Heritage Week begins on Friday. Fr Peter will be giving a talk on S. Michael’s Church building at the following times: next Sunday 2:00 pm, Monday 6:00 pm, Wednesday 10:00 am. Church opening: if you can help, speak to Claire.
From the Vicar…
Dear Friends,
Today is the last day of the school holidays. Tomorrow teachers and young people will return to classes here and at all schools, refreshed and ready to go.
You will see how the restoration work on the church is progressing around to the west end. While the scaffolding is in place around and over the west porch, traffic access may be limited. We are grateful to David Gray who is overseeing this work on our behalf, and keeping us informed about what is happening. Very soon new north doors will be hung to replace the very unsatisfactory stable doors. This will enable us to make better use of this entrance, which is much more visible to passers-by.
The 50th anniversary of the death of the great English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, has been celebrated in a remarkable variety of ways during 2008. A major opportunity for churches to mark the anniversary occurs today, Vaughan Williams’ birthday. He was born in the year this church was opened (1872), and he died in 1958.
He was brought up in a vicarage, and was, in his youth, organist at an Anglo-Catholic Church in London. In 1904 he was asked to oversee the music for a new hymnbook for use in the Church of England. He set out to find the best tunes from British and European sources, and he wrote some tunes himself for new words that were presented. The result was The English Hymnal (1906), which was a runaway success, not least because some bishops tried to ban it as being too Catholic. The New English Hymnal that we enjoy is its successor, and it is still strongly marked with Vaughan Williams’ particular sense of music’s link with transcendence. Today all our hymns, except the Office Hymn at Evensong, are sung to wonderful Vaughan Williams tunes.
The Archbishop of Canterbury commends this anniversary with these words:
Few musicians have contributed to the joy of hymn singing as much as Ralph Vaughan Williams. As musical editor or part-editor of three immensely important twentieth century collections of Christian music, The English Hymnal, Songs of Praise and The Oxford Book of Carols, he introduced us to a wealth of noble and beautiful material and contributed many of his own compositions to enrich this heritage. His acute taste and broad musical sympathy allowed him to bring into our repertoire gems from a great variety of backgrounds—mediaeval, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic and Evangelical; and his superb musicianship is evident in every arrangement he made, as in every melody he composed. He believed that congregations deserved the best, and that was what he sought to give them.
He has given great gifts to the common imagination—in our churches and in our whole country. It is a legacy that should be treasured and passed on. Vaughan Williams knew that music was not a luxury but a vital element in human life; and he created wonderful musical experiences that could be shared by people of all sorts of different levels of musical attainment. That is one reason for his lasting popularity in our congregations. He helps to shape a real unity and cohesion in our worship by binding us in song. So, to mark this fiftieth anniversary of his death, let us honour his memory by singing some of his hymns on Sunday 12 October 2008—which is also his birthday. The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society confidently looks forward to a great tribute to this exceptional genius, and I hope we can all ensure a world-wide celebration on that day, truly ecumenical and joyful.
Enjoy the singing, and may God bless you all.
Peter Williams
