by Dr Christopher McElroy Director of Music, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

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One of the special features of Holy Week here at the Metropolitan Cathedral is the singing of the passion narrative on Palm Sunday and Good Friday. People who attend the liturgies on these days often comment on what a powerful experience it is being part of such a performance. The musical settings we use were written by former Mast of the Music, Philip Duffy. Philip’s settings of the passion are but a small element of the large corpus of liturgical music that he composed during his 30 years at the Cathedral, much of which is still in regular use.

 

The evening of Palm Sunday sees the culmination of our Lenten series of musical offerings with the singing of the office of Tenebrae at 7:30pm. The responsories will be sung to a musical setting by Tomás Luis de Victoria, and Psalm 50, Miserere Mei, being sung to the famous setting by Gregorio Allegri.

 

Mozart, when he was a teenager, so the story goes, once heard Allegri’s Miserere being performed in the Sistine Chapel. The precocious young composer apparently scurried home and wrote down the entire work from memory. Wonderful as the story sounds, it’s almost certainly apocryphal: it would have been highly likely that Mozart would have come across the Miserere before, given its already significant popularity in musical circles. Singing or hearing this piece in the Metropolitan Cathedral is a sublime experience. The soloists sing from up in one of the high galleries, with the sound of a very small group of singers completely filling the cathedral as if from the heavens. Not to be missed!

 

Easter symbolises new life, and it is in the summer term that our thoughts turn towards recruitment. The life cycle of a boy or girl chorister is usually around six years: the first two spent learning the ropes, the middle two getting a grip on the repertoire, the final two leading everyone else and singing solos. As boys and girls move on (boys usually around 12/13 as their voice changes, girls at 15 to focus on GCSEs) they need to be replaced at the bottom to ensure that the cycle continues!

 

If you know of a boy or girl currently in year 2 (or a girl in year 5) who might be interested, please encourage them to find out more. Further details can be found on the Cathedral website: www.liverpoolmetrocathedral.org.uk/music/ joining-the-choirs

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