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Repertoire of Music The majority of Sunday service music is drawn from what may be termed the "standard" Anglican cathedral repertoire, from Tallis and Byrd through Purcell and the Victorians to Howells and Britten. There is a slight bias towards the Romantic era simply because it is best suited to our singers, organ and acoustics, but more obscure music is not neglected - the Sermons in Music in January 2001 included Gibbons's great verse anthem, "See, see the word is incarnate" and Jonathan Dove's "Seek Him that maketh the seven stars," composed in 1997. Another feature rarely found elsewhere is the use of English settings of the traditional-language Communion service - the settings by Stanford, Darke, Ireland and others are worth regular hearing, especially as we are able to alternate them with the Latin settings standard in most cathedral-type establishments today.
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Music for special services is often considerably more adventurous. Operatic choruses such as Verdi's "Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" and Mascagni's "Easter Hymn" have become almost standard (the latter has also found its way into liturgical use on Easter Sunday morning) alongside the more predictable sections from Fauré's or Mozart's Requiems. Another St. Bride's feature is the use of more popular secular songs with significance for the occasion - one of the first examples of this was the singing of "I'm forever blowing bubbles" at the memorial of a West Ham supporter (this has now been adopted as an "anthem" by the Stationers' Company during their annual service on the theme, "Life is a bubble"), and many others have followed. As a general rule, tunes from the 1920s and 30s (Gershwin, Irving Berlin etc.) work very well in choral arrangements and more modern "pop" works less well, although one of the most memorable arrangements was that of Queen's, "Who wants to live forever," which subsequently reappeared at the funeral of an elderly parishioner at her family's request! One of the great benefits of having such a skilled, professional and versatile choir is that we can turn our hand to almost anything - the number of requests that have defeated us over the past ten or so years can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.