The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge (Oxbridge) has a cult-like following as I wrote about here.

The cultists gush over the Richard Marlow double descants that the Trinity Choir sopranos sing on various hymns during Choral Evensong. I’m not hot on the way they’re done. It sounds like one soprano is singing one descant and another soprano is singing the other. There is no full and lush sound at all, which is the way descants are supposed to sound from my experience. In this instance, it sounds like each soprano is singing a solo and at times it sounds like they’re off or something is not quite right. I don’t know why they’re done like this at Trinity.

Descants add so much to a hymn; they make a hymn much more interesting. And only the finest choral ensembles with a superb soprano section can do descants properly. I’ve heard members of congregations say, “When there’s a descant, I stop singing to listen to the descant.” That’s why I’ve suggested that a descant should be sung twice during the hymn, but the established Church of England/Anglican Church and Anglican Communion has this tradition of only singing a descant once for a hymn, usually on the last verse. Before the fire at Notre Dame de Paris (French Catholic), their choristers sang a descant for the hymn on every verse which worked well. Anglican Organist Gerry Hancock said that a Liturgy is not complete without at least one descant. I don’t think Jeremy Filsell — who resigned when Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue closed their renowned Choir School — agreed with that since he seemed to have become anti-descant the longer he was at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue. That was frustrating for me because they had some of the finest trebles anywhere and yet Jeremy didn’t have the trebles singing any descants — even on hymns that I knew had a descant written for it because I had heard them in the past — which is one reason I eventually stopped watching their liturgies.

On this page below, I’m featuring the Evensong where the double descant was sung (first video below). I’m also featuring the same hymn (it’s in a different key) but with a different descant sung by the trebles/boys of Westminster Abbey and the trebles of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal.

I played both for my choral friend and he much preferred the Westminster Abbey/HM Chapel Royal descant.

He said that the Trinity descant sounded like just two sopranos, unrehearsed and screechy. I agree. Despite the gushing over it by the cultists in their comments below their video, I didn’t hear what they found so hot about it. Whereas the trebles of Westminster Abbey/HM Chapel Royal sounded rehearsed, full and lush especially in their high register and soared throughout the Nave. Their descant sounded like a descant is supposed to sound.

My choral friend doesn’t like hymns to begin with, and this is a hymn. He says about hymns, “they all sound the same” which of course is not true — to his ear they do — but what he really means, I think, is that hymns mostly all follow the same 4-part choral writing style, with occasional exceptions to that. They all certainly don’t have the same tune/melody. As I told him: Hymns are written to be fairly basic because the masses have to sing them and most people do not read music. Hymns can’t be too complicated but rather simple usually.

He also feels the same about Anglican Chant. The exception was that he heard Trinity perform one of the Howells’s Anglican Chants recently and he really liked that. He asked, “Is that a chant? It’s really quite nice and doesn’t sound like a chant.” I said: It’s an Anglican Chant by Howells.

So as I told my choral friend when I introduced this to him (because he has this thing/this hangup about hymns): This is not about the hymn and whether one likes hymns or not. It’s not about the acoustics of the building or the pipe organ. It’s about two different descant (sung at Trinity and Westminster Abbey) and whether the descant sounds thin, or full and lush. Well, he much preferred Westminster Abbey and so do I. I just don’t like the way descants are usually done at Trinity but I’m in the minority on that since the cultists can’t praise them enough, and I don’t know why they’re sung that way. They usually don’t sound full and lush as if the entire soprano section is singing the descant, which is the way a descant is supposed to be sung.

Here’s The Choir of Trinity College Chapel Cambridge. The descant begins at 1.15.50:

Here are the combined Choirs of Westminster Abbey and Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal from the Royal Wedding (William and Kate; they chose descants for all the hymns for their wedding). The descant begins at 2.20:

If you don’t know this hymn, “Love Divine, all love excelling” — I think only Anglicans sing this particular tune which is known as “Blaenwern” — you might want to listen to the hymn first without the descant to get that in your ear.

Again, the descant begins at 1.15.50 for Trinity and at 2.20 for Westminster Abbey.

I thought I’d add two more descants, the way descants should be done. The hymn is “Guide me O thou great Redeemer.” In both of these, the trebles really have to work to cut through the large congregation as best they can. The first is from St Paul’s Cathedral, London (Church of England/Anglican) with the combined Choirs of St Paul’s Cathedral Choir and Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal. Also assisting is The Wren Brass Ensemble. The combined Choirs of
St Paul’s Cathedral and Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal are directed by Andrew Carwood, Director of Music, St Paul’s Cathedral. The Organist is Simon Johnson, who is also the Assistant Director of Music. The organ console is up above and back above the Choir stalls on the the Epistle side, if you look closely. It’s essentially on what would be the second story. You can see the Organist in his white surplice and there’s a group of the organ pipes to his right (also above the Choir stalls) at 2.31 in the video.

Prince William and Kate looked like they really enjoyed the descant as they look over at the Choir stalls.:

This one below is from Westminster Abbey also from the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate. If you look closely, many people in the congregation are craning their necks to look at the Choir stalls to see the boys as they sing the descant:

Feel free to write in the comments which descant you prefer. (No proselytising allowed).

On another topic: For those who don’t know, yes, there are Anglican nuns. The women standing next to Prince William are Anglican nuns. The Catholics are not the only group with nuns.