Update: 4 April 2026:

Here’s another version of “Abide with Me” as sung/performed for Choral Evensong by The Trinity Choir Cambridge (Oxbridge) and congregation in November:

The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, Senior Organ Scholar Augustine Cox and Director of Music Steven Grahl are joined by the congregation to sing the hymn ‘Abide with me’ to the tune ‘Eventide’ by William Henry Monk (1823-1889) at Choral Evensong in Trinity College Chapel (Anglican/Church of England) on Sunday 2 November 2025.

The Organ Scholar (Thomas Simpson for this hymn) chose a nice tempo for this. As I’ve said before, in the Southern Baptist tradition (ugh) it takes forever and a day to get through this hymn and it’s played like a dirge at their funerals.

End of Update

You’ve probably never heard this hymn sung like this before.  My choral friend said, “It doesn’t even sound like a hymn the way they sing it.”  This is an arrangement by Graham Ross, the Choirmaster of Clare College Chapel, Cambridge (UK), and he put his descant on the third verse rather than on the last verse, which is customary, if there’s a descant at all.  This choral arrangement is very beautiful and very well done here, which is why I’m featuring it.

I like this hymn when it’s sung or played with excellence, and it’s performed splendidly in this performance by the Choir of the Chapel of Clare College, which is part of the established Church of England/Anglican at the  University of Cambridge (the area known as Oxbridge).  There are 31 colleges in the University of Cambridge.

From my experience in Anglican Churches, “Abide with me” is usually sung faster than the Choir is performing it here (but that’s alright in this case) and Anglicans sing this hymn from time-to-time, not just for funerals or a Requiem Mass.  I prefer the faster tempo, but this is a special, A cappella arrangement by the Choirmaster of Clare College Chapel, Graham Ross, and it was performed during the COVID pandemic which is partly why the choristers are spread out.

The reason I brought up the tempo is that from my experience in the Southern Baptist Church — (roll eyes)/groan — they usually sing or play this hymn like a dirge.  It takes forever and a day to get through it, especially when it’s played at funerals.  When it’s played at funerals, it’s played at a whisper volume level.  Well, all music played at Southern Baptist funerals are played at a whisper volume level with the quietest organ registration.

Anglicans and Southern Baptists approach funerals very differently.  Fortunately, Anglicans approach funerals as a celebration of the person’s life, so it’s not a morbid event with crying, weeping and wailing as it usually is in the Southern Baptist.

In the Anglican Church, for funerals the hymns are played as they are usually played for any other liturgy, and sung with full organ and a standard tempo.  The congregation has full participation in the funeral.  It’s usually a Requiem Mass with the Holy Eucharist (meaning they have Communion as part of the liturgy).

But in the Southern Baptist, well, they don’t sing hymns for funerals from my experience.  The congregation has no participation in the funeral at all.  They are just observers.  Instead, the organist plays all hymns ppp (extremely quietly as if they think that anything louder “will wake up the dead” in the casket).   Their thinking about music for funerals is quite strange and the opposite of that of Anglicans.  A Southern Baptist funeral is morbid and like a dirge, from my experience.  It is nothing like an Anglican/Episcopal funeral.

After hearing this performance of “Abide with me,” sung by the Choir of Clare College, I asked as I usually do with frustration:  Why can’t the Choirs and some Choruses in the US — regardless of their size — sound like the Choir of Clare College Chapel and their high level of choral excellence?  I’m thinking of the Concert Choir at New England Conservatory (where one would expect the highest level of choral excellence, rather than what they have), or the Choral Department at Shenandoah Conservatory with their heavy wobbling vibrato (someone wrote them a comment under one of their videos, “vibrato much!?”), or the Symphonic Chorus at Boston University’s School of Music with their wobbling and fluttering vibrato in the soprano and alto sections because the Chorus Director isn’t doing his/her job or he/she likes that ugly wobbling sound where the females of the Chorus sound very nervous and you’re not sure what pitch they’re aiming for because of it.  Or take the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus, assuming they haven’t improved any under James Burton, or at least that’s what I was recently told about the TFC.  I was told “they sound just like they did when you wrote about them; they haven’t improved.”  Well as I previously wrote, James Burton can only do so much with what he has to work with and that’s based on the people who audition and their caliber.

Unfortunately, many choral ensembles in the US have these Directors who don’t do their job in many cases in working on perfect intonation, and perfect intonation does require work.  Instead, they allow their choristers to sing any old way they want, which is not choral excellence, but rather amateurish.

The Choir of Clare College sings with absolute perfect intonation.  There’s no wobbling and fluttering here like one unfortunately hears in the States.  And I heard their lovely tenors in this performance.

As is the case for performances in the Anglican Church, this was more of a recording performance so the choristers are wearing their pretty burgundy cassocks.  Per Anglican protocol, they are not wearing their white surplice over the cassock because the surplice is only worn for liturgies.  This is not a liturgy.

By the way, there’s a new Archbishop of Canterbury as of this writing:  Sarah Mullally.  She’s also a former Oncology nurse.  The Supreme Governor of the established Church of England (CoE), King Charles III, finally got around to choosing her — the position had been vacant for awhile — and the installation liturgy was held in Canterbury Anglican Cathedral.  She’s the spiritual head of the CofE/worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the US Episcopal Church is a part of.  Someone online asked a question about the Church of England and someone responded:  “It’s sort of the state Church.”  Sort of?  There’s no “sort of” about it.  The Church of England is the State Church; it’s the Established Church.  Of course the conservatives are not pleased with her being chosen, but that’s just the way that is.

On another topic, I don’t know why but King Charles has been invited to address the US Congress next month (roll eyes), and most Britons think he should cancel the trip and stay home according the poll I saw.  I agree.  Why would he want to address the corrupt “maga” nazi/fascist cultist trash in congress?  And why would he want to have anything to do with the chronic liar, the 34-count convicted felon and adjudicated sexual pervert assaulter (“grab ’em by the pussy”) and war criminal of The Epstein Class?