Weekly Record

21st September 2008

This Sunday the whole of Hope Street is closed to traffic for the Hope Street Feast. This has been a recent annual event of festivity, stalls and activities along the area which links our two Cathedrals. To coincide with this there will be the Farmers Market at one end and an Art Market on our Cathedral Piazza. So you can get your black puddings at one end and walk down to choose a fabulous painting at the other being entertained in-between. This event has grown in size each year and I’m sure it will be bigger than ever this year. Why not invite friends and family to join you for mass this Sunday and enjoy a few hours together at the Festival afterwards.

The Cathedrals have been the venues for the performance of two major Requiem concerts so far this Year. John Taveners premiere performed here and The Benjamin Britten War Requiem performed at the Anglican Cathedral and in Cologne. The final Requiem in this Year of Culture is the Verdi Requiem. This will be performed here next Saturday and it will involve massed choirs of about 400 men and women, a number of soloists and the full Philharmonic Orchestra all conducted by Vassily Petrenko. This is a wonderful piece of music but I wouldn’t want everyone to think that we only have music related to sadness and death at our Cathedrals we can also do joyful and happy if anyone is interested.

To accommodate such a large number of performers within the constraints of the design of our building is no easy task to accomplish. The evening will also be recorded live on BBC Radio 3 which adds another element of challenge. The proposal is to build a temporary raised platform over a section of the benches to accommodate the choirs and enable them to have eye contact with the conductor. This will mean yet more workers on site and yet more construction to keep an eye on to make sure that the Cathedral fabric is not damaged in anyway. This structure will remain up for the whole of next weekend and be taken down on Monday. This will mean that some of our weekday services will be transferred to the Crypt Chapel for these few days while the structure is either being erected or dismantled.

This Sunday is Home Mission Sunday and we are asked to support and pray for all the work, witness and efforts made to teach and advance the faith in our country. The scriptural slogan this year is ‘Go out into the vineyard’. I will be in France for a few days this week so I presume I am to take this reference literally

Canon Anthony O’Brien
Cathedral Dean