The Mass of Chrism (2010)

Thursday, 1 April 2010

Opening Hymn	Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
Kyrie	Kyrie 2 from A Community Mass (Richard Proulx)
Gloria	Glory to God in the Highest (John Bell)
Responsorial Psalm	I will sing for ever of your love (mcb)
Gospel Acclamation	Praise to you, O Christ (James Walsh)
Procession of the Oils	O Redeemer (Paul Ford/mcb)
Preparation of the Gifts	The Beatitudes (Bob Chilcott)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Spring Sanctus (mcb)
Agnus Dei	Mass XVIII & Missa Brevis (Antonio Lotti, c. 1667-1740)
Communion	O Lord, I will sing of your constant love (Christopher Walker) O Sacrum Convivium (Thomas Tallis, c. 1505-1585) Taste and See (Richard Proulx)
Recessional Hymn	Praise to the Holiest

The Mass of Chrism is the celebration that feels most like an annual gathering of the whole diocese. The rain held off, to allow us to process through the courtyard and along Chapel Street into the Cathedral, while Anthony gave us the Te Deum by Jean Langlais. (He played Bach’s Great Fugue in G Minor at the end, with a little competition from someone with a very poor sense of timing trying to make an announcement over the PA. Anthony won, I’m very pleased to say.) We were joined by Celebration Brass as usual, and the musical fare was our trademark mix of ancient and modern, choral and congregational.

Thomas Tallis’s O Sacrum Convivium seems to have started life as a piece for instrumental consort, with the addition of the text a later adaptation. I think it shows, in a positive way: in place of the long intricate lines that characterise his earlier Latin church music, here Tallis gives us something much more direct, the five-part counterpoint still allowing the text to speak with transparency. For Tallis, it’s quite Byrd-like.

Cardinal Newman’s majestic Praise to the Holiest, its famous text taken from The Dream of Gerontius, and sung to Sir Richard Terry’s tune Billing, was an obvious choice for an occasion like today’s, in this of all years especially.