A classical composer who has performed with rock star Sir Paul McCartney has been chosen to write a new carol for the world’s most famous Christmas service.
Bill Ives, little known outside the rarefied realm of choral music, will hear his latest work broadcast to a global audience of 160 million on Christmas Eve.
Mr Ives was given the prestigious commission for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College Chapel in Cambridge.
It is, he admitted, the highlight of a career in which he has collaborated with the ex-Beatle and written music for film and TV, the enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury and a commemoration service at Westminster Abbey in front of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
‘A dream commission’
Mr Ives said: “It’s a great honour, a dream commission, and the pinnacle for any choral composer. It’s also a great responsibility.
“The King’s College carol service in the chocolate-box chapel is synonymous with Christmas and I just hope I’ve come up with something that’s worthy of the occasion.”
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Only the college’s director of music Dan Hyde and the choir will know what he’s come up with before it is broadcast.
What if Dan hadn’t liked what he’d written, I asked Mr Ives as he sat at the grand piano in his Essex home.
“That’s always a danger,” he said. “I don’t know how you’d get over that. It’s a bit like commissioning a portrait; you just have to put up with what you get. Fortunately, Dan said he was very pleased.”
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The service has been held since 1918, but it’s only in recent times the chapel has commissioned a new carol each year.
Mr Ives, who composes under the name Grayston Ives, said: “We composers all look every year to see who’s got the commission and for me to get it was quite scary.”
So, where do you start if you are composing a new carol?
“I was told I could pick whatever I wanted and the rest of the service, the music, would be built around my choice,” said Mr Ives, aged 76. “I was given a completely free hand. That was quite a responsibility in itself.”
He began by searching for an original text and found a poem entitled Three Points of Light, written by a former Kings choral scholar, Peter Cairns.
Mr Ives admitted: “Someone sent it to me, and I thought yes, I could work with this. Normally it’s a bit of a grind, but for once the musical ideas came to me quickly.
“The three points of light are the star when the angels appear to the shepherds, the light from the shepherds’ fire and the glow, the warmth, from the stable.
“Musically, I use three notes in one form or another, all the way through, either going up or down, and linking the whole piece of music.
“It’s quite stark at the beginning, with a solo tenor, to reflect the fact it was a cold night and what I’ve tried to do all the way through is create atmosphere in the music according to the words.”
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If Mr Ives’ carol becomes a Christmas hit, it won’t be his first because he sang on Sir Paul’s festive staple, We All Stand Together. It was performed by Paul McCartney and The Frog Chorus.
Mr Ives was one of the hugely successful King’s Singers choral group hired by Sir Paul to sing backing vocals.
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“We were the frogs in the frog song,” said Mr Ives.
Several years later, the rock star was asked to write a classical piece, an oratorio, by Magdalen College, Oxford, where Mr Ives was by then the director of music, and the two musicians were reunited.
“Paul and his wife Linda came to evensong in our chapel one day and afterwards the president brought them up to my rooms. Paul got straight on the piano and started playing the frog song and said, ‘remember that, Bill?’
“Paul also went and spoke to our choristers and told them that when he was a small boy, he was put in for a voice trial to join the choir at Liverpool Cathedral.
“He said he didn’t get in, but if he had passed the trial the Beatles would never have happened. That’s quite a thing, isn’t it?”
Later, Mr Ives conducted the first public performance of the McCartney oratorio Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart).
Mr Ives’ new carol will be sung for the first time during the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College chapel, Cambridge, and broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 at 3pm on Christmas Eve.
