Pentecost (2012)

Sunday, 27 May 2012

 
Entrance Come Holy Ghost, creator come
Gloria Glory to God (Peter Jones)
Psalm Send forth your Spirit (Paul Wellicome)
Gospel Acclamation Easter Gospel Acclamation (Brian Luckner)
Rite of Confirmation (i) Send forth your Spirit, renew the face of the earth (Christopher Walker)
(i) Spirit of the living God & Ps 103 (John Ainslie)
(iii) Veni Sancte Spiritus (Taizé)
Preparation of the Gifts Emitte Spiritum tuum (Johann Evangelist Habert, 1833-1896)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Spring Sanctus (mcb)
Agnus Dei Lamb of God II (mcb)
Communion My Peace (Taizé) & Ps 84(85) (A Gregory Murray)
Recessional Christ be our light (Bernadette Farrell)
 

Thirty-two seven- and eight-year old children, and a handful of adult candidates, took their next step along the journey of Christian initiation by receiving the sacrament of Confirmation from Bishop Terence. For the children, it’s only a few weeks until first holy communion. The lengthy confirmation rite made a pastoral necessity of curtailing the Liturgy of the Word, so we omitted the second reading, and moved the sequence from before the Gospel reading to during the rite itself. We sang it in the form of Jacques Berthier’s prayerful ostinato, with cantor Robin Wolfendale supplying the text of the sequence.

We began the rite of Confirmation with a bit of musical fun – Chris Walker’s Send forth your Spirit. Starting with another simple ostinato refrain, this time in tresillo (3+3+2) rhythm, we added vocal harmonies and percussion in the form of claves, shaker, congas and guiro, and then the sopranos supplied psalm verses from Ps 103(104). We don’t usually get requests for an encore, but when the procession outran the music provided some twenty minutes later, a celebrant whispered “do the one with the drums again”, and we were glad to oblige.

I had to dig deep on the internet to find out anything about Johann Evangelist Habert. Despite being president of the Upper Austrian Caecilienverein, by all accounts he was an opponent of the hard core Cecilian movement, and stood up for the continued use of instruments in church. Good man.

The Ascension (2012)

Sunday, 20 May 2012

 
Entrance Praise him as he mounts the skies
Gloria Mass of the Most Sacred Heart (Jacob Bancks)
Psalm Ps 46 (Shaun MacCarthy)
Gospel Acclamation Easter Gospel Acclamation (Brian Luckner)
Preparation of the Gifts God is gone up (William Croft, 1678-1727)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Spring Sanctus (mcb)
Agnus Dei Lamb of God II (mcb)
Communion I will be with you (Gerald Markland)
Postcommunion Haec Dies (Charles Wood, 1866-1926)
Recessional New Praises be given
 

A good mix of music, I thought, including both ancient and modern, and both choral and congregational. We hadn’t sung I will be with you for a good few years, but it was clear from the energetic singing of the refrain by the assembly that this was an old favourite. We sang it as a communion processional song, with the choir supplying the verses, in my arrangement in four parts written thirty years ago this year (gulp) for the choir of Fisher House, Cambridge to sing at the episcopal ordination of Archbishop Couve de Murville in Birmingham.

We had chant too, in the muscular guise of Brian Luckner’s arrangement of O filii et filiae; and in the sung orations and the dialogues between priest and people. I don’t usually give all the sung prayers and dialogues here in our ‘music’ list, but they are the essential backbone of our sung celebration each week. We’re very fortunate to have in Canon Tony and Fr Anthony two priests who take seriously the celebrant’s role in making the Mass an inherently sung rather than spoken event, the way all priests should.

6th Sunday of Easter (Year B, 2012)

Sunday, 13 May 2012

 
Entrance God is love, his the care
Gloria Glory to God (Peter Jones)
Psalm Ps 97 (Peter Smedley)
Gospel Acclamation Easter Gospel Acclamation (Brian Luckner)
Preparation of the Gifts Alleluia Surrexit Dominus (Jacquet de Mantua, 1483-1558)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Spring Sanctus (mcb)
Agnus Dei Lamb of God II (mcb)
Communion A new commandment (unknown) & Ps 137 (Laurence Bévenot)
Postcommunion If ye love me (Thomas Tallis, c.1505-1585)
Recessional Come down, O love divine
 

Today’s second reading and Gospel reading present rich images of divine love, and much of our music was chosen to reflect these. We sang our hymn at Communion through twice, with chanted verses from Ps 137 (138), again reflecting on God’s love, in between.

5th Sunday of Easter (Year B, 2012)

Sunday, 6 May 2012

 
Entrance Sing a New Song (Chris O’Hara)
Gloria Mass of the Most Sacred Heart (Jacob Bancks)
Psalm Ps 21 (James Walsh)
Gospel Acclamation Easter Gospel Acclamation (Brian Luckner)
Preparation of the Gifts Cantate Domino (Hans Leo Hassler, 1564-1612)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Spring Sanctus (mcb)
Agnus Dei Lamb of God II (mcb)
Communion I am the vine (John Bell)
Postcommunion Easter Anthem (Paul Inwood)
Recessional O praise ye the Lord
 

Today’s Entrance antiphon is adapted from Ps 97(98):

O sing a new song to the Lord,
for he has worked wonders;
in the sight of the nations
he has shown his deliverance, alleluia.

We sang Chris O’Hara’s setting of the same Psalm from his 1986 collection Acclaim the King. Aptly, it was new to us, but I expect it won’t be the last time we sing it. Chris’s web site has an appealing recorded version somewhere on this page (though it has to be said we sang it straighter than that). My arrangement has choral harmonies in the refrain, and unison verses alternating between women’s and men’s voices.

Hassler’s somewhat different setting is of the opening words of Ps 95(96). I like to think we keep all the bases covered by juxtaposing settings of the same (or similar) texts like that.

4th Sunday of Easter (Year B, 2012)

Sunday, 29 April 2012

 
Entrance Praise we our God with joy
Gloria Glory to God (Peter Jones)
Psalm The stone which the builders rejected (Bernadette Farrell)
Gospel Acclamation Easter Gospel Acclamation (Brian Luckner)
Preparation of the Gifts Surrexit Christus (G.B. Pergolesi, 1710-1736, arr. Richard Proulx)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Spring Sanctus (mcb)
Agnus Dei Lamb of God II (mcb)
Communion Because the Lord is my shepherd (Christopher Walker)
Postcommunion Surrexit Pastor Bonus (G.P. da Palestrina, 1525-1594)
Recessional Hail Redeemer, King divine
 

Palestrina’s setting of today’s Communion antiphon –

The Good Shepherd has risen,
who laid down his life for his sheep
and willingly died for his flock, alleluia.

was written for male voices (ATTB), but with not much editing in order to keep the notes agreeably spaced, it works nicely for mixed voices, with the first tenor part, suitably transposed, given to the sopranos. With that, and Chris Walker’s setting of Ps 22(23), the Gospel Acclamation and our opening and closing hymns, we had a diverse range of shepherd-themed musical selections.

In addition, Bernadette Farrell’s setting of Ps 117(118) gave the assembly a significant musical role in the lengthy refrain, which was taken up with vigour.