Lady Anne House and the two Terry Cottages, former almshouses, are now part of a York hotel

Middletons Hotel in York includes Anne Middleton’s Hospital, a former almshouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During our weekend say in York, after visiting the site of the former parish church of Saint Mary Bishophill Senior, I walked down Carr’s Lane, a cobbled lane beside the old churchyard, to see two former almshouses that have been incorporated into Middletons Hotel on Skeldergate.

Middletons Hotel is in secluded courtyard gardens within the City walls, and has 56 guest rooms spread over six historic, grade II listed buildings. It is a charming collection of brick houses and pretty gardens, with associations with the past mayors and sheriffs. The buildings are from different periods and in varying architectural styles, and they include Anne Middleton’s Hospital, the Organ Factory and the Terry Memorial Homes.

Lady Anne House is a former almshouse on Skeldergate in the Bishophill area, founded by Ann Middleton in 1659 to house widows of Freemen of the City of York. Dame Anne Middleton was the wife of Peter Middleton, a 17th century Sheriff of York. Middleton’s Hospital had 22 apartments around a small garden and housed 20 widows.

The original hospital was demolished in 1827, and rebuilt further back from the street in 1828 as a two-storey building in brick and stone. It was designed by the York architect Peter Atkinson (1780-1843), and was completed in 1829. The garden walls also date from this period.

The statue on the façade is often identified as Ann Middleton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

In the centre of the façade of the building, a statue of a woman in Puritan dress is sometimes identified as Ann Middleton. The statue is believed to have survived from the original building.

The hospital was endowed with bequests by the founder in 1655, by Thomas Norfolk, George Townend and with a bequest from Lady Conyngham shared by four York hospitals. Later bequests were made by William Monckton, Stephen Beckwith, Mary W Lambert, Green Simpson, Frances Pool, John Richard and Edward Hill.

The hospital had 19 residents at the beginning of the 20th century, and each received a pension of £6 yearly and the use of one room.

The building was modernised in 1939, to house 10 almspeople or residents and a warden. However, the building was in a poor state of repair by 1972. It was bought by the owners of the hotel at 56 Skeldergate, who restored it and incorporated it into the hotel. Since 1997, it has been a Grade II* listed building.

The Sir Joseph Terry Cottages were built as a pair of almshouses (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The hotel also incorporates the Sir Joseph Terry Cottages or Terry Memorial Homes, built in the front of Middleton’s Hospital in 1899 by public subscription in memory of Sir Joseph Terry (1828-1898).

Terry was Lord Mayor of York on three occasions and was the driving force behind the success of the Terry’s chocolate brand, a major employer in York from 1767. He died in 1898 while he was standing as a Conservative candidate in a by-election in York.

The Sir Joseph Terry Cottages were two brick-built bungalow-type dwellings, built as a pair of almshouses intended for married couples over 60. They are now incorporated in the hotel, with one suite named Chocolate and the other named Orange.

The Sir Joseph Terry Cottages … one suite is named Chocolate and the other is named Orange (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Skeldergate House at 56 Skeldergate, an original part of the hotel, is a Grade II* listed building. The earlier house on the site was bought by Ralph Dodsworth in 1769. When he became Sheriff of York in 1777, he commissioned the architect John Carr to design a new house, large enough to entertain groups.

Dodsworth died in 1796, and the house was let to Thomas Smith, who bought it in 1807 and then sold it on to William Cooper in 1825. His son later brought it into business use. A carriageway was built through the building in 1925 to provide access to the rear yard, involving the demolition of some rooms and a rear service wing.

The house was owned in the mid-20th century by Hans Hess (1907-1977), director of York Art Gallery. He was a Jewish refugee who had fled Nazi Germany. His guests at Skeldergate House included Charlie Chaplin, Benjamin Britten and Cleo Laine.

The house later became a hotel and is now part of Middletons Hotel. The carriageway was filled in, restoring the building to its original appearance, in 1998-1999. As part of the restoration, it became the hotel conference suite, and more recently it has been converted into nine bedrooms and a lounge.

The three-storey building retains its original door and doorcase, much of its original plasterwork, windows and fittings and a late-19th century fireplace. The staircase was completely rebuilt, using some original furnishings.

Skeldergate House was built by John Carr for Ralph Dodsworth in 1769 in 1777 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Cromwell House was built in the late 19th century and was once. It now includes 18 bedrooms, as well as the hotel reception, lounge, restaurant and bar.

The old Organ Factory, with Victorian-style stained glass windows, was originally the workshop of York’s master organ builder Walter Hopkins. He retired in 1921, but many of his masterpieces are still in use in York and beyond.

In all, Middletons has 56 bedrooms spread across six historic Grade II listed buildings clustered around its courtyard gardens in the heart of York.

Sir Joseph Terry was Lord Mayor of York and the driving force behind the success of the Terry’s chocolate brand (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

‘Open you the East Door, and let the New Year in’

‘Open you the East Door, and let the New Year in’ … looking east along the River Liffey in Dublin this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

We ushered in the New Year at the Choral Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, this morning [3 January 2016].

The Revd Garth Burning presided at the Eucharist, Canon John Bartlett served as deacon, and I served the liturgy as sub-deacon, assisting at the administration of the Holy Communion, and Canon Mark Gardner preached.

The setting, the Plainsong Missa Ordis Factor, was sung by a Consort of the Cathedral Choir.

The Communion Motet on this first Sunday of the new year was, appropriately, Benjamin Britten’s setting of Levy-Dew, also known as ‘A New Year Carol.’

This folk song is of Welsh origin and traditionally sung at the New Year. It is associated with a New Year’s Day custom of sprinkling people with water newly drawn from a well. One variation of this traditional folk song appeared in Walter de la Mare’s Tom Tiddler’s Ground, an anthology of verse for children. Benjamin Britten set this version of the song to music as ‘A New Year Carol’ in 1934.

The song is associated with Pembrokeshire, where it figures in a New Year's Day custom in which children collect fresh water from a well and go around with a sprig from an evergreen tree, sprinkling the faces of passers-by with the water while singing the carol and begging for food or money.

In other parts of Wales, the custom is known as dwr newy or ‘new water’ and the water is also used to sprinkle the rooms and doors of houses.

According to Trefor Owen, in Welsh Folk Customs (1974), the song preserves ‘an early well cult made acceptable in mediaeval Christianity through its association with the Virgin Mary.

The meaning of the words levy dew in the original lyrics is not known for certain. One theory says the words come from the Welsh phrase llef y Dduw, ‘a cry to God.’

Others link these words with the Middle English levedy (‘lady’) or the French phrase levez à Dieu, “raise to God,” which may refer to the elevation of the Host during the liturgy, followed by the elevation of the chalice. The ‘seven bright gold wires’ might be the strings of a golden harp or the candles on the altar at the High Mass.

Here we bring new water from the well so clear,
for to worship God with, this happy New Year.

Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, the water and the wine;
the seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her toe,
open you the West Door, and turn the Old Year go.

Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, the water and the wine;
the seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin,
open you the East Door, and let the New Year in.

Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, the water and the wine;
the seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine.

Later, I went for a walk through Temple Bar and by the banks of the River Liffey. The water of the River Lieffey at this point could hardly be described as ‘new water from the well so clear.’ But the sky was clear and in sharp contrast with the rain-filled days we have had for the last few weeks.

‘Open you the West Door, and turn the Old Year go’ … looking west along the River Liffey in Dublin this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Christmas with Vaughan Williams (7): ‘Hodie’, 10 and 11, Narration and Lullaby

‘Sweet was the song the Virgin sang’ ... the Nativity icon in the Lady Chapel in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

During this Christmas season, I am inviting you to join me each morning in a series of Christmas meditations as I listen to the Christmas cantata Hodie (‘This Day’) by the great English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), drawing on English Christmas poetry from diverse sources, including poems by John Milton, Thomas Hardy and George Herbert, that reflect a variety of Christmas experiences, and the narration of the Nativity story in the Gospels.

Hodie, with its blend of mysticism, heavenly glory and human hope, was composed by Vaughan Williams in 1953-1954 and is his last major choral-orchestral composition.

This morning [30 December 2015], I invite you to join me in listening to the tenth and eleventh movements of Hodie, which include a short reading from Saint Luke’s account of the Christmas story, and a Christmas Lullaby.

10 and 11, Narration and Lullaby



10, Narration:

The tenth movement is a narration that is a short citation from Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 2: 19):

But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her own heart.

11: Lullaby:

The eleventh movement of Hodie is a lullaby scored for soprano and women’s chorus. This lullaby is based on an anonymous text that is also known in a setting by Benjamin Britten:

Sweet was the song the Virgin sang,
When she to Bethlem Juda came

And was delivered of a Son,
That blessed Jesus hath to name:
“Lulla, lulla, lulla-bye,
Sweet Babe,” sang she,

And rocked him sweetly on her knee.

“Sweet Babe,” sang she, “my son,
And eke a Saviour born,

Who hath vouchsafèd from on high
To visit us that were forlorn:
“Lalula, lalula, lalula-bye,
Sweet Babe,” sang she,
And rocked him sweetly on her knee.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Hymns for Advent (7): ‘Saint Nicolas’ a cantata by Benjamin Britten

Chocolate Santas on shelves in a supermarket in Bettystown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I am looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning, on the Feast of Saint Nicholas [6 December], I have chosen Saint Nicolas, which is not a hymn but a cantata written by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) in 1948, with text by Eric Crozier, and incorporating the text of two well-known hymns, and the words of the canticle Nunc Dimittis.

Britten wrote Saint Nicolas (note Britten spells the saint’s name without the letter H) for the centenary celebrations of Lancing College, Sussex, the old school of Peter Pears. This was his first professional work intended primarily for performance by amateur musicians. The audience also gets to join in singing two well-known hymns, All people that on earth do dwell (Irish Church Hymnal, No 683) and God moves in a mysterious way (Irish Church Hymnal, No 13).

Although it was written for Lancing College, the first performance was in Aldeburgh Church at the opening of the first Aldeburgh Festival in June 1948.

The text of Saint Nicolas was written by Eric Crozier after extensive research into the legendary life of Saint Nicholas, the fourth century Bishop of Myra. This libretto is a work of great poetry and sensitivity, offering a dramatic portrait of the saint who has become the model for Santa Claus.

As the patron saint of sailors, Saint Nicholas was a popular saint among mediaeval seafarers and gave his name to churches in many port cities, including Saint Nicholas Within-the-Walls in Dublin’s Liberties, dating from 1166, Saint Nicholas Without-the-Walls, a parish church that was contained within Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, from 1192, and the Collegiate Church of Saint Nicholas in Galway.

Over the past few years, I have visited a number of churches and cathedrals, islands and towns, associated with Saint Nicholas, including: Aghios Nikolaos in Crete; churches named after Saint Nicholas in Dublin, Galway, Dundalk, Co Louth, and Adare, Co Limerick; the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Newcastle, England; the former Nerantze Mosque in Rethymnon, which was converted into a Church in 1925 with a dedication to Saint Nicholas after the last Turks left the town; the Venetian Cathedral of San Nicolo or Saint Nicholas on the Fortezza in Rethymnon, which the Turks converted into the Sultan Ibrahim Han Mosque; the Church of Aghios Nikolaos Rangava in Athens; and the abandoned Church of Saint Nicholas on the deserted the Island of Gemile, about 9 km south of Fethiye and off the Aegean coast of Turkey.

Christopher Columbus named a port in Haiti after Saint Nicholas on 6 December 1492 – perhaps recalling his stop-off in Galway on his way to the New World, and prayers in Saint Nicholas Collegiate Church.

In eastern Crete, I have often visited the attractive harbour town of Aghios Nikólaos (Άγιος Νικόλαος), on the Gulf of Mirabello. The town is built around an inner lagoon, Voulismeni, which is surrounded by palm trees and cafés. Modern hotels and apartments may dwarf surviving older buildings, but it is still a charming place, and local people love trying to convince visiting tourists that the lake is bottomless.

The town takes its name from the tiny 11th century church of Aghios Nikólaos. Many years ago, on my first visit to the town, a visit to this Church of Aghios Nikólaos with its icons of the saint was enough to end the doubts about Santa Claus that were beginning to emerge in hearts of two small children.

As Christmas approaches, I think of Saint Nicholas as the bishop who cared for the poor, was the patron saint of children and seafarers, the generous and benevolent dispenser of gifts, the defender and rescuer of children in distress and poverty and who were in danger of exploitation and abuse, and the defender of Orthodox Christian doctrine.

Saint Nicholas remains a model for how all Christians – especially priests and bishops – are meant to live, with Christ not just at the centre of our Christmas festivities this year, but at the centre of our lives every year.



Saint Nicolas , by Benjamin Britten

I. Introduction

Our eyes are blinded by the holiness you bear…
the bishop’s robe, the mitre, and the cross of gold
obscure the simple man within the Saint.
Strip off your glory, Nicolas, and speak!
Across the tremendous bridge
of sixteen hundred years
I come to stand in worship with you,
as I stand among my faithful congregation long ago.
All who knelt beside me are gone.
Their name is dust, their tombs are grass and clay,
yet their shining seed of faith survives in you!
It weathers time, it springs again in you!
With you it stands like forest oak or
withers with the grasses underfoot.
Preserve the living Faith for which your fathers fought!
For Faith was won by centuries of sacrifice
and many martyrs died that you might worship God.
Help us, Lord, to find the hidden road…
that leads from love to greater Love…
from faith to greater Faith.
Strengthen us, O Lord!
Screw up our strength to serve thee with simplicity.

II. The Birth of Nicolas

Nicolas was born in answer to prayer, and
leaping from his mother’s womb he cried:
God be glorified!
Swaddling bands and crib awaited him there,
but Nicolas clapped both his hands and cried:
God be glorified!
Innocent and joyful, naked and fair,
he came in pride on earth to abide.
God be glorified!
Water rippled Welcome! in the bathtub by his side;
he dived in open-eyed, he swam, he cried:
God be glorified!
When he went to church at Christmastide,
he climbed up to the font to be baptized.
God be glorified!
Pilgrims came to kneel and pray by his side.
He grew in grace, his name was sanctified.
Nicolas grew in innocence and pride.
His glory spread a rainbow round the countryside.
“Nicolas will be a saint!” the neighbours cried.
God be glorified!

III. Nicolas devotes himself to God

My parents died… all too soon…
I left the tranquil beauty of their home…
and knew the wider world of man. Poor man!
I found him solitary, racked by doubt: born, bred,
doomed to die in everlasting fear of death:
the foolish toy of time, the darling of decay –
hopeless, faithless, defying God.
Heartsick, in hope to mask the twisted face of poverty,
I sold my lands to feed the poor.
I gave my goods to charity but Love demanded more.
Heartsick, I cast away all things
that could distract my mind
from full devotion to His will; I thrust my happiness
behind but Love desired more – still.
Heartsick, I called on God to purge my angry soul,
to be my only master, friend and guide.
I begged for sweet humility, and Love was satisfied.

IV. He journeys to Palestine

Nicolas sailed for Palestine across the sunlit seas.
The South West Wind blew soft and fair,
seagulls hovered through the air
and spices scented the breeze.
Everyone felt that land was near,
all dangers now were past,
except for one who knelt in prayer,
fingers clasped and head quite bare,
alone by the mizzenmast.
The sailors jeered at Nicolas, who paid them no regard
until the hour of sunset came
when he stood up and stopped their game
of staking coins on cards.
Nicolas spoke and prophesied a tempest far ahead.
The sailors scorned such words of fear
since sky and stars shone bright and clear,
so “Nonsense!” they all said.
Darkness was soon on top of them,
but still the South Wind blew.
The captain went below to sleep, and
left the helmsman there to keep his course
with one of the crew.
Nicolas swore he’d punish them for mocking the Lord.
The wind arose, the thunder roared,
lightning split the waves that poured
in wild cascades on board.
Waterspouts rose in majesty until the ship was tossed
abaft, aback, astern, abeam,
lit by lightning’s livid gleam,
and all aboard cried “Lost!”
Lightning hisses through the night,
blinding sight with living light! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Man the pumps! Man the pumps! Axes! Axes!
Winds and tempests howl their cry
of battle through the raging sky!
Spare us! Save us! Lifeboats! Lower away!
Waves repeat their angry roar,
fall and spring again once more.
Let her run before the wind!
Shorten sail! Reef her! Heave her to! Thunder rends the sky asunder
with its savage shout of wonder
. Pray to God! Kneel and pray!
Lightning, thunder, tempest, ocean…
praise their God with voice and motion.
Nicolas waited patiently
till they were on their knees.
Then down he knelt in thankfulness,
begging God their ship to bless,
and make the storm to cease:
O God! We are all weak, sinful foolish men.
We pray from fear and from necessity at death,
in sickness or private loss.
Without the prick of fear our conscience sleeps,
forgetful of Thy Grace.
Help us, O God! to see more clearly.
Tame our stubborn hearts.
Teach us to ask for less and offer more
in gratitude to Thee.
Pity our simplicity, for we are truly pitiable in thy sight.
Amen!
The winds and waves lay down to rest.
The sky was clear and calm.
The ship sailed onward without harm
and all creation sang a psalm of loving thankfulness.
Beneath the stars the sailors slept
exhausted by their fear, while I knelt down
for love of God on high and saw his angels in the sky
smile down at me and wept, wept, wept.

V. Nicolas comes to Myra and is chosen Bishop

Come, stranger sent from God!
Come, man of God!
Stand foremost in our Church
and serve this diocese,
as Bishop Nicolas, our shield,
our strength, our peace!
I Nicolas, Bishop of Myra and its diocese
shall with unfailing grace of God,
defend his faithful servants,
comfort the widow and fatherless, and
fulfill his will for this most blessed church.
Amen! Amen!
Place the mitre on your head
to show your mastery of men.
Take the golden robe that covers you
with Christ’s authority.
Wear the fine dalmatic woven with the cross of faith.
Bear the crozier as a staff and comfort to your flock.
Set the ring upon your hand in sacramental sign,
in sign of wedlock with our God.
Amen! Amen!
Serve the faith and spurn his enemies…
Serve the faith!

All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell,
Come ye before Him and rejoice.

O enter then his gates with praise,
Approach with joy His courts unto,
Praise, laud and bless His name always,
For it is seemly so to do.

For why? The Lord our God is good:
His mercy is for ever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood,
And shall from age to age endure. Amen.

VI. Nicolas from Prison

Persecution sprang upon our Church
and stilled its voice.
Eight barren years it stifled under Roman rule:
And I lay bound, condemned to celebrate
my lonely sacrament with prison bread,
while wolves ran loose among my flock.
O man! The world is set for you as for a king!
Paradise is yours in loveliness.
The stars shine down for you,
for you the angels sing.
Yet you prefer your wilderness.
You hug the rack of self,
Embrace the lash of sin,
pour your treasures out to bribe distress.
You build your temples fair without and foul within…
you cultivate your wilderness.
Yet Christ is yours, yours!
For you He lived and died.
God in mercy gave his Son to bless you all,
to bring you life,
and Him you crucified to desecrate your wilderness.
Turn, turn, turn away from sin!
Ah! Bow down your hard and stubborn hearts!
Confess yourselves to Him in penitence,
and humbly vow your lives to Him, to Holiness.

VII. Nicolas and the Pickled Boys

Famine tracks us down the lanes,
hunger holds our horses’ reins.
Winter heaps the roads with snow…
O we have far to go.
Starving beggars howl their cry,
snarl to see us spurring by.
Times are bad and travel slow...
O we have far to go.

We mourn our boys, our missing sons,
We sorrow for three little ones.
Timothy, Mark and John are gone.
Are gone! Are gone! Are gone!
Landlord, take this piece of gold!
Bring us food before the cold…
makes our pangs of hunger grow…
O we have far to go!

Day by day we seek to find
some trace of them but Oh! Unkind!
Timothy, Mark and John are gone, are gone….
Let us share this dish of meat!
Come, my friends, sit down and eat!
Join us, Bishop, for we know that you have far to go!

Mary meek and Mother mild
who lost thy Jesus as a child,
our Timothy, Mark and John are gone, are gone.
Come, Your Grace, don’t eat so slow!
Take some meat…
O do not taste! O do not feed on sin!
But haste to save three souls in need!
The mothers’ cry is sad and weak…
within these walls they lie whom mothers sadly seek.
Timothy, Mark, and John!
Put your fleshly garments on!
Come from dark oblivion!
Come! Come! Come! Come!

See! Three boys spring back to life,
who slaughtered by the butcher’s knife,
lay salted down!
And entering, hand in hand they stand and sing:
Alleluia! Alleluia! to their King!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

VIII. His piety and marvellous works

For forty years our Nicolas, our prince of men,
our shepherd and our gentle guide
walked by our side.
We turned to him at birth and death,
in time of famine and distress,
in all our grief, to bring relief.
He led us from the valleys to the
pleasant hills of grace.
He fought to fold us in from mortal sin.
O! He was prodigal of love!
A spendthrift in devotion to us all,
and blessed as he caressed.
We keep his memory alive in legends
that our children and their children’s
children treasure still.
A captive at the heathen court wept sorely all alone.
“O Nicolas is here, my son!
And he will bring you home!”
“Fill, fill my sack with corn,” he said,
“We die from lack of food!”
And from that single sack he fed a hungry multitude.
Three daughters of a nobleman were
doomed to shameful sin till our good Bishop
ransomed them by throwing purses in.
The gates were barred, the black flag flew,
three men knelt by the block,
but Nicolas burst in like flame and
stayed the axe’s shock.
“O help us, good Nicolas! Our ship is full of foam!”
He walked across the waves to them
and led them safely home.
He sat among the Bishops
who were summoned to Nicaea:
then rising with the wrath of God
boxed Arius’s ear!
He threatened Constantine the Great
with bell and book and ban,
till Constantine confessed his sins
like any common man!

Let the legends that we tell,
praise him with our prayers as well.
We keep his memory alive in
legends that our children
and their children’s children treasure still.

IX. The Death of Nicolas

Death, I hear thy summons and I come in haste,
For my short life is done;
and Oh! My soul is faint with love
for Him who waits for me above.
Lord, I come to life, to final birth.
I leave the misery of this earth for light,
by thy eternal grace,
where I shall greet Thee face to face.
Christ, receive my soul with tenderness,
for in my last of life I bless Thy name,
who lived and died for me,
and dying, yield my soul to Thee.

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation…
which thou hast prepared before
the face of all people.
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles….
and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is
now, and ever shall be…
world without end. Amen!

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
of never failing skill
He treasures up his bright designs,
and works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
the clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy
and shall break in blessings on your head.
Amen!

Saint Nicolas, Op. 42 by Benjamin Britten © Copyright 1948 by Boosey & Co Ltd.

Saint Nicholas in an Earley stained-glass window in the north nave of the Church of Saint Nicholas of Myra, Francis Street, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Tomorrow: ‘On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry,’ by Charles Coffin (No 136).

Hymns for Advent (5): ‘Deo Gracias,’ from ‘A Ceremony of Carols’ by Benjamin Britten

Patrick Comerford

As part of my spiritual reflections for Advent this year, I am looking at an appropriate hymn for Advent each morning. This morning I have chosen Deo Gracias, from A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 by the English composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976).

A Ceremony of Carols, is a choral piece scored for three-part treble chorus, solo voices, and harp. It is one of his best-known and most-performed works.

It was written for Christmas, and it consists of 11 movements, with text from The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, edited by Gerald Bullett. It is in Middle English. The piece was written at the height of World War, while Britten was at sea, returning from the US to England in 1942.

Britten originally conceived this as a series of unrelated songs, but later brought it together as one piece with the framing processional and recessional chant in unison based on the Gregorian antiphon Hodie Christus natus est, which is heard at the beginning and the end.

All the carols have such identities, each contributing to a work that is a feast of discovery throughout.

The text of the final song, Deo Gracias is from a 15th-century text by an unknown author. It is found in a manuscript in the British Library, which dates from ca 1400 and the lyrics may have belonged to a wandering minstrel. Although the lyrics date from the reign of Henry V (1387–1422), the Victorian antiquarian and Secretary of the Camden Society, Thomas Wright (1810-1877), suggests the songs may be of an earlier date. He says the lyrics probably originate in Warwickshire and the songs were composed for mystery plays.

This final song, Deo gracias describes the events in Genesis 3 and the Fall of Adam … “all for an apple.”

In mediaeval theology, Adam was said to have remained in bonds with the other patriarchs in the limbus partum from the time of his death until the crucifixion of Christ (the “4,000 winters”).

The second verse narrates the Fall of Humanity following Adam’s temptation by Eve and the serpent. There is a tone of astonishment, almost incredulity in the phrase “and all was for an apple.”

The third verse suggests the subsequent redemption of humanity by the birth of Christ by the Virgin Mary, who was to become the Queen of Heaven as a result.

The song concludes on a positive note that hints at Saint Thomas Aquinas’s concept of the felix culpa (“blessed fault”). Had Adam not taken the apple there would have been no need for the Virgin Mary to be the heavenly queen. So it was a blessed time when the apple was taken and we thank God for it.

The voices then shout an excited Deo Gracias over a harp glissando rapido and then quietly leave with Hodie Christus.

Apart from this work by Benjamin Britten, there are many modern choral settings of the text by composers such as John Ireland and Boris Ord. Ord’s setting, which was sung at the Advent Procession in Christ Church Cathedral last Sunday [1 November 2014]. is well-known because of its traditional performance following the First Lesson at the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, where Ord was organist from 1929 to 1957.

A new setting by Giles Swayne was first performed in 2009 by the Choir of Saint John’s College, Cambridge, at their broadcast of the Advent carol service on BBC Radio 3.

Deo Gracias by Benjamin Britten

Deo Gracias! Deo Gracias!
Adam lay ibounden, bound in a bond,
For thousand winter thought he not too long.

And all was for an appil,
An appil that he tok,
As clerkès finden written in their book.

Ne had the appil takè been,
The appil takè been,
Ne haddè never our lady
A ben hevenè queen.

Blessed be the time
That appil takè was.
Therefore we moun singen,
Deo Gracias! Deo Gracias!

Tomorrow: ‘A Spotless Rose’ by Herbert Howells.

Remembering Benjamin Britten and Saint Cecilia at Choral Evensong

Evening shadows and evening lights in the ambulatory in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

Today is being marked throughout the world as the fiftieth anniversary of the murder of President John F Kennedy in Dallas on 22 August 1963. Everyone of my generation can remember where he or she was on first hearing that news on that day, which has been marked with particular poignancy in Ireland, especially in Co Wexford.

But those commemorations and memories have totally overshadowed the fact that today, 22 December, is also the feast of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music, musicians and composers, and the one-hundredth anniversary of one of the great British composers, conductors and pianists of the 20th century, Benjamin Britten, who was born in Lowestoft in Suffolk on 22 December 1913.

Britten’s best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), his War Requiem (1962), the chamber opera The Turning of the Screw (1954) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (1945). With Peter Pears and Eric Crozier, he founded the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948.

His examiners at the Royal College of Music included the composers John Ireland and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

A large number of Britten’s works have Christian themes, and in the 1960s he was an active Anglican, sympathetic on the 1960s to the radical views of Bishop John Robinson, author of Honest to God. A life-long pacifist, he was a member of the Peace Pledge Union and one of the original sponsors of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in 1958. In 1937, he composed a Pacifist March to words by Ronald Duncan for the Peace Pledge Union.

He died on 4 December 1976, and although a burial in Westminster Abbey was offered he was buried at the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Aldeburgh, where is commemorated in a memorial window by John Piper.

I took part in Choral Evensong in Christ Church Cathedral last night [21 November 2013], which marked the eve of Saint Cecilia, and recalled the centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth, with both mentioned in the intercessions and reflected in the choice of music.

The anthem was Britten’s setting of WH Auden’s Hymn to Saint Cecilia, and the concluding organ voluntary was Britten’s Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria.

Saint Cecilia in a window in Saint Lachtain’s Church, Freshford, Co Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Hymn to Saint Cecilia, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976); text: WH Auden (1907-1973)

I

In a garden shady this holy lady
With reverent cadence and subtle psalm,
Like a black swan as death came on
Poured forth her song in perfect calm:
And by ocean's margin this innocent virgin
Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer, And notes tremendous from her great engine
Thundered out on the Roman air.
Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited,
Moved to delight by the melody,
White as an orchid she rode quite naked
In an oyster shell on top of the sea;
At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing
Came out of their trance into time again,
And around the wicked in Hell's abysses
The huge flame flickered and eased their pain.
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

II

I cannot grow;
I have no shadow
To run away from,
I only play.
I cannot err;
There is no creature
Whom I belong to,
Whom I could wrong.
I am defeat
When it knows it
Can now do nothing
By suffering.
All you lived through,
Dancing because you
No longer need it
For any deed.
I shall never be Different. Love me.
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

III

O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall,
O calm of spaces unafraid of weight,
Where Sorrow is herself, forgetting all
The gaucheness of her adolescent state,
Where Hope within the altogether strange
From every outworn image is released,
And Dread born whole and normal like a beast
Into a world of truths that never change:
Restore our fallen day; O re-arrange.
O dear white children casual as birds,
Playing among the ruined languages,
So small beside their large confusing words,
So gay against the greater silences
Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,
Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,
Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,
Weep for the lives your wishes never led.
O cry created as the bow of sin Is drawn across our trembling violin.
O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.
O law drummed out by hearts against the still
Long winter of our intellectual will.
That what has been may never be again.
O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath
Of convalescents on the shores of death.
O bless the freedom that you never chose.
O trumpets that unguarded children blow
About the fortress of their inner foe.
O wear your tribulation like a rose.
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

‘Hallelujah for the heart of God, and from the hand of the artist inimitable’

‘Hallelujah for the heart of God, and from the hand of the artist inimitable, / and from the echo of the heavenly harp in sweetness magnifical and mighty’ (Benjamin Britten / Christopher Smart) … street art outside Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

After Choral Evensong in Christ Church Cathedral this evening [20 June 2013], we hosted a special prayer vigil in association with the South African Embassy to pray for the former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela.

As people, communities and organisations throughout the world are coming together to pray for this great personality who has been a torchlight for freedom and the father of his nation, we came together to sing, speak, light candles and pray collectively.

There was diplomatic representation from many embassies, including South Africa, the US, Ethiopia and Kenya. The hymn singing was led by both the group ‘No Limits’ and Nono Madolo.

Our closing song was the great African ordination hymn that has been become the national anthem of South Africa: Nkosi sikele’ iAfrika.

At another time, it may be more appropriate to write about how I was in South Africa in the weeks immediately before Nelson Mandela’s release from Robben Island in 1990, and how I met him at press conferences, receptions and a special dinner in Dublin.

Earlier this evening, at Choral Evensong, we welcomed the members of the Cathedral Libraries and Archives Association, who are holding their conference in Christ Church Cathedral.

As an anthem, the choir sang ‘Rejoice in Lamb,’ a cantata by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) set to words from a poem, Jubilato Agno, by Christopher Smart (1722-1770).

Smart was deeply religious but often unbalanced in mind. Yet his poem shows many flashes of genius and is a reminder of how all creation is called to worship God.

As we are celebrating the centenary of Britten’s birth, I thought it was worth quoting this delightful cantata in full:

Rejoice in the Lamb

Rejoice in God, O ye Tongues; give the glory to the Lord, and the Lamb.
Nations, and languages, and every Creature In which is the breath of Life.

Let man and beast appear before him, and magnify his name together.
Let Nimrod, the mighty hunter, bind a leopard to the altar and consecrate his spear to the Lord.
Let Ishmail dedicate a tyger, And give praise for the liberty in which the Lord has let him at large.
Let Balaam appear with an ass, and bless the Lord his people and his creatures for a reward eternal.
Let Daniel come forth with a lion, and praise God with all his might through faith in Christ Jesus.
Let Ithamar minister with a chamois, and bless the name of Him that cloatheth the naked.
Let Jakim with the satyr bless God in the dance.
Let David bless with the Bear – The beginning of victory to the Lord –
to the Lord the perfection of excellence.

Hallelujah for the heart of God, and from the hand of the artist inimitable,
and from the echo of the heavenly harp in sweetness magnifical and mighty.

For I will consider my cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For he knows that God is his saviour.
For God has bless’d him in the variety of his movements.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For I am possessed of a cat, surpassing in beauty,
From whom I take occasion to bless Almighty God.

For the Mouse is a creature of great personal valour.
For – this is a true case – Cat takes female mouse,
Male mouse will not depart, but stands threat’ning and daring.
… If you will let her go, I will engage you, as prodigious a creature as you are.
For the Mouse is a creature of great personal valour.
For the Mouse is of an hospitable disposition.

For the flowers are great blessings.
For the flowers have their angels,
Even the words of God’s creation.
For the flower glorifies God
And the root parries the adversary.
For there is a language of flowers.
For the flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ.

For I am under the same accusation with my Saviour,
For they said, He is besides himself.
For the officers of the peace are at variance with me,
And the watchman smites me with his staff.
For Silly fellow! Silly fellow! is against me,
And belongeth neither to me nor to my family.

For I am in twelve hardships,
But he that was born of a virgin shall deliver me out of all.

For H is a spirit and therefore he is God.
For K is king and therefore he is God.
For L is love and therefore he is God.
For M is musick and therefore he is God.

For the instruments are by their rhimes,
For the shawm rhimes are lawn fawn and the like.
For the shawm rhimes are moon boon and the like.
For the harp rhimes are sing ring and the like.
For the harp rhimes are ring string and the like.
For the cymbal rhimes are bell well and the like.
For the cymbal rhimes are toll soul and the like.
For the flute rhimes are tooth youth and the like.
For the flute rhimes are suit mute and the like.
For the bassoon rhimes are pass class and the like.
For the dulcimer rhimes are grace place and the like.
For the clarinet rhimes are clean seen and the like.
For the trumpet rhimes are sound bound and the like.
For the trumpet of God is a blessed intelligence and so are all the instruments in Heaven.
For God the Father Almighty plays upon the harp of stupendous magnitude and melody.
For at that time malignity ceases and the devils themselves are at peace.
For this time is perceptible to man by a remarkable stillness and serenity of soul.

Hallelujah for the heart of God, and from the hand of the artist inimitable,
and from the echo of the heavenly harp in sweetness magnifical and mighty.