After three very successful years in America, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears boarded a Swedish cargo vessel, the Axel Johnson, on the 16th March 1942 for their return to Britain. It was a long and boring journey that took nearly a month. U-boat activity was at its height so it was probably rather frightening too. At this time Britten had started 'Hymn to St. Cecilia' and a piece for Benny Goodman. He intended to finish these on board but customs officials confiscated the manuscripts on the doubtful proposition that they could be a secret code. (Britten managed to restart and finish 'Hymn' but as far as I know the Goodman Piece was lost forever). During the voyage they berthed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Britten came across a book of medieval poems and some of these he set during the voyage as the 'Ceremony of Carols'. It is an unusual setting for boys choir and harp. Britten had intended to write a harp concerto and so had been studying the instrument. Humphrey Carpenter * regards the work's title as rather odd as it is neither a ceremony nor is it a narration of the Christmas story. I find this view unsubstantiated. The work opens and ends with the choir processing to plainsong. Britten may have got this idea from Holst's 'Hymn to Jesus', written about 20 years earlier, where, after a short orchesral opening, alternating boys and adult choirs enter to 'Vexilla Regis prodeunt' (The banners of the King advance on their way) and 'Pange lingua gloriosi' (Tell, my tongue ...
Keywords: westminster, cathedral, choir, boys, trebles, ceremony, of, carols, britten
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