Monastic Music Hours: The Rhythm Of The Office Hours

Sunday, the 18^th of January 2026                       

#monastic #officehours #plainchant #polyphony #liturgy #AlisonHawes #SimonAshdown #DominicMcGonigal #SetMeAsASeal #MyHolyPlace #Victoria #Rachmaninov #Palestrina #Parsons #Holst #Rimsky-Korsakov #Sheppard #BickleighCastle  

What a feast of music! My head is full of Victoria, Palestrina, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Sheppard, Schutz, Holst and... McGonigal! We ended with my Set Me As A Seal which will be the title track of the choral album later this year. The eighteen singers at Monastic Music Hours sang it beautifully. I'd like this at my wedding! 

We also sang My Holy Place which I wrote exactly one week ago on the train from Bourg St Maurice to Brussels. Even an informal read-through captured the beauty and spirituality of a place which connects with us inside, creating peace and eternity.  

Those sounds of mine are intermingled with a thousand years of music, from the ancient Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and Mixolydian psalm tones, through the glories of the 8-part Victoria Missa Alma Redemptoris to the rich sounds of Rachmaninov’s Bogoroditse. One (of many) highlights for me was the Parsons Ave Maria, a piece I have sung and conducted countless times, but which just gets more powerful with every rendition.  

The rhythm of singing Lauds, then Sext, then Vespers, then Compline gives the music a timeless quality, as if we are just tuning into a performance that has been resonating for several hundred years. 

Set Me As A Seal sung at Monastic Music Hours