Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and I’m sure you’re all looking forward to a damn fine sing-along at your respective local carol services.
Spare a thought, though, at this time of year, for the pros and semi-pros who will, like as not, be charged to fine-tune the outpourings of your festive cheer. For the great majority of choral singers, the 24(ish) days of Advent are, more than anything else, a matter of counting down just how many services are left before a day off in what is bloody nearly January.
Singers do enjoy the Christmas repertoire: of course we do. But Advent hadn’t even started when I set out for the first of four musical engagements in one 24-hour window. By the end of Sunday I’d sung ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ three times. And ‘Lo, he comes’ at least twice. Likewise, the whole set of Advent antiphons. And the Advent litany.
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