,
sort of, "Now!" and I started.
HE CHUCKLES
He says that Boris's beat after you came in
doesn't bear a great relationship to the timing of your singing.
Is that right?
You were right. You were the one who was right, of course.
I've noticed that! I wasn't aware of it at the time.
It's very precious to the choristers, Christmas time.
And we know they have to be judged entirely on an adult standard,
but they're young boys at heart.
Ohhh! Oh, yeah.
We usually play dorm rugby,
but we've kind of stopped playing it
since I grabbed hold of Rupert's shirt and it ripped.
What about me?! Oh, that...that guy.
We're brothers.
I'm in Year 8 and he's in Year 7.
He's older but he claims he's taller than me.
I am taller than you. Some people say...
I AM taller than you. And...
The grown-ups just say he's taller than me because...
No, I AM the taller. I AM taller than you.
You claim.
CHATTER
The choristers all board alongside the 420 day boys and girls
at King's College School.
To join the choir, they had to pass an audition
at the age of seven or eight, before singing as probationers.
They take part in services like Carols From King's
when Stephen Cleobury thinks they're ready.
When I first sang on the televised Carols From Kings,
I think I would have been in Year 6, so I'd have been ten.
That was quite scary, cos we didn't really know how it worked then.
I was quite nervous about making a mistake,
cos, like, I didn't know if that meant it would have to be redone.
Er, yeah, it was quite scary, but it was good fun.
When I sing in the choir, sometimes there's just these, like, moments
when everything just seems to go away and you're just there,
which is an amazing feeling.
# Bethlehem down
# Is full of the starlight... #
The choir has never been better than it is now.
It's all relative, because they've always been very, very good.
It's going through a particularly good period at the moment.
They've got some very, very strong boys,
and they've got some very talented choral scholar, lower parts.
And the two have really gelled so well this term.
We all think Mr Cleobury's amazing.
He has a very particular way of doing things in the choir
which we all admire.
Er, it's... He's a great musician and a conductor.
I'd love to be a conductor when I'm older,
so I look up to him like a hero.
I think Stephen has brought the quality of the choir
to a higher level than ever before.
# Be near me, Lord Jesus
# I ask thee to stay
# Close by me for ever
# And love me, I pray
# Bless all the dear children
# In thy tender care
# And fit us for Heaven
# To be with thee there. #
Within living memory, there've been three people,
my three immediate predecessors,
who've been very strongly associated in the public mind with the choir.
It was probably under Boris Ord
that the choir first came to wide recognition,
because, after all, they did their early recordings with him,
and the television service of 1954.
So his was a name very closely associated with the choir,
and I think many of the legacies that he left
have been followed and built upon by his successors,
David Willcocks and the late Philip Ledger,
and, I have to say, they were the most wonderful predecessors
I could hope to have had,
because they were always encouraging and always supportive.
# This is the truth sent from above
# The truth of God, the God of love... #
The angel Gabriel visits the Blessed Virgin Mary.
My father ran the choir at King's from 1957 through until 1973,
when he moved to be Director of the Royal College Of Music in London.
And my father always, I think, felt that he was always just a temporary
custodian of such a great tradition.
And the Virgin's name was Mary.
He felt the heart of his job was daily Evensong,
when the whole world wasn't actually watching.
Having said that, he welcomed the
fact that television was able to be beamed all round the world,
and so many more people came to understand and love church music
and what King's actually brought to it all,
and to get to know the tradition of English church music
that he has devoted his life to.
# Pray we now to that child
# And to his mother dear. #
As a chorister, I had the complication
that my father, David Willcocks, was in charge of the choir.
That made me a little bit different from outsiders' view.
It didn't worry ME at all, and my father treated me
like any other chorister in chapel and at school.
In rehearsals he called me Willcocks and I called him Sir.
And then on the rare occasions when we were both home here,
it would be back to Daddy and Jonny again, which sounds artificial,
but it didn't seem strange at all.
There were quite a few boys of my generation
who have made their way in the profession.
Roy Goodman, who is a very celebrated violinist and conductor.
Bob Chilcott, of course, who is a
very celebrated choral composer and conductor.
Quite a lot of us wound our way into the profession afterwards.
Jonny was a very modest chap.
Was a big boy,
very well built.
And so he was bigger than all of us but he was very gentle.
And plus the fact...
like his father, he was good at sport.
So Jonny hitting a six was something to be celebrated.
He dealt incredibly well with being the son of the Director of Music.
We never actually thought about it, to be honest.
# Let steeple bells be swungen. #
Bob Chilcott returned to King's as a choral scholar
when Philip Ledger became the choir's new Director of Music.
Philip Ledger came in the autumn of '73 and he started in January '74.
Even though Philip was a student here at King's,
he had a different pedigree, in the sense that he was
working at the Aldeburgh Festival with Benjamin Britten
and he was a pianist, a wonderful pianist,
and he had a slightly different perspective,
and I remember as choral scholars we were all very, very excited by this.
# Ding dong verily the sky
# Is riv'n with angels singing
# Gloria
# Hosanna in excelsis. #
I think Carols From King's has somehow
captured a sense for people that they
can take time apart from the busyness
of the commercial side of Christmas -
all the concerns about buying things,
which I fully understand, I get caught up in myself.
Buying things for your family, making sure
that all your arrangements are in place.
But it's important, at the same time,
for people to have an opportunity
to step aside from that and to think about ultimate things.
And I think, somehow, this service has caught that formula for people.
I think it's a combination of the familiar Christmas story,
the traditional carols
and I'd also like to think our practice of trying to inject
some more contemporary reflection from time to time in, as well.
The birth of Christ is described in this poem by a minstrel,
who has been sleeping in the stable where Christ is born.
His sense of wonder captures the feelings of many
at this time of year.
For Carols From King's, we have chosen to
introduce secular readings, so we get prose
or most often poetry readings
interspersed with the biblical readings.
I've just had an astounding dream as I lay in the straw.
I dreamed a star fell onto the straw beside me and lay, blazing.
Then, when I looked up, I saw a bull come flying through a sky of fire.
And on its shoulders, a huge silver woman holding the moon.
And afterwards there came a donkey...
Six days before Carols From King's, the BBC machine rolls into town.
Since the '60s, the service has always been recorded
a few days before Christmas -
more recently by over 40 technicians with eight cameras.
The producers and directors work closely with the college to
ensure the chapel's unique atmosphere is preserved.
'It's very much a partnership.
'All sorts of people in the college are part of that partnership
'and all sorts of people in the BBC'
are part of that partnership.
And actually, we have people on the team, the cameramen,
the lighting, the sound people,
who have been doing it for a very long time,
and who come back year after year - and in a sense,
last year's recording is this year's rehearsal, as well.
It has that sort of building quality to it.
When we record the service, which happens between
three o'clock and half past four,
you can see the light change in the chapel
from this bright, slightly cold light,
but by the time you reach the last carol,
it's dark, intimate, cosy, golden
and candlelit. So the choir can read their music,
there's a light bulb under the candle and the light comes down.
And what the first lighting director and I devised was to put in a ring
to raise the candle an inch or so up,
so that we could have a window here
so that light could shine out from the bulb towards their faces.
But it means that the light lighting the face
is coming from where you expect it.
THEY SING IN HARMONY
The difference between the 1954 version and what we do now,
apart from the colour, of course, is that I remain
absolutely baffled as to how they managed to do it AT ALL in 1954,
with huge cameras that demanded vast amounts of light,
were very heavy...
The thing that is marvellous about 1954 is that it exists.
I wasn't really aware of the cameras.
I don't remember thinking about them.
I do, because you had things you called dollies in those days -
perhaps you still do.
And they seemed to be much in evidence during the service,
travelling back and front. And a lot of the camera work, as I remember it,
was up the side of the walls, onto the fan vaulting at the top.
And there was a lot of activity from the cameras.
You don't remember that so much, but I certainly do.
No, I suspect we were told not to look at the cameras.
We knew we had to watch Boris, so we didn't take any notice of them.
# Ave Maria. #
Whether or not the cameras were distracting, it was a further decade
before Carols From King's was televised a second time.
When Carols From King's was broadcast in 1954,
it was, of course, a year after the Coronation.
Institutional memory here doesn't go back far enough to tell us
why it was another ten years before it was recorded
and broadcast again, but I suspect what happened is that
the BBC didn't ask, and then on the 10th anniversary
of the original broadcast,
they decided that it would be a good thing to do so again.
And by then, David Willcocks was here
and the then Dean was very much in favour of television,
so I think that's why it happened again in 1964.
# All out of darkness we have light
# Which made the angels sing this night
# All out of darkness we have light
# Which made the angels sing this night
# Glory to God and peace to men
# Now and forever more, Amen. #
It was very, very exciting to be there in those days
because I think, it was still... it was only ten years after they'd
started doing it, and so it was still very glamorous for us.
The cameras in my day were quite different from what they are now.
They were big cameras and we thought they were fantastic.
And they had those revolving lenses on the front, three of them.
We were always getting the cameramen to show us, we wanted to look in it.
And David was always saying, "Don't look at the camera,"
and, of course, we always did.
I've always had big ears, and I thought, "I hope they don't have
"cameras on that side cos my ear will get in the way of the whole screen."
It was little boyish things that you thought of.
But it was very, very exciting to be there.
# This fruit doth make my soul to thrive
# It keeps my dying faith alive. #
It was of an era when television, for many of us, was still relatively new.
So, it was an exciting time, and for little boys it was absolutely great.
We loved it.
# Jesus Christ the apple tree... #
# I sing of a maiden
# That is makeless
# King of all kings
# To her son she ches. #
We were incredibly aware when the cameras were there. There was always
a camera in between you and Stephen in your eyeshot.
But you knew that if you looked into the camera, if you failed
and looked into the camera, that they wouldn't use that shot.
So, it was almost a challenge.
You could get more time on TV if you didn't look in the camera,
so I think people tried to avoid looking at the camera.
Three days before the recording,
the school and university terms come to an end.
But there's no let-up for the choir.
The Christmas schedule is packed, with Carols From King's,
the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
AND a service on Christmas Day.
Josh, when is the...
This is the first year I will be doing a Christmas
television thing because last year my throat was sore
just before the TV thing.
So this year I'm excited that I'll be able to do the Christmas thing.
Touch wood. Yeah.
# Once in Royal David's city... #
When I was in Year 6, listening to Alex do the solo,
I was quite scared for him. It may sound stupid.
Cos I was quite nervous that all three million people are watching.
But, yeah, it was quite exciting cos I'd never experienced
that sort of thing.
Would I like to get it? Don't mind.
With television AND radio broadcasts,
there are two chances to sing the solo.
It's always been...
It may sound cheesy, but it's always been one of my dreams to get
one of them. The TV's the one that I'm more likely to get.
I'm gonna be happy for whoever gets picked.
Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's just a solo, isn't it?
At the end of the day we're a team, we're a choir,
so it makes no difference.
# Deep in the cold of winter... #
I've done the maximum amount of Christmases that I've managed to do.
Cos I've done one in Year 4, 5, 6 and 7.
# ..through the still as a wonderful sound
# A wonderful sound to... #
It's always good at Christmas cos we get to sing lots of carols.
Sometimes at Christmas at home I always find myself, not always,
but sometimes find myself sitting down wondering what to do next.
But here, you've always got something to do next.
# Sounding in majesty the news that they bring... #
I like Christmas because it's Christmas and Santa comes, yay!
Hopefully Robbo the headmaster will dress up more realistic as Santa!
Last year his beard was half hanging off.
Santa comes round on the 24th with all the presents,
but by then we've already made loads of traps.
We put Sellotape all over the doors, and trip wires and buckets of water.
Yeah, we catch Santa.
Christmas at King's is a family affair.
Relatives join the choir for the services and festive meals,
but the boys can't go home until their work is done.
Rather bizarrely for the child, the most exciting thing about
being a chorister at Christmas is being
in the boarding house on Christmas Eve because it's so exciting.
On Christmas Day at four o'clock in the morning, the Year 8s go up to
the Year 7 dorm and have a pillow fight,
and then we might think up a plan of action of what we're going to do,
then go and attack the Year 5s and 6s
and then Matron might come up and tell us
to go to bed and then we'll open our presents and then go to bed. Maybe.
Yup.
The children love it. For the parent it's very difficult
not having your child in the house on Christmas Eve.
# All bells in Paradise
# I heard them ring... #
'Our family Christmas usually has to wait until I get back from
'the service on Christmas Day.'
I know my two younger brothers can get
excited and quite annoyed when they can't open their presents so early,
like we used to.
# In fields where they lay
# Lay keeping their sheep
# On a cold... #
So, uh...
We made the tree.
Jamie, Alex and Tim made the tree.
# Ta-da. #
Whee!
One art lesson... all of us made this Santa.
With a nose. In the inside, it's got kind of... Look in his bum.
My family have to come down every Christmas to pick me up,
be there on Christmas Eve and the morning.
Rather nice, actually, we all have a dinner laid on for us
in the college on Christmas Eve, so we can all be together.
But, yeah, they have to plan their Christmas around me, really.
I'm very thankful to them for that,
but I hope they get something out of it, as well.
I find it amazing how many people say to me
that they're making their mince pies
when we're singing on the TV.
They switch it on and there they are stuffing the mince pies
and stuffing the turkey, and...it's amazing.
It's just got to be there in the background.
Got to have a little whiff of King's in every household at that
special time.
# And by the light
# Of that same star
# Three wise men came from country far... #
Our oldest son Tom started in the choir first of all.
Then Joe, our second son, followed behind him,
wanting to do what his big brother had done.
And then our youngest son, Jamie, also followed suit.
# Noel, noel
# Born is the King of Israel... #
This is Tom, and he's my brother - he's the organ scholar at the choir.
So he's playing lots and accompanying the choir
when I'm singing.
He was a chorister, I think eight years ago or something.
Ever since he started, I really wanted to be in the choir.
So that's what gave me the inspiration.
It's certainly very uncommon that an organ scholar has
a younger brother in the choir.
The last person was Gibbons.
Yes, I'm not entirely sure but Emma Cleobury, Stephen's wife,
told me that she reckons that the last time it happened was
when Orlando Gibbons was a chorister
and his older brother, Edward, was the organist.
So, that's a very long time ago.
Do you know who was conductor then? Edward Gibbons.
He was the organist back in the days in which the organist was...
Mr Cleobury is the organist and Director of Music.
It stems from an older title, when the organist would direct the choir.
How does that work? You'd often direct from the organ.
In Ripon Cathedral there's a hand
that you can operate from the organ loft.
That's so cool. That's awesome.
I don't think Tom really thought about being a choral scholar
when his voice broke
because he was already interested in the idea of being the organ scholar.
Yeah, definitely. Ever since I was about nine,
it was an ambition to come back as an organ scholar.
Saddo! Yeah.
Our job is to act almost like
the Assistant Director of Music in a cathedral.
So we play for all the services a week, seven services a week.
We go to voice practices in the morning
and help train the probationers who are the trainee choristers.
We rehearse and conduct the choir when Stephen's away.
Cos there's so much work to do
and so much organ playing, there are two organ scholars at any one time.
A junior and a senior.
My senior is Doug Tang, who is in his second year.
So we share the playing,
hop on and off during the services, mostly.
ORGAN PLAYS O Come All Ye Faithful
# On Christmas night all Christians sing
# To hear the news... #
What's your favourite carol? I think it's the Sussex Carol
that we're doing this year.
# To hear the news the angels bring
# News of great joy news of great mirth
# News of our merciful King's birth. #
It's incredibly cheerful. Makes me feel very Christmassy.
Why's it called the Sussex Carol?
Cos the tune and the words are traditional and I suppose they
originated in Sussex.
I guess. Cool.
# All for to gain our liberty. #
The magic of the Carols From King's broadcasts is that for an enchanted
hour-and-a-half, the world seems to stop.
And we're in the realm of Christmas, where everything is perfect.
And there's a sense that if only the noise of the politicians and the
publicists and all of that would just be stilled,
we could have a world just like this.
# In the bleak midwinter
# Frosty wind made moan. #
And so on.
Do I have a favourite carol?
Oh, gosh. The question I'm more often asked is,
"Do you still like Christmas?" And "Do you still like carols?"
And the answer is a resounding yes.
# Snow had fallen, snow on snow... #
Many of us in the choral world would single out In The Bleak Midwinter.
Christina Rossetti's lovely text
and a choice of two beautiful musical settings -
Gustav Holst's, but the one that I secretly prefer, by Harold Darke,
who, of course, was organist at King's College during World War II.
He was in charge of the King's choir when I was a chorister.
And it is a very beautiful piece.
He told us once he got more in royalties from it
than anything else,
and I think he said he got three farthings a copy!
We were amazed by that.
# Heaven and earth shall flee away
# When he comes to reign
# In the bleak midwinter
# A stable place sufficed
# The Lord God Almighty
# Jesus Christ. #
My favourite carol would have to be Bob Chilcott's The Shepherd's Carol.
It's just...it's just beautifully pastoral.
And it's just...
Because there's quite a lot of pressure behind the service,
it's one of those carols that just...
everything just is completely awash and completely relaxed.
It's glorious, it's great.
# We stood on the hills, Lady
# Our day's work done... #
For the Christmas Eve Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from 1983,
I've approached a contemporary composer
and asked him or her to write us a new carol.
There's nobody more keen on the preservation of the tradition
of the carol service than I, but I think it's important that it doesn't
become a museum piece and fossilise.
And it seemed to me, the best way to try to avoid that
was to invite a composer to write a new carol.
And it's also enabled me to show that our very best composers
are willing to write for a church choir in a liturgical context.
Because I think there's a great danger that church music gets
separated off from the mainstream of music, and that bothers me.
We haven't tended to do this so much for television, although
Bob Chilcott, whose Shepherd's Carol we're doing this year, and
also John Rutter, who wrote a wonderful setting of Dormi Jesu,
have written for our television service.
The Shepherd's Carol is my mum's favourite carol
and it's certainly up there for me, as well.
It's beautifully atmospheric, has these beautiful soaring melodies,
and just uses the space of the chapel beautifully.
And, of course, Bob Chilcott, who wrote it, was an ex-chorister,
so he had an understanding
of how to get the best sound out of the building
and he knew what the choir sounded good in.
And it really shows, it's a heart-renderingly beautiful piece.
# Oh, a voice from the sky, Lady
# It seemed to us then
# Telling of God being born... #
It's the day before the recording of Carols From King's.
Time for the final rehearsal.
I'd also like to extend a very warm welcome to a former chorister
and choral scholar, Mr Bob Chilcott, who's sitting just here.
We have about 15 minutes now, where we can do some top and tailing
and just get focused into Christmas after the last couple of days.
So, I'm just going to go through each thing.
# In dulci jubilo... #
We need to ensure where it says "five plus one"
that you all hold for five beats.
Two and three.
# O partis caritas... #
Too loud.
# O Nati lenitas... #
Right, thank you.
Boys, remember you are the accompaniment in this.
'The tradition that I come from and the way that I've sung has
'completely informed the way I write music.'
I've never got the sound of
King's College Chapel out of my head.
And I remember John Rutter, when he talked a while ago about his work,
saying the same thing. The sound of the chapel...
which, of course, his Christmas literature
is so immense and so wonderful.
But there's a sound of the chapel in his music.
And, for me, I've never lost that. It's the most informing thing -
sonority. It's that sonority,
and it's a sonority that kind of echoes in your head.
# Oh, a voice from the sky, Lady
# It seemed to us then
# Telling of God being born
# In the world of men. #
Thank you so much for dropping by. Was it the right speed?
Marvellous speed. I think you've had a few goes at it. A long last chord.
Yep. Too much second treble. We'll quieten the D down.
No, they did a beautiful job. It just sounds great.
It's just perfectly calculated for this space. It just works so well.
That was...
# Mater ridet
# Quae tam dulcem somnum videt... #
The sound of that choir, the sound of that organ,
the sound of that chapel, are part
of the mental furniture of anyone who writes music for choir.
It's imprinted in us.
And, of course, it then is a kind of vision inside your head
that comes true, it becomes real.
And you slip into rehearsal and sit quietly and only speak
when you're spoken to, of course.
But you hear the sounds you imagined in your head,
sung by the choir of your dreams, in the building of your dreams
and there's nothing quite like it.
# Dormi, Jesu. #
THEY HUM Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer
On the day of the 2013 recording
of Carols From King's, the choral scholars brave the rain to
entertain the queuing congregation.
# Had a very shiny nose
# And if you ever saw it
# You would even say it glows. #
My family living in the Isle of Man, I don't see them
as much as other boys see their families.
But they are very proud of me, I know.
Mum and my sister come over whenever they can, my twin sister Jane.
Yeah, and when they're over we have a great time,
into town for lunch and stuff - it's very nice.
# Won't you guide my sleigh tonight? #
I'm Tom's sister. He's a chorister
and, yeah, they're singing Christmas songs.
# Rudolph
# Join in any reindeer games... #
Nobody knows who's doing any solos yet. So...just wait and see.
I love hearing him sing. He's so good. I just love him, yeah.
Very, very sad that it is his last year.
It's been an incredible journey,
five years in the choir, developing, and now the end. It's sad.
THEY SCAT Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer
BELL TOLLS
Each year, when I see the opening sequence of Carols From King's, I see
a very familiar building - one that I've known all my adult life,
but it still takes my breath away.
And then, with everybody else in the
television audience, I enter that building.
I hear Once In Royal David's City
and then I hear the words of the bidding prayer
that draws us all in, and for me, Christmas has started at that point.
# Once in Royal David's city
# Stood a lonely cattle shed
# Where a mother laid her baby
# In a manger for his bed
# Mary was that mother mild
# Jesus Christ her little child. #
I feel very privileged to sing in the choir.
Not many other people get the chance that we do as choristers,
so I'm very grateful to be here.
# ..God and Lord of all... #
What we try and do here, in presenting the Christmas story,
is to do it in a way that brings together
the beauty of the architecture of the chapel.
The painting by Rubens of the child Jesus and the Wise Men
and Mary, his mother,
Joseph and so on, which encapsulates so much of the Christmas story,
the very special atmosphere that surrounds the service,
and to present what I hope is the best of music, old and new,
to the highest standard of which we're capable.
# O come, all ye faithful
# Joyful and triumphant... #
I would like to think that we would continue to do
Carols From King's into the future, long into the future.
I've no doubt that things will change in the very long run
in ways we can't possibly foretell.
Whether there will be pressure on the schedules,
whether in 30, 40 years' time, people will want to watch a programme
with traditional carols in the way they do now, that I can't tell.
But my hope would be that they WILL continue to want to do that.
# O come, let us adore Him
# Christ the Lord. #
I think it's important that the programme keeps on going
until I'm beardy and old.
It's amazing to think that we're still wearing the same robes,
singing the same music. That sense of reaching back
and having something which has remained constant throughout
all these years of extreme change is just something really special
and it's something I'll remember
for the rest of my life, no doubt about it.
# Begotten not created... #
I think when I'm older I'll probably keep on watching
Carols From King's with my family.
It'll be quite cool to say, "Yeah, I was once there, doing that."
Yeah, that'll be great.
Really, really proud of you.
# Christ the Lord. #
It was nice to sing it to Mum and Jane.
Didn't expect it, I was quite shocked.
I didn't expect it either.
You made me cry, I never cry.
Thanks a lot(!)
Made ME cry.
Cos unfortunately my husband passed away two years ago,
so it was for him, so I thought. Tom's dad is with us
in spirit and he'd be very proud of him, very, very proud.
# Glory to God
# In the highest
# O come, let us adore Him
# Christ the Lord. #