Evensong in Haarlem

Choral Evensong in the St. Bavo Church in Haarlem

It is odd to walk into a big church and then see an aeroplane parked in front of the choir! Many churches in Holland unfortunately have lost their original function. There may still be services on Sundays, but the buildings are also used for events and exhibitions.

100 years ago on August 31 the then 21 year old Fokker flew over Haarlem in his homebuilt aeroplane the Spin. The day after he flew three times around this church. In celebration of this centennial there have been festivities in the Market Square and the Bavo church (which is in the middle of the market square) for a week or so.

Coming to Haarlem to sing Evensong, it is rather a shock to see the church changed into a museum. After the Reformation the altars were removed from the originally Roman Catholic churches , together with many other things. In English cathedrals, and not just in England of course, the altar and the choir of the church are the most important parts and worship and services concentrate there. In the big churches in Holland, as can be found in Leiden, Haarlem and Amsterdam for example, and which became protestant places of worship after the Reformation, the choir is hardly used and often closed off. The organ is mostly on the west wall opposite the choir, and for worship and services the nave is used with people often facing the organ with their backs to the choir, depending on where the pulpit is situated. Sometimes the choir is also used for services, as it is smaller and the congregation is shrinking. And it is easier and cheaper to heat the choir, another reason to close it off. In Zaltbommel the choir is completely closed off and used for meetings, social gatherings after church and as a winter church. It is not normally open to visitors of the church.

Today – Sunday 28^th  - the Spin, a very fragile looking aeroplane with an open wooden seat just for one person, was placed just between nave and choir of the Bavo church. Around the choir was an exhibition area with models of aeroplanes. The church looked like a market place. I suppose it was often used as a covered market place during the Middle Ages. At least, that is what many paintings suggest. However, when we started rehearsing, people had to leave the church and some peace returned.

The place for the choir is often under the organ, with its back towards it, and that is where we sat. Acoustically this is not the best place and it was never intended for a choir.

The Evensong was an echo of our week in Ely and a reunion for some of the ECS members who sang there. It was good to sing again as many of us suffered from severe withdrawal symptoms after a full week of singing in a beautiful English cathedral. We sang well, I think. Jackson's "Justorum Animae" sounded ethereal, as we sang it under the crossing of nave, transepts and choir, which is a much better place for the choir. We seem to get the hang of it, and so at last we can make music and don't just frantically count!

One Evensong crawler coming all the way form beyond Utrecht, wrote a very nice comment in his blog.

The title of this blog entry made me smile: Elegant evensong by assorted Anglicans. Quite witty. But this choir fan was not the only one who had enjoyed the Evensong.

This was our music list:

Introit: Justorum animae (Gabriel Jackson)
Procession hymn: O Worship the King (NEH 433)
Preces (Michael Walsh)
Psalm 136 (Jonathan Bielby)
Canticles: Evening Service in E minor (William S. Lloyd Webber)
Lesser Litany, Lord’s Prayer, Collects (Michael Walsh)
Anthems: Christ whose glory fills the skies (Harold Darke) & Litany to the Holy Spirit (Peter Hurford)
Closing hymn: How Shall I Sing that Majesty (NEH 699/373)
Organ voluntary: Voluntary in A minor for Double Organ (William Croft)

Conductor: Martin van Bleek
Organ: James Pollard

Afterwards some of us relaxed over drinks in a cafe on the Market Square. Others still had a long way to travel by train to get home. Those evensongs are a real joy. It is such a blessing to be able to sing with such a choir and in wonderful places of worship. There is the prospect of singing in Malta, and who would not like that!

A good day all in all.

The Muller organ of the BAVO is world famous. Built in 1738, it was played by G.F. Händel in 1740 and ’50, who travelled to Haarlem especially for this purpose, and in 1766 the ten-year-old Mozart was on the organ.  It looks magnificent. So the postludium or voluntary was worth listening to.

Some frescoes in the church are still intact and have been restored to its former glory.

Iconoclasm has destroyed so many church treasures. In Holland the protestants did not at all approve of organs or any other musical instrument in church services. They were considered  to be instruments of the devil by. Only the Word, the Bible, was important. The organs, however, were not destroyed as they did not belong to the churches, but to the cities. The organists were employed and paid by the city and were supposed to give recitals regularly, also on Sundays, but not during the services. So the beautiful pipe organs were left untouched. For those who speak Dutch, there is a very interesting site explaining the conflict between the religious and local authorities about the church organs.

I wonder why the Canticles, the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis, were also banned by the protestants, as well as the chanted Psalms. The latter were replaced by the most dreadful rhymed paraphrases of the biblical psalm texts. The song of Mary and the song of Simeon, respectively the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis, are literal quotations from the Bible. But it was all to "popish" for the protestants, especially the Calvinists. The Lutherans have kept more of the Roman Catholic elements of the liturgy. It would be a very fascinating study why the protestants in the Netherlands were so radical, but I suppose that has been done already.

In the morning I sang in my regular church choir in The Hague . The congregation really welcomed the choir after a two month absence. A quick drive home to cook an very easy meal before leaving for Haarlem.

Just before I left for Haarlem I was invited to join a nephew and his wife on Monday night for a concert in the famous Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, an unexpected treat. No Anglican chant this time, but Wagner, Strauss  and Sjostakovitsj.

The day before, on Saturday, we organised the Open Day of the cultural institution of our small town, where a selection of the courses, concerts and lectures we have on offer this coming season was presented to interested possible "customers". It was an opportunity to meet some of the course leaders and teachers, and admire the work of students who had taken part in creative and/or art courses. We did not get as many interested future "students" as we expected, but that might have been due to the inclement weather. It was pouring down all day long, and even the shopping centre remained very quiet for a Saturday.