St Augustine’s Church, Bexhill, 7 December 2013

Christmas is here! It may be another two weeks or so until Christmas day but an evening of carols and Christmas music with Bexhill Choral Society is more than enough to convince us it is time to roll out the sherry and mince pies.

Their inter-active concert last night (I suppose one has to use the jargon these days) ranged widely. At the serious, more meditative end of the scale we heard a moving and eloquent rendition of the Shepherds’ Farewell from Berlioz’ L’enfance du Christ and an equally impressive Ring out wild bells by Percy Fletcher, a composer who is almost forgotten today but provided an immense amount of church and choral music early last century.

Equally important to the evening were modern compositions including two by composers not only living but present. John O’Dell’s The Shepherd’s Carol was given its premier. Unaccompanied, its gentle lyricism was most effective. I trust we will hear it regularly. Kenneth Roberts’ own carol Sleep my baby has a soft, syncopated rhythm which becomes hypnotic and soothing.

If there was a chance that some of the carols, particularly after wine in the interval, might help us to nod off, Cinque Port Brass kept us on our toes with Caribbean Christmas and Ken’s own Christmas Medley. Kenneth Roberts, both conducting and playing saxophone, had the lion’s share of the work, but Robert Aldwinkle not only played all the keyboard accompaniment but commuted deftly between keyboard in the nave and organ in the gallery.

Our own part came with familiar Christmas Carols and a final rendition of White Christmas.

This must be the only celebration where there is no problem mixing the sacred and the secular in such a heady concoction, to such enjoyable ends. It would be difficult to think of a similar concert at Easter which included sections of the St John Passion alongside In my Easter bonnet. Maybe one day….  BH