| Entrance | The Angel Gabriel |
| Kyrie | Kyrie 2 from Community Mass (Richard Proulx) |
| Psalm | God of hosts, bring us back (Sue Furlong) |
| Gospel Acclamation | Advent Gospel Acclamations (Alan Smith) |
| Preparation of the Gifts | Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod, arr. Richard Proulx) |
| Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen | Mass XVIII (in English) |
| Agnus Dei | Alan Rees |
| Communion | In the Lord (Taizé) |
| Postcommunion | Rorate Caeli (Francisco Guerrero, 1528-1599) |
| Recessional | O come, O come Emmanuel |
Of all the Sundays of the year this is perhaps the one when it’s most appropriate to sing a setting of Ave Maria. I might have gone for a congregational setting if I knew of a good one, but I don’t think I do. (Suggestions anyone?) As it was, the arrangement for four voices by Richard Proulx of the famous Bach/Gounod version went down a treat. (After Mass we had misty eyed requests for a swift repeat.)
We usually sing O Come O Come Emmanuel for our recessional hymn on the fourth Sunday of Advent. There’s a sense of magnetic pull towards the celebration of Christmas itself which the hymn seems to conjure. We’ll begin our Vigil celebration half an hour before midnight on Christmas Eve with the same words, first in the Latin chant of the antiphon O Emmanuel, and then with the hymn once again. To my mind, there’s no more effective way of marking our presence at the threshold of the feast.
An interesting variant of the Bach/Gounod is Scott Soper's 'On the lips of an angel'. He manages to do what you might think impossible which is to add a further vocal line - yes, it's schmaltz on schmaltz but it's well written and successful schmaltz!
ReplyDeleteI know it! Listened to it on a GIA demo disk not many weeks ago and filed away a (failed) mental note to come back to it. I'm proud to say I'm responsible for a choir that excels at schmaltz, so we may yet get round to this one.
ReplyDelete(Actually now I think of it, it was on a Scott Soper CD I was supposed to be reviewing for Music & Liturgy :-(. (Sorry editors!))
ReplyDelete