The darkness deepens

Last Sunday my eye was caught by an announcement about a TV programme in the series Songs of Praise. This would not normally have caused me to switch on, for few entertainments excite me less than church services, but this one promised massed choirs, handbell ringers, something called the Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia Pipe Band and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, so was obviously going to be a bit special. Even the fact that it was called, depressingly, a Scottish Big Sing for Burns Night did not put me off, for one of the items to be performed was Abide with Me.

This is one of the top half-dozen Christian holy numbers*. Its best setting is called Eventide which, given anything like a half-decent rendering, cannot fail to make you want to join in**. Though not much of a hymn-singer myself, having sung them very rarely since my schooldays, I could certainly be counted on in a sinking ship situation (when other helpers fail and comforts flee...) to support my doomed fellow passengers with Abide with Me in a lusty if inaccurate baritone, perhaps even with a bit of descant.

However, the announcement also spoke of “spectacular orchestral arrangements” which should have warned me, and the scene when I tuned in was not encouraging; the general impression was of a late night show at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, though actually the colourful throng were in the Glasgow City Halls.

And the way they did Abide with Me suited this ambiance. I had a vision of the cloth-eared arranger, one David Pringle, settling down to his task: “Now, I think I’ll begin with a bit of the Moonlight Sonata, then bring in some tubular bells and one of those instruments that you hit with a little stick and it goes blingdingdiddleyding, then a few bars of Eventide sung VERY SLOWLY. A few trumpets, they’re always good, then a bit more Beethoven and back to Eventide, then…”

I switched off sadly disappointed but consoled to think that I am missing very little nowadays by not going to church. Change and decay, indeed.


*Another, of course, is Cwm Rhondda. I mentioned this tremendous tune once before, in the footnote to an earlier post about Jehovah and his supporters.

**Especially if sung using the Hungarian words by Áprily Lajos: Maradj velem, mert mindjárt este van/ Nő a sötét, ó el ne hagyj, Uram/ Nincs senkim és a vigaszt nem lelem/ Gyámoltalannal, ó maradj velem.