What we did: Palm Sunday 2009

Entrance	(i) Hosanna Filio David (Plainchant & Victoria) (ii) All Glory Laud and Honour
Psalm	My God, My God (Alan Smith)
Gospel Acclamation	Gospel Acclamation 2 for Lent (Foster)
Bidding Prayers	Lord, in your Mercy (mcb)
Preparation of the Gifts	O Vos Omnes (Giovanni Croce, 1557-1609)
Sanctus	Missa Orbis Factor
Acclamation	Missal Tone: Christ has Died
Amen	Missal Tone
Agnus Dei	Mass XVIII & Missa Aeterna Christi Munera (Palestrina)
Communion	Father, if this cup (Dean)
Recessional	My song is love unknown

The Victoria setting of Hosanna Filio David works well at the beginning of the Palm Sunday liturgy. Experience shows that it's a difficult moment to get the assembly to sing, and I'm not sure I really know of any congregation-friendly settings of this text that are up to much musically. The Victoria is quite a bouncy piece, so it makes for a fairly arresting beginning, and is just right for singing out of doors! I preceded it with the chant setting of the same text this year to make something more substantial out of it. Holy Week always seems to me a good time to include connections to our chant heritage, since there are so many memorable pieces that come up at this time.

Alan Smith's psalm setting is one I like a lot - we rarely sing unaccompanied settings of the Responsorial Psalm, but on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, with the Passion narrative coming up, it seems like the right thing to do. Alan's psalm is in one of the volumes of Music for the Mass, but we use the choral arrangement of the verses, which I picked up a few years ago at a meeting of the SSG Composers' Group.

Martin Foster's setting of the Lenten Gospel Acclamation text Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ appears in Laudate, and has verses for every Sunday in Lent. I think I wrote to him to ask for verses for Palm Sunday and the Mass of Chrism, and he very kindly obliged. We've found that the refrain works very effectively as a response, post-Gospel, to the priest or deacon's This is the Gospel of the Lord as well.

Stephen Dean's Father, if this cup is a very pleasing new discovery this year from Laudate. In recent years we've sung David Haas's Now we remain, but I was glad to find a song that uses the text of the Communion Antiphon in the assembly's sung refrain. There are dramatic verses (sung in unison) for choir or cantor too.