Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of being able to sing together for the first time since March. We made sure that everyone was kept safe and distanced throughout the rehearsal and we kept to the rules set out by the Government. It was wonderful to be able to sing together again after so long. We’re especially grateful to Emma Gibbins who stepped in to conduct us as Lindsay was unwell with Coronavirus. We are also grateful to Stephen Power who, due to the unavailability of David Butler on this occasion, played the organ for the accompanied pieces.
You’ll notice that our numbers are a little smaller than usual as we had to keep to a limit of 15 people, i.e. 13 singers, conductor and organist. We hope that as time goes on we’ll be able to do similar recordings with more of our singers. We recorded a selection of music during the rehearsal to put out here over the Advent and Christmas periods so keep an eye out for more videos. We hope you enjoy listening to them as much as we enjoyed singing together again.
We usually put on several concerts per year to raise money for charities and good causes but the events of this year have made it impossible for this to happen. Despite this, we’d still like to raise as much money as we can during this festive period using these videos. You can donate by clicking on the link below to Virgin Money Giving.
uk.virginmoney...
The charity we have chosen to support throughout December is the Cardiff branch of the Samaritans. As many of you will know, Samaritans is is a registered charity which has the aim of providing support to anyone in emotional distress, struggling to cope, or at risk of suicide. It is expected that due to the time of year and additional challenges created by Covid19, the volunteers involved in Samaritans will be especially busy over the next few weeks. It so happens that Lindsay has recently trained to be a Samaritan and is now involved as one of the volunteers doing shifts at the Cardiff branch on a regular basis.
Thank you in advance for any support you can give to this very important cause at this time.
Our first video recording features the very fine Advent hymn ‘Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending’. The great hymn writer Charles Wesley revised an original version of this text for a publication of hymns in 1758; the tune ‘Helmsley’, to which these words are almost always sung, was first published soon after this in 1763. The hymn became very popular indeed in the nineteenth century and still appears on many music lists during Advent.
In this recording we hear the version of ‘Lo! He Comes’ from '100 Carols for Choirs’ which includes a magnificent arrangement of the final verse by Sir David Willcocks. In this final verse all members of Choir 1 sing the tune, whilst those in Choir 2 engage in a flamboyant 4-part harmony arrangement which includes a descant on the top line for the sopranos.
A special thanks to St. German's church in Cardiff for letting us record in their wonderful building.
St Germans in Splott! Organ and acoustic are marvellous.
Beautiful
Vivian Crawford - Jamaica: Thank you for worship to the glory of God and not to our human " feel good."
Thank you for having the courage to omit the embellishment and histrionics that sometimes come with this hymn.
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
Definitely one of my beloved Holy Hymns.
What a pleasure ,both to see and hear !
A glorious sound, thank you.
Very special. Thank you
This is splendid !
Awesome
Lovely 😀
Fantastic! I will to hear you sing "When I survey the wondrous cross" Rockingham
Thank you, Kenneth! We have in fact sung that hymn to Rockingham in a concert this year, with a new descant for the occasion. I’ll ensure that we record it here in the next few months….
Stunning!
Wounderful
Beautiful!
Gorgeous!!👏👏👏
Thank you 😁❤🎶❤😪🎶❤👌
Cool, you can see the organist way up at the top of the screen!
🔥🙌
Conductor did a good job trying to balance the distant organ reverb tails with the choral pre delay reverb.
Well sung but why so slow?
tempo just right! Especially if it was to lead congregational singing
Praise be to jesus wonderful
Not bad, but feels a bit laboured. Intro at a good speed then conductor kills it. Shame
Too depressing to watch with the arbitrary and obedient social distancing...they should be wearing masks thoughDescants to any hymn should be outlawed. They are infantile.
You've embarrassed yourself by declaring descants to be infantile. Sad that you can't grow up and appreciate the fully developed layers of hymnery. It is said that, "we who sing pray twice". I pray that your hard heart can be opened to an appreciation of glorious music.
I've sung in c hoirs all my life. Loved descants when I was a treble. But I grew up.@@megmeakin136
and those who sing descants after the age of 13 should be put in the stocks@@megmeakin136