The world is very fortunate that Westminster Abbey now streams their Choral Evensong Liturgies. And if I lived in London, I’d go to Westminster Abbey.
Even though to some people Westminster Abbey looks like a Cathedral, it is not. It is not the seat of a Bishop.
Westminster Abbey is — what’s known as — a Royal Peculiar, meaning it is a church of the established Church of England/Anglican Church (the State Church), that belongs directly to The Crown/the British Monarch, rather than under the jurisdiction of a local bishop or diocese. The Abbey is run by a Dean and Chapter and it is they who report only to The Sovereign, King Charles III.
The Abbey has hosts major state ceremonies, including the coronations of British Monarchs since 1066 — except for Edward V and VIII — as well as numerous Royal Weddings. The Abbey is also the burial site for over 30 monarchs, although Queen Elizabeth II was buried inside King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle. St George’s Chapel is another Royal Peculiar, directly under the jurisdiction of the British Sovereign rather than a local diocese. It shares this status with Westminster Abbey.
The Anglican composer Herbert Howells is buried in Westminster Abbey, which seems appropriate to me.
I mention Howells because I had not heard the Christopher Robinson Westminster Service before, but the first thing I said about it was: It sounds like Howells. My choral friend said the same. I did some research and Robinson did not study with Howells, but he and Howells had a deep musical connection and Robinson is considered a master interpreter of the Anglican Church music of Howells. So maybe that explains why his Westminster Service canticle setting sounds so much like some of the Anglican canticle settings of Howells.
The Robinson Westminster Service begins with the Magnificat at 21.55 in the video above. And the Nunc Dimittis begins at 30.18. The Choir of Westminster Abbey performed it beautifully. They have excellent trebles/boys.
The camera work at Westminster Abbey is excellent. I especially liked the shot from high above at the end of the Westminster Service and that glorious ending.
Any new readers are probably asking, “So what does Howells sound like?” Well, you can hear Howells’s St Paul’s Service — which he composed for the Cathedral Choir and acoustics of Saint Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in this performance from Oxbridge: The superb Choir of Trinity College Cambridge performed the St Paul’s Service for Choral Evensong on 16 March 2025, which you can hear at 33.05 (Magnificat) and 42.45 (Nunc Dimittis) in the video below.
They also performed the St Paul’s Service for the final Choral Evensong of the Trinity College term, but the Chapel was packed for that Liturgy and because of that it changed the choral sound a bit and I prefer the performance below. As my choral friend said about the performance at the end of term, “The packed Chapel had the effect of carpet having been installed in the Chapel with all those people there and they absorbed some of the sound.” Yes, the choristers also seemed to have to work harder in that performance because of it.
On another topic, I read that the Senior Organ Scholar who graduated last term at Trinity College Chapel is now at Westminster Cathedral in London. He’s really qualified to be anywhere he wants, but I was surprised that he left the Church of England and went to the Roman Catholic Church, considering some of their backward dogma and policies. He was probably offered more money there.
The Anglican Church music of Howells has been described as “smokey” (think incense).
Some information about the Abbey’s Pipe Organ:
At Westminster Abbey, the camera shows the organist from time to time from a distance in his red cassock.
For those who are not Anglican/Church of England/Episcopal (it’s all the same thing depending upon where one lives in the world; it’s all part of the worldwide Anglican Communion), unlike Protestant churches, the organ console in Anglican parishes, chapels and cathedral churches is usually out of view, since the High Altar is the centre of attention. Often the organ console is on the second story of the building, as is the case at Westminster Abbey, and also at St Paul’s Cathedral in London:
The main organ console at Westminster Abbey sits on top of the organ screen (that’s the large stone screen separating the Nave from the Quire area), facing the north pipe case.
The organ console was built directly on top of the central screen, high above the ground level between the nave and the Quire. The organist sits facing the north pipe case.
They have symphonic-style organ built by Harrison & Harrison with four (and later expanded) manuals/keyboards and around 7,000 pipes. The Abbey also has a smaller Queen’s Organ in the Lady Chapel, built by Mander Organs.
Note: I’m aware that some people consider the Anglican Church to be Protestant. They’re usually bottom basement Low Church people who don’t follow any of the suggested Anglican protocol; they don’t do anything and can easily be mistaken for Southern Baptists. One wonders why they are even Anglican!
This thinking that the Anglican Church is “Protestant” is not helped by the conservative BBC’s black and white thinking of referring to “the Protestants and Catholics” in their news reports. As a former Anglican Church musician, I’ve known lots of Anglicans and I never heard any of them refer to themselves as Protestant, especially the High Church Anglo-Catholics (which is my background). There was a time in the US where the word Protestant was printed on The Hymnal and The Book of Common Prayer, but upon the revision of both books in the late 1970s, the word Protestant was deleted, removed. There are other religious groups that do not fall into the narrow Protestant/Catholic mindset, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They are not Protestant either. They are a Christian restorationist church. And there are others who are not Protestant as well, not the impression the BBC like to give. The BBC should be using the language: Anglicans and Catholics. Dump the word “Protestant.”