AN illustrated talk in aid of the Roof Appeal at St Swithun’s Church, Sandford, will be held on Thursday, November 24 from 7.30pm in the church.

The talk entitled "A Brief History of Church Music in Devon" will be given by Dr Nigel Browne and will also feature a performance by the West Gallery Quire of Crediton and the Choir of St Michael and All Angels’ Church, Mount Dinham, Exeter.

Dr Browne’s aim for the talk is to give a brief, partial and entertaining history of church music in mid Devon, from the middle ages to the present day.

This will include choirs, organs and church bands, and the way liturgical fashion has veered from one to the other over the last eight centuries.

Those who go along will hear about church barrel organs, the sometimes less than reverent behaviour of church bands and the terrible fates that befell those who removed the organ from Ashburton church in 1579.

Musical examples will be sung by members of the choir at the Church of St Michael and All Angels’, including excerpts from the 14th century manuscript surviving from Tavistock Abbey, the great flowering of English liturgical music in the 16th century and the establishment in the 19th century of what is usually thought of as the “traditional” parish church choir.

The West Gallery Quire, directed by Claire Willman, will sing examples of “west gallery” music from the 17th to the 19th centuries; the kind of music described by Thomas Hardy in "Under the Greenwood Tree".

St Swithun’s Church still possess its very fine west gallery, which will be used for this evening.

Entry is £5 and all are welcome.

Carol Furze