The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge

With Ash Wednesday looming tomorrow, we're getting ready for the penitential season of Lent. This usually means more unaccompanied music which is fortunate as we're currently without our proper organ. In case you were worried, however, about changes to the music, have no fear as our temporary electric organ is doing a good enough job to keep all of the accompanied repertoire. It has been interesting for many of the Choir (and, no doubt, the congregation) actually to see the organ scholars at work – it's easy to overlook how much preparation they need to put in for each service! There's a current band of music by Wesley which is threading its way through the service list for the term in preparation for our next recording session with Chandos, completing a five-CD set of single composer recordings, one from each of the 16th (Lassus), 17th (Purcell), 18th (Mozart), 19th (Wesley) and 20th (Howells) centuries.

Of course, at St John's, Ash Wednesday is a particularly special service including as the Psalm Allegri's Miserere mei, Deus which has come to be performed with the now set-in-stone top Cs for the treble soloist. It is said that George Guest, who wrote one of the first editions of the piece, still used by many English choirs, used to warm his trebles up to the top F above that all year round so when it actually came to the annual Allegri moment, the top Cs weren't ever an issue. So with this legacy to live up to, a handful of the St John's trebles are currently gearing themselves up for tomorrow's Evensong.