Hola a todos.  Well, I saw the Stanford Service in G listed for this Choral Evensong on 10 July 2026, and I know that canticle setting to have a treble solo during the Magnificat so I wanted to hear the treble singing his treble solo.  He was splendid.  I’ve seen him before with the rest of the Choir of course, and he has a lovely, marvelous voice.  Very well trained in the Westminster Abbey Choir School.

I linked to the Service Leaflet up above, but I don’t know how long Westminster Abbey keeps those.

I mentioned this elsewhere, somewhere:  Westminster Abbey is not a Cathedral — even though some people would say it looks like a Cathedral — but it’s not, because it’s not the seat of a Bishop.  It’s one of the Royal Peculiars (there are about 15-17 of those), meaning that it is a specific Church of England Abbey that falls under the jurisdiction of the Crown, King Charles III, the British Monarch, and not a Diocesan Bishop.

My choral friend said, “That’s not the voice I would have expected to come from him.”  Really?  I said:  That’s one of the reasons for a renowned Choir School.  The chorister had the voice I expected to hear from him, but my experience is different than that of my choral friend who doesn’t have my Anglican Church experience.  He (the treble) seemed comfortable singing the solo and he should feel very good about himself.   I found his solo very moving for me, and almost brought tears to my eyes because of that level of excellence at such a young age.  Rather amazing actually, and I don’t usually use the word “amazing” because it’s so overused these days in pop culture to describe the most mundane things; that along with the overused word “awesome” to describe things that are not the least bit awesome.   But my use of the word “amazing” is in its original sense.

The Stanford Magnificat begins at around 22.10 in the video above. The Nunc Dimittis begins at around 28.50.

There’s a bass-baritone solo in that, and I enjoyed the Lay Vicar who sang that.  He’s excellent as well.  He had a slight amount of noticeable vibrato but I think it was really slight nervousness — and a slight bit of nervousness is always good in a performance, and I was trained the same way he was trained vocally, so I’d probably sound the same way.   (For those who don’t know:  The Lay Vicars consists of the altos/countertenors, tenors, and basses).

I think the Choir School closes for the Summer on Sunday 12 July 2026.  I also see that for the Choral Evensong for 11 July they sang Howells’s Gloucester Service.

The trebles sang a descant on the final hymn, “Love Divine, All Love Excelling” (Tune: Blaenwern 408i NEH) which is a hymn I enjoy.  If you listen closely, you’ll hear the descant on the last verse.  As for that hymn, I think there are about three different tunes for that particular hymn, and in the Anglo-Catholic parish where I was Organist/Choirmaster we didn’t sing Blaenwern, although I wish we had.  We used the tune Hyfrydol.  The boys changed the descant — well it was really the Choirmaster — from the way I’ve heard it sung in the past — such as at William and Kate’s wedding.  It’s essentially the same descant but they changed the sections that are sung in their upper register (at the wedding).  The congregation did a good job of singing this hymn as opposed to the “stand and mumble” congregations one hears elsewhere.