Brecon Cathedral Goes Global

Around two million people, from all corners of the world, joined the congregation of Brecon Cathedral over the airwaves on Remembrance Sunday (11 November) this year. The BBC Radio 4 Sunday Worship programme was transmitted live at 8.10am from the Cathedral.

The 40 minute service was led by Dean Geoffrey Marshall and Succentor Michael Thomas, assisted by Fr David Jones and Padre Steven Griffith as well as members of the congregation.  In his welcome and sermon the Dean Geoffrey referred to Brecon's extensive military connections, from Roman times to the present day.  The themes touched on in the service included the importance of faith for those living in fear and those who are bereaved.  By drawing on letters written in the trenches during the First World War and official correspondence from the War Office after the death of a young Private, the Dean poignantly illustrated the human tragedy of war.

The programme was also an opportunity for the growing reputation of the Brecon Cathedral Choir to be promoted far beyond our locality.  As Mark Duthie, Director of Music at the Cathedral commented, 'It was a great privilege to be invited by the BBC to do a live broadcast, and the Cathedral Choir demonstrated to the world that here in Brecon Cathedral we have a fine and thriving choral tradition.  For our young choristers it was a hugely exciting and memorable experience - not many 8 to 13 year olds have the opportunity to sing to such a vast audience.'

As well as leading the congregational hymns, the choir sang a psalm to a traditional Anglican chant as well as music by Byrd and Rutter, accompanied by the Cathedral Assistant Organist, Paul Hayward.  One of the highlights of the service for many listeners was the young choristers’ performance of Mark Blatchley’s evocative setting of Laurence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen, in the final section of which a solo trumpeter plays The Last Post.