Everyday angels transformed in the cathedral

It is 8 am Tuesday at St George’s Grammar School and Barry Smith is leading 14 choristers through a complicated phrase of the Magnificat. He begins the phrase low and the choristers repeat it higher and higher until the courtyard is filled with the sound of boys’ voices, soaring above the everyday prep school noises.

Three mornings a week Smith rehearses with the choirboys, working them solidly for 45 minutes.

It’s interesting to watch the techniques he uses to keep their attention. Some of the boys are very small and, like all primary school boys, they are easily distracted and mischievous. Smith engages them constantly, diverting them with grandiose piano playing, cracking jokes and, five minutes before the practice ends, putting the music away and playing a verbal memory game to improve concentration.

The benefits for the boys are enormous. Apart from the remission in school fees and the pocket money they are paid by St George’s Cathedral, they receive an impeccable musical training at no cost to themselves.

But the real winner is the cathedral congregation - St George’s Cathedral choir is arguably the best in South Africa and broadcasts regularly for the BBC. It is often the highly intelligent, easily bored boys - those whom teachers describe as a "handful" - who last longest in the choir, singing regularly until their voices begin to break. It is almost as though they relish the orderliness and discipline, the sense of being part of something bigger than themselves.

Many come back a few years later to sing tenor or bass with the men. It is a longstanding tradition. St George’s Grammar School has been providing the cathedral with choir boys for more than 140 years.

Friday, 7pm. The boys practise again. This time they are in the cathedral and are joined by the adult choristers, the handful of boys who don’t attend St George’s Grammar School and the organist. They stand in the choir stalls, the senior boys nearest the congregation, the junior members, who are still learning the ropes, safely tucked away at the altar end.

The boys are expected to work alongside the adults now as part of a team pursuing the highest standard in a communal rather than individual way.

They receive no concessions for being younger and work hard for the full hour, repeating each piece of music until Smith is satisfied.

Sunday, 6.20 pm. The full choir meets in the stalls for a half-hour practice before evensong. The boys have brought books to read during the sermon and they hide these in the choir stalls among the prayer books and their sheet music.

The practice ends and they run down stairs to the choirboy vestry, where they finish robing in the red cassocks, white surplices and ruffs which they wear for the service. Their hair is brushed and dirty faces are wiped dean.

Left alone for a few minutes they run wild, banging on the piano, wrestling and locking each other in the vestment cupboards. It seems impossible that they will sit still throughout in hour-long ser vice. But these children are professionals. The moment they are called to line up with the adult choristers and the clergy, the mood changes. It’s 7 pm and the choir proceeds into the cathedral. The stained glass windows glow faintly in the fading sunlight. The organ plays quietly. It is a scene of great dignity and order.

All around, in the honeyed stone of the walls, in the stained glass windows, in the finely turned woodwork of the pulpit, one is aware of the craftsmen who strove to make the cathedral a place of beauty. The first hymn is announced and the voices of the choir soar into space, sounding angelic and remote. The effect of the pure, carrying tone is enhanced by the vast nave, the high, rounded roof and the distance of the choir from the congregation.

The listener is drawn into worship by the beauty of the sound. It is easy to let stress and hurry drop away and to drift into a quiet place within yourself.

"The service is an opportunity for reflection," says Dean Rowan Smith. "Unlike the morning services, at evensong active congregational response is reduced to allow people a space to be quiet and to be restored. We want to make this a place where people can find healing and hope."

Canon Precentor Chris Chivers says music has a universal quality. "No other art embraces the physical, the emotional, the cerebral, the spiritual as music does, enabling people to achieve a sense of ubuntu and real identity in community. "The language of music cuts across linguistic and cultural barriers. Music reaches the parts that other arts and words can’t hope to reach."

One of the most remarkable features of the cathedral choir’s story is that nearly 40 years ago - way before most other institutions had begun to think about transformation - in an undramatic but deliberate way, people from all racial groups were enabled - through Barry Smith’s incredible commitment and foresight - to enjoy the kind of rainbow experience which, elsewhere, was being denied them.

"You’d have to go a long way in the Western Cape - or anywhere else in South Africa for that matter - to find a choir as transformed, as representative and with as wide a repertoire."

Throughout the service the boys behave impeccably. During the long sermon they pull out their books and read quietly. Any restlessness among the younger boys is frowned upon by the rest of the choir and the boys have learnt to sit still and behave appropriately.

The service ends and one of the mothers turns to me. "This is the nearest my child will ever become to being an angel," she says wryly. A moment later the boys burst out of the vestry, ready for home. The angels have disappeared. In their place is a collection of normal, lively boys, running around the car park and trying to climb the stone buttresses of the bell tower.

On Tuesday, the whole cycle will begin again.

Helen Brain, writing in the Cape Times, October 2000

Back to Features page

Mission and Vision | Services | Music | Ministries | History | Glass | Tour | Bells | Labyrinth | Shop
Staff & Contacts | Cathedral Friends | Publications | Features | Sermons | Links | Site Map | Home