Westminster Cathedral’s musical heritage is under threat

The Catholic diocese of Westminster announced last week that it is holding ‘a strategic review of the role of sacred music in the mission of Westminster Cathedral’. It didn’t add: ‘because our master of music has walked out in despair, after warning that recent changes to the choir will ruin its sound’.

But that is the situation and I suspect the purpose of the review is to extract Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, from the hole he has helped dig for himself. It’s a nightmare for Nichols because Westminster owns what you might call the Berlin Philharmonic of Catholic choirs. And even that doesn’t do its reputation justice, because there are many orchestras that can claim to be as fine as the Berlin Phil, but very few choirs that can compete with Westminster Cathedral’s.

The Anglican choirs of Westminster Abbey, English cathedrals, and Oxford and Cambridge chapels sing different music, so one can’t compare them.