A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, King's College, Cambridge, 2020

[WildRosie]

Same time, same place. 3pm on Thursday, broadcast live on Radio 4 and (I think) the World Service. There'll be no congregation this year so the choristers will need to give it some welly, or have some backing tapes to hand!

Thanks for the tip that it is on BBC2 now. Just tuned in.
Had the most awful year, so hoping it will make me feel Christmassy.

Does anybody know why the older singing people are dressed as if they should be serving canapés at a wedding? (There haven't been similarly clad older singing people at previous CFKs, have there?!)

They did it well, but I really missed the glorious WHUMPH when the nave organ and full congregation join in for the hymns

The waiters are the Kings Singers...drafted in as two of the choral scholars tested positive so the rest are isolating....

They only sang with the choristers for the first time just before filming....

Original Kings Singers were ex choral scholars I think

I think it was as good as it could have been, given the lousy circumstances. My only gripe was not being able to hear the soloist clearly at the beginning. Maybe he was too far from a microphone.

By and large, I'm sure Stephen Cleobury would have approved.

Oh, good info! Thank you for the explanation tonsattingforbjudes, we've been deliberating over this since we tuned in. Well done them.

I thought it was really lovely.

Btw, was it me (I'm not very musical), or were they singing more slowly and sort of ... smoothly ... than usual? I wondered if they did that to take account of the echo, or if I'm just hearing things.

@SarahAndQuack - in A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (radio) I noticed that they took certain carols at a slower tempo than usual. I didn't watch Carols from King's (TV). With no congregation, the rousing atmosphere of collective face-to-face worship is no longer an option, so perhaps they elected to go for a more peaceful, reflective feel.

King's always sing slowly (too slowly IMO) but yes it was smoother than usual too, I think. Very beautiful but a bit flat for my taste. Not sure if it was to compensate for the empty acoustic or just their newish music director.

Yes tempo was slower but I actually loved that under the circumstances. I just think the whole thing worked so beautifully and it was very moving to see the boys taking it all in their stride. Making the best of it all. Looking forward to seeing the back row back in situ next year. Poor chaps must have been disappointed not to be involved.

I loved it too.

And I agree it was very hard on the students not getting to sing.

I don't think it can be to do with the new director, as he was in place last year, and if anything it was quite brisk IIRC.