Feature: Music Radiating From Cathedral On The Hill

Published on: 10 Oct, 2019
Updated on: 12 Oct, 2019

By Hugh Coakley

The Guildford Dragon NEWS has previously looked at the marvellous hidden spaces in the building at the top of Stag Hill and a day in the life of the cathedral.

This article, takes an inside view of the wonderful music being made as part of worship, be it the sublime choirs, the amazing main organ with its 4,398 pipes or the exceptional bellringing on the 12 bells in the tower.

Sublime, wonderful and ethereal are all apt descriptions of the music at the Church of the Holy Spirit Church, otherwise known as Guildford Cathedral.

And evensong, with the choir, the organ, the beautiful high church robes in the huge cathedral space, is the perfect theatrical setting for the sacred sounds.

Evensong at Guildford cathedral. Click on the images to enlarge them in a new window.

This musical perfection doesn’t happen without dedication and hard work. And that was so apparent when I spent a day on Stag Hill with the choir and organists and bell ringers, following them as they worked, practised and then used their music as part of the daily worship.

Canon Paul Smith, who leads on liturgy and music at the cathedral, said: “Music is an essential part of the worship here and, being the cathedral, it attracts the highest quality of musicians. Our music is the envy of many larger cathedrals.”

The service concludes with the virger leading the choir of 13 boys and five lay clerks in a procession off.

To a layperson, it does seem amazing that such wonderful music, by professional musicians, can be so little known in the town. Katherine Dienes-Williams, the organist and master of the choristers, said: “Those involved here are aware of the beauty of it. We are on a hill and looking out and thinking of all going on outside.”

All the boy choristers come from Lanesborough School, the Guildford fee-paying school.

Sub-organist Richard Moore was keen to stress the Anglican tradition and the work that goes into producing the daily services. He said: “Apart from performances, the boys rehearse three times a week and the girls, from various schools around Guildford, twice a week.

“They work very hard to achieve excellence. They are still children but we expect a professional standard. It is an amazing education for any child.”

The boy choristers eager to be fed before rehearsal starts.

The quality of the singing and teaching is recognised nationally with Tom King, 13, winning the BBC Young Chorister of the Year in 2014 and several choristers from Guildford making the finals, including Hannah Dienes-Williams, the choir master’s daughter, in 2017.

Having fun preparing for the service.

Hilary Jones, the vocal coach who has worked with many cathedral choirs over the last 20 years, takes the boys’ choir through singing exercises in the crypt before evensong practice begins.

In the formal setting of the Chapter House, the choristers, boys and girls, have individual sessions with the voice coach.

Rehearsal for evensong with the master of the choristers, Katherine Dienes-Williams.

From the crypt to the cathedral, the rehearsal continues, led by Katherine Dienes-Williams, with the lay clerks joining the boys.

Electric not candle light. But the sense of tradition is strong in the cathedral.

It isn’t just the youngsters. The choir includes six male singers, called lay clerks in the cathedral language, but “women singers would be welcomed.” said Richard emphatically.

The choir is accompanied by the huge main organ and, on the day, it was played by the 18-year-old organ scholar, William Campbell.

William, a musical prodigy, started playing the violin aged three and also plays the piano, trumpet, sings and is a self-taught viola player. He will study music at York University next year but meanwhile, he is enjoying being at the cathedral. He said: “I love it here. The music is fun but the worship makes it so important.”

William Campbell at the organ being coached by Richard Moore, the sub-organist.

He is fearsomely dedicated to his instrument and practises three hours every day, and even sometimes through the night. He jangled his keys and said: “Once when I couldn’t sleep, I came into the cathedral at 4.30am to play.”

After evensong, work continued for the music team as the girls choir rehearsed. They are hugely enthusiastic for their music. “We love it,” said the girls, “the music and the friends.”

One girl added, gently prompted by Katherine, “Legacy as well. When we leave, we leave the cathedral in a better position. The music here is part of a centuries-old tradition.”

The girls’ choir is coached in the music room in the crypt by Hilary Jones.

The age range for the girls is nine to 18 years old.

For such young people, their dedication and focus is wonderful to see.

Achieving excellence is hard work and the choir is expected to be there for services for about 40 weeks of the year. For Katherine Dienes-Williams and her team, the day started with the boys at Lanesborough before 7am and continued up to 9pm rehearsing with the girls choir.

That takes dedication and, I suspect for many if not most, it is a vocation. Richard Moore said: “I think that you can’t do this without being a Christian. It is a vocation. Vocations are not just for the priesthood.”

When the choir is on holiday, Guildford Cathedral Singers step in. They are a mixed-voice, auditioned choir and they sing about 12 Sundays a year and occasionally for evensong or a special service. Again, the standard expected is high with only experienced choral singers with good sight-reading skills in the choir.

Another wonderful feature of the cathedral music is its bells. 12 bells in all with the heaviest weighing about one and a half tons, they peal out to Guildford every Sunday.

Richard Burton, the ringing master, led me up the 140 or so stairs up the bell tower. He said that he had been a bell ringer for 40 years, 28 of them in the cathedral. They practise every Tuesday evening for and hour and a half with about 20 ringers attending regularly.

Is it music? “Yes, definitely” said Richard. “You can’t change a bells’ note or the volume but you can ring permutations called changes.”

The bells, resting on a huge wooden framework, are in the ‘up position’ ready to be rung.

As a group, they have a repertoire of about 10 regular sequences which they all memorise. It was exciting to see the sequence start, all bells smoothly following each other in turn, and then, the sequence changing at the call of the ringing master.

The object is to get it to be a regular as possible. It looked effortless, but like the choirs, that naturalness and grace didn’t come without years of dedication.

Richard said: “We are in the top echelon of bell ringers in the country. It is great for mental agility and concentration.”

Liz Burton added: “It is also very sociable.” Liz and Richard met through bell ringing and subsequently married.

I left the cathedral that evening in the dark, choir rehearsals and bell ringing practice still in full swing. In the background, the organ could be heard; another hour’s practice for William.

The music is there to “enhance, enrich and inspire the worship,” said Katherine. But it is also something that Guildfordians must treasure.

Next time you have a visitor, put the cathedral on their itinerary and an evensong service as a must.