Vespers at Westminster Cathedral is rarely suitable for lovers of English choral music. Unlike Evensong in the great Anglican cathedrals, Westminster Cathedral's Vespers is heavily composed of those ghastly hymns Catholics created to stop themselves using the marvellous hymns weritten in England after the Reformation.

Sunday morning High Mass at Westminster Cathedral, OTOH, is often wonderful. Great music from the Mozart/Haydn/Palestrina repoertoires, phenomenally cosmopolitan congregation, uncompromising sermoons.

Almost (though not quite) as good as Mass at St Ethelreda's

I too would like to thank cword for this thread. It's nice to know there are still people out there who prefer traditional church music. My church is gradually moving toward "happy-clappy" as well. During my 2 trips to London I attended worship at All Souls Langham Place, which was less formal with more hymn singing, Matins at Westminster Abbey (I sat right by the choir), which was beautiful but had very little hymn singing, and Evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral, which was a little more balanced between the choir and congregational hymn singing. If anyone reading this knows, which of the 3 types of traditional Anglican services has the most hymn singing: Matins, Holy Communion or Evensong?

In my experience it is the Holy Communion service. However---each church is free to insert hymns or not. Some churches have the choir do the "extra" singing (anthems at communion or during the offeratory or at the Gospel reading) and some assign those musical responsibilities to the congregation in the form of hymn-singing. Our church does not have a choir, so we are all fairly sung-out at the end of our HC service!

I would say in the US that the norm right now for a full choral Eucharist is for a processional hymm, a Gospel hymn, one other hymn somewhere, and a recessional hymn.

I, too, would love to hear more about this from English churchgoers!