A Celebration of Christmas

St Mary’s Parish Church, Haddington 15/12/24

Garleton Singers, Stephen Doughty director 

St Mary’s Church looked on approach more like an advent calendar than ever; a fit setting for Garleton Singers to usher in the season with an eclectic selection of sacred choral pieces, alongside familiar carols for the audience to take part in. They were accompanied by Caroline Cradock on organ and piano, Nicola Kendall on drums and the Pentland Brass Quintet. A further layer was the polished but exuberant showmanship of conductor/compere Stephen Doughty – in splendid particoloured weskit – deftly tweaking the reins of choir and audience alike. 

 The choir opened with Gardner’s ‘Tomorrow shall be my dancing day’; its rhythms skipping from voice to voice showcase the virtues of polyphony. Further offerings from the choir in the first half were ‘The Sussex Carol’ and ‘All my heart this night rejoices’. This amateur group seemed flawless despite having had only five weeks to rehearse since their rendition of Karl Jenkins’ ‘The Armed Man’ on Remembrance Day. There was eager freshness to their singing, and intense focus on the conductor,  

 We revisited Jenkins with his composite arrangement ‘Celebration of Christmas’. He enjoys using brass “percussively” to drive a song, Doughty explained, while the choir plays the supportive role. Listening with this in mind was intriguing, as well as moving. The ‘Lullay’ section had my friend teary-eyed.  

 John Lindsay read ‘A Visit from St Nicolas’, and the Pentland Brass quintet played ‘Christmas Crackers’; lively, varied and slick with an intermittently humorous tuba! I confess I struggle with brass but Pentland’s relaxed approach make it easy. I could be converted.  

 After a tea-break we were borne back to our seats by an sequence from the high organ, ‘O Antiphon’, swelling to fill the vault above. I was struggling to place my teacup safely on the floor as the choir filed back in. They began singing ‘O Come, Emmanuel’, rich and low. I sat up to find them serenely in place, but mysteriously missing the two back rows. No men. Then came a divine monkish intonation as if from all around us. One voice stood out: a guest opera star? Was it all recorded and played through Surround-sound?  

 It was of course the male choristers processing in behind us. The strange acoustic from the stone walls enclosing us all in the nave was thrilling. And the angel voice, once onstage under the Crossing, melted into the others. 

 This became the third of the audience-participation carols. I began to understand those choir members coming out of a workday evening, unpaid, week after week, for the glory of at best a couple of public airings: Stephen Doughty elicits your very best. When he turned round to conduct us alongside the choir, he was as anxious about our performance as that of his flock. Some of us, for example, misjudged the timing of the third line. He flapped his arm, gave a look. And we all got it right the next time round. His face lit up with pleasure. 

‘Veni et Illumina’ followed. This poignant performance was in memory of its composer, Doughty’s friend and collaborator James Whitbourn, who died this year aged only 60. Solemn and atmospheric, with tense harmonies, dread tempering the yearning; the choir delivered it with compelling reverence. Eyes closed, it was easy to forget the somewhat functional lighting, and imagine it was being sung as Doughty would have preferred: in the dark by candlelight. 

 Liz O’Ryan gave a strong reading of an anonymous Christmas poem, then the choir gave full voice to Daniel Pinkham’s ‘Christmas Cantata’, a rousing number to erase any sombre mood. 

 That could have formed a respectable finale. But happily, a sudden loud and glorious drum- roll burst from the wings heralding the super-finale: twenty-four ‘Days of Christmas’ – twelve from the choir and then twelve again from choir plus audience. The piano tinkled with calls of partridge, dove and French hen; Doughty spun like a teetotum to keep us in line in song and in sign, for he had drilled us in all the in/appropriate actions: milking, laying, piping, dancing. “It reminds me of my childhood!” exulted my daughter.  I think we all agreed, and the mood as we left was as high as it could be this year.