St Bride's Church, Fleet Street

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. Franz Schubert wrote his much-celebrated Mass in G in under a week when he was just 18 years old but his music maturity was already evident. We open this week's Reflection with the Gloria from the setting. St Bride's Orchestra accompany the choir, as they will also be doin...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. We begin with the sound of "Sing joyfully" – a setting of the opening verses of Psalm 81 – by William Byrd. Byrd was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in the court of Elizabeth I. Despite the stifling pressures on musicians from the early Protestant church, Elizabeth wanted...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. Vaughan Williams served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and Royal Artillery in France and Greece during the First World War. His Mass in G minor was completed in 1921. The emotional impact of war is apparent in the spiritual quality of the work which also has deep historic...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. We begin our reflection with one of Robert White's hauntingly beautiful settings of "Christe, qui lux es et dies" which is a hymn for Compline, the final service of the daily liturgical cycle. The opening verses set the pattern of its prayerful tone: "O Christ, who art the...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. The composer Michael Tippett was born in 1905 and became a confirmed pacifist as a consequence of which he eventually spent two months in prison in 1943. He composed the oratorio "A Child of Our Time" in reaction to the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom in Magdeburg, beginning the...

Join The Revd Dr Jeff Lake, Associate Priest of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. We open with a setting of "Ubi caritas" by the Norwegian composer, Ola Gjeilo. Gjeilo sang Duruflé's famous version in his school choir and it made a huge impression on him. He described it as ‘the perfect a cappella piece’ and it strongly influenced his own composition....

Join The Revd Steve Morris, Associate Priest of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. We open with a masterful setting by Anton Bruckner of a text from Philippians "Christus factus est", which reflects on Christ's obedience unto his death on the cross. Though written for an unaccompanied mixed choir, it is remarkably symphonic in scale and full of chromati...

Join The Revd Steve Morris, Associate Priest of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. We open this week with a hymn-like setting by Déodat de Séverac of the text "Tantum ergo sacramentum" from the hymn "Pange Lingua" by Thomas Aquinas. Its simple harmonies and structure lend an attractiveness that have made it the composer's best-known work in England. The...

Join The Revd Steve Morris, Associate Priest of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. We open with an anthem published in 1925 by Herbert Howells which sets the poem "My eyes for beauty pine" by Robert Bridges, who was later to become poet laureate. It expresses a quiet yearning, rather than a dogmatic faith, which resonated with Howells's spiritual temper...

Join The Revd Steve Morris, Associate Priest of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. This week's reflection opens with the motet "Ave verum corpus" by the English composer, William Byrd. It is his most performed and recorded work, in part because it is so expressive but also because it is simple technically to sing. Our reading from Matthew tells of the m...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. The opening anthem this week is by Charles Wood. It sets the poem "Expectans expectavi" by Charles Sorley who was a First World War poet who was killed at the Battle of Loos in 1915, aged just 20. Wood wrote his setting in 1919 shortly after the death of his own son who wa...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. Edward Bairstow was supposedly the rudest Yorkshireman in a county famed for its blunt speaking but that is not apparent in the beautiful anthem "Blessed city, heavenly Salem" which he wrote in 1914. It sets words from a seventh-century hymn and crafts the plainsong melody...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. The English composer William Henry Harris was organist at St George’s Chapel, Windsor for over thirty years and was appointed Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order for his service. Whilst there, he wrote two orchestral works which were premiered at The Proms and co...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. Instead of Choral Evensong in church this Sunday we have a special service celebrating the gift of marriage and love's enduring grace. The service incudes readings and music on that theme including the anthem which opens this reflection – "My true love hath my heart" by Jo...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. Charles Villiers Stanford wrote his set of Three Motets, Op 38, while he was organist at Trinity College, Cambridge. They are among his best-known works. The final motet, "Beati quorum via", is in six vocal parts and is more restrained and prayerful than the other two. It...

Each year the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper makers returns to St Bride’s to honour one of its most traditional commitments: the Richard Johnson “Bubble” Service. Our Rector, The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, serves as Company Chaplain and this year added her voice to a long succession of clergy who have risen to the challenge of preaching at the service on Johnson’s chosen text, Vit...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. "Christe, adoramus te" – Christ, we adore you – are the opening words of the short but moving choral anthem by Claudio Monteverdi which opens this week's reflection. Monteverdi was maestro di cappella at St Mark's, Venice for 30 years in the first half of the seventeenth c...

Reflection in words & music - Sunday 14th June 2026 by St Bride's Church, Fleet Street

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. This week's reflection opens with the third in a set of four anthems which the English composer Herbert Howells wrote in 1941 – "Like as the hart" – which sets the opening verses of Psalm 42. It is a deeply moving expression of spiritual longing and hope and one of his bes...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. The composer George Dyson was a caring and loving family man although undemonstrative in his affections. We hear the Magnificat from his Evening Canticles in F which reflect this gentle character. It is modest and understated, but beautiful nonetheless. On this Trinity Sun...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. This week we celebrate the feast of Pentecost. Our reading from the Acts of the Apostles describes the coming of the Holy Spirit, empowering all who received it to begin the work of making disciples of all nations. The choir opens our reflection with the celebrated motet '...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. This Sunday is the Sunday after Ascension when Jesus rose bodily into heaven. St Bride's Choir opens our reflection with the Gloria from the Ascension Mass by the finest of the Spanish Renaissance composers, Tomás Luis de Victoria. In our reading from Acts, Jesus tells the...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. The choir begins our weekly reflection with the psalm appointed for the day – psalm 87, which celebrates Jerusalem as the city loved by God and the spiritual birthplace of all nations. The psalm chant is by Charles Frederick South, who was organist at Salisbury Cathedral f...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. This week's reflection opens with the anthem "Greater love hath no man than this" by John Ireland. This moving piece was written in 1912 and it resonated strongly across the nation when war broke out in 1914 and casualties soon mounted, particularly the moving line "Great...

Join The Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, Rector of St Bride's, and St Bride's Choir for this week's reflection in words and music. "Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace" – the words of the aged Simeon upon seeing Jesus when he was presented at the temple. These are the opening words of the Nunc Dimittis which St Bride's Choir sings every week as part of Choral Evensong. This setting opens...