Before we went off to the Rockmass last night we watched the recording of the service of celebration for the Queen, recorded at St George’s Chapel in Windsor in the morning. First off it was the usual Cathedral style Choral Matins – which means various chunks of the actual prayer-book service are cut out, and the congregation only sing the hymns. Instead of singing the just have to stand and listen during the psalm and the responses. They do get to say the second occurrence of the Lord’s Prayer in the service (the first was cut), although as a testament to how frequently most of the congregation actually attend a Matins, it sounded like about half the congregation carried on after ‘deliver us from evil’. Essentially it is the kind of Church of England service that I have seen described as portraying the Church as a living museum – ‘I had a hard time getting past how out of touch the whole thing seemed‘. Certainly I couldn’t help thinking how different the reality of parts of the modern Church of England actually is to what was shown last night as we sat in the Rockmass, using words and prayers whose heritage can be clearly traced back to Cranmer and the first English prayer book, but surrounded by rather different music.

Anyway, putting aside grumbles over the choice of service, the music was generally great, which the choir in good voice. The setting of the Jubilate was by Stanford, the Gloria of which sounds fantastic with a good choir in a setting such as St George’s Chapel. There were also some good hymns, including ‘Thine Be The Glory’ to finish off. The only bit of music I didn’t like was the specially commissioned anthem formed from a poem for the occasion written by Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, and music by Peter Maxwell Davies, the Master of the Queen’s Music. Following as it did the soaring harmony of the Stanford, the very modern and discordant harmonies used in the new anthem really didn’t go at all.

What surprised me was that they chose to hold the service at the knave altar – something I noticed had been brought in the last time we visited the chapel last year – but which has previously been removed for televised royal events such as the wedding last year. The Queen and the Royal Family were spread across the whole of the front row of the congregation, rather than the more usual cluster by the choir stalls. This did mean that the whole family were very much on show, and gave the chance for the cameras to focus in on various members of the family during the service. Amusing moments that probably would have been missed with the usual arrangement included Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie exchanging a definite ‘why do we have to do this’ look as the choir kicked off on the psalm and they had been standing since the beginning and through the responses. There was also a very grumpy, arms folded pose from their father pretty well right through the sermon. What was also interesting was that whilst the rest of the family all sang from their service sheets, I don’t think I once saw the Queen use hers – she looked to sing all the hymns from memory. We also got to see the collection plate go round. At first I didn’t quite know what was happening after the sermon, as the Queen went into her handbag – something you don’t often see to be honest, usually there is some aide who passes items to her, and takes them from her, the handbag not seeming to be used – however this time, in a move sure to please stewardship advisors the whole Church over, she pulled out a little white envelope, the same as churchgoers all over the country do every week, and put it into the collection plate. Prince Philip did the same. I wonder whether they remembered to sign the gift aid declaration? 😀