Cultural center hosts lessons, carols festival 12/5/2008 2:07 AM By DR. TOM MACK Columnist
Christmastime is a season of traditions. There are the popular customs of decorating a tree, hanging stockings on the mantelpiece and sending cards to family and friends. Over the centuries, Christian worship has also taken on a number of time-honored practices; one of relatively recent vintage is the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.
Of course, carol-singing goes back as far as the Middle Ages when the Roman Catholic Church permitted the integration of seasonal music in the celebration of the mass. By 1918, when the Church of England, or more specifically the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge University, established its annual festival, the interplay of biblical text and communal singing had become a fixture of general Christian service.
Just following World War I, Eric Milner-White, a former army chaplain, became dean of King's College Chapel, considered by many experts to be one of the greatest examples of late medieval architecture (I have happy memories of attending services in this imposing edifice on three occasions over the years).
It was Milner-White who outlined a new Christmas service composed of nine biblical lessons on "the development of the loving purposes of God" with interposed hymns and carols. No one attending that first service in 1918, intended for a purely local audience of members of the university and municipal communities, could have imagined what a worldwide phenomenon Dean Milner-White's programming idea would become.
With the Christmas Eve radio broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College Chapel in 1928, all of England and eventually listeners of BBC broadcasts around the world shared in this celebration composed of both the spoken word and song.
This Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., at the Sacred Heart Cultural Center, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols comes to the Central Savannah River Area with a performance by three choral groups under the general direction of William Toole. On this night, the Augusta Collegium Musicum will be joined by the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church Choir (James Nord, Director) and the St. John United Methodist Church Choir (Jamie Garvey, Director) along with organist, Eugenia Toole Glover, and a group of hand bell ringers from Martinez United Methodist Church.
This is the 22nd year that William Toole has organized this special program in support of the Cultural Center, and in recognition of this outstanding service rendered since 1987, Sacred Heart has commissioned a new work of choral music in his honor. Set to a poem entitled "Love Came Down at Christmas" by Christina Rossetti, the piece will be integrated into the fabric of the Nine Lessons and Carols and premiere in Augusta on Tuesday.
Rossetti, the sister of painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, is now considered, along with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to be one of the two great female poets of Victorian England; she is especially remembered for her works of fantasy, her children's verse, and her devotional writing.
In tackling the setting for Rossetti's poem, composer Donald McCullough, who is director of the Master Chorale of Washington, D.C. and one of the most highly regarded contemporary composers of choral music, listened to a CD of a past performance of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at Sacred Heart; he says that he was particularly impressed with Maestro Toole's use of dense choral colors and his preference for a beautiful "antique" sound.
William Toole has long been a major force in the musical life of our region of the country. After graduating with bachelor's and master's degrees in music from Yale University, Toole joined the Robert Shaw Chorale and worked on the radio/television show, "The Voice of Firestone."
He eventually returned to academia, and after completing the Special Studies Program at the Juilliard School, Toole taught at that venerable institution from 1964 to 1982 and thereafter at Augusta State University. Since his retirement in 1995 from ASU, he has been the inspiration for and guiding light of the Augusta Collegium Musicum.
The debut of McCullough's Christmas tribute to William Toole is an appropriate addition to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols since the selection of particular hymns and carols has varied over time.
Since the program's inception more than 80 years ago, only the processional music has remained a constant. The festival always begins with "Once in Royal David's City," a hymn written in 1848 by Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander, wife of the Anglican primate of Ireland.
Most famous for her "Hymns for Little Children," including "All Creatures Great and Small," a song that inspired a whole series of books by Yorkshire veterinarian, James Herriot, Alexander included in her lyrics gentle, Victorian Age admonitions regarding proper conduct.
The third verse of "Once in Royal David's City," for example, includes the couplet "Christian children all must be/Mild, obedient, good as He" (the Christ child).
Although much of the music will be performed by the three choral groups, the audience will have a chance to participate in some of the singing. Congregational hymns and carols chosen for this special program on Tuesday are sure to include a number of popular favorites. Tickets are $20 for adults.
For more information, one can call the Sacred Heart Cultural Center, 1301 Greene Street in Augusta, at (706) 826-4700.
Dr. Mack is a Carolina Trustee professor at USC Aiken.
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