by Sir John Rutter, Telegraph
A pillar of the radio schedules for 100 years, the broadcasted service is one of the last few traces of a religious BBC
It has outlived (among others) Mrs Dale’s Diary, Two-Way Family Favourites, Children’s Hour, and The Billy Cotton Band Show, pillars of the BBC radio schedules of my youth. It’s older by far than The Archers, Desert Island Discs, and the Shipping Forecast. Incredibly, Choral Evensong has survived, almost unchanged since its first regular broadcast 100 years ago on October 7, 1926. It came live from Westminster Abbey, which will be hosting a centenary Evensong broadcast on the exact anniversary on Wednesday, and I shall be there in the congregation.
I cherish the institution of Choral Evensong in itself, and I applaud the BBC for maintaining this strand of its output in a hectic, disordered and largely secular and multi-faith society. It’s one of the last few traces of a religious BBC that Lord Reith, its first Director-General, would have recognised. As a stern Scots Presbyterian, Reith would doubtless have preferred doom-laden sermons and severe metrical psalms to Choral Evensong – he had a plan (mercifully dropped) to fill the Sunday schedules with lengthy meditations on the New Testament interspersed with solemn organ music – but the Church of England was the established one, and at least it was Protestant, if a bit ritualistic for his taste. The BBC does still hold Reith’s mission to “inform, educate and entertain” high in its heart, but it probably came as a relief when he left in 1938, ousted, some said, in a boardroom coup.
Choral Evensong survived his departure, though, and the range of venues from which it was broadcast gradually widened – York Minster had already been added in 1934, followed by other cathedrals, then major parish churches and collegiate chapels; today, about 80 venues are on the roster, with an occasional excursion to Anglican churches abroad, including St Thomas Fifth Avenue. From time to time we can hear a service of Choral Vespers from our Catholic cathedrals, a welcome ecumenical sign.
Read also: Abide with me: English choral music is a living part of our cultural heritage – we should cherish it by Jonathan Davies, Guardian