1st Sunday of Lent (Year A, 2011)

 

Entrance	Led by the Spirit (Bob Hurd)
Kyrie	Mass XVII
Psalm	Ps 50 (Stephen Dean)
Gospel Acclamation	Praise to you, O Christ (James Walsh)
Preparation of the Gifts	Emendemus in Melius (William Byrd, 1540-1623)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Mass XVII
Agnus Dei	Mass XVII
Communion	Not on bread alone are we nourished (Psallite)
Recessional	Lead us, heavenly Father, Lead us

 

We introduced the Sanctus and Agnus Dei of Mass XVII last year, and this year we’re adding the Kyrie. A major traffic snarl-up meant that our principal celebrant arrived very late, and this gave us longer than usual to run through items with the congregation before the start of our celebration. So the chant items felt fairly secure by the time we sang them during the Mass.

From Psallite, Not on bread alone are we nourished adapts the text of the Communion antiphon from Matthew 4:4, setting it to the tune Picardy (Let all mortal flesh keep silence), with the voices in the refrain in canon, interspersed with chanted verses from Psalm 18(19). I thought it was a very effective setting, succeeding in establishing an atmosphere of prayer, while being readily accessible to our willing singing assembly.

Ash Wednesday (2011)

Wednesday, 9 March 2011

Entrance	Lord Jesus, think on me
Psalm	Ps 50 (Stephen Dean)
Gospel Acclamation	Praise to you, O Christ (James Walsh)
Imposition of Ashes	Lord, Cleanse my heart (Psallite)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Mass XVII & Missal tones
Agnus Dei	Mass XVII
Communion	Miserere Mei (Antonio Lotti, c. 1667-1740)
Recessional	Our Father, we have wandered

 

We kept to the same musical choices as last year, with the exception of the Lotti. Last year we sang the opening verse, and since then we've tackled the whole piece. Altogether it was on the long side for the ritual moment of the Communion procession, so we sang a truncated version. The piece is episodic in character - a through-composed setting with different music for every verse, and a regular alternating pattern of atmospheric counterpoint and declamatory block chords. It wasn’t easy, though, to find a place to stop that didn’t feel like ending in the middle. Cutting to the last verse (which, musically speaking, does feel like a proper ending) wasn’t altogether convincing either, with the text turning from penitence to, well, bullocks. We settled on

Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam:
et exsultabunt ossa humiliata.

Make me hear rejoicing and gladness,
that the bones you have crushed may thrill.

9th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

 

Entrance	Christ is made the sure foundation
Kyrie	Kyrie Eleison from Missa Ubi Caritas (Bob Hurd)
Gloria	Missa Ubi Caritas
Psalm	Ps 30 (Martin Hall/A Gregory Murray)
Gospel Acclamation	Here in our Midst (Peter Jones)
Preparation of the Gifts	The Lord bless you and keep you (John Rutter)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Assisi Acclamations (Nick Baty)
Agnus Dei	Lamb of God II (mcb)
Communion	I am the true and living bread (Martin Barry/Diane Murden)
Postcommunion	Litany to the Holy Spirit (Peter Hurford)
Recessional	Glorious things of you are spoken

 

It was harder than I expected to find songs and hymns reflecting the image in today’s readings of God our rock. From Psalm 94(95), there’s the line Hail the rock who saves us. We sang a setting of this psalm for our Entrance song four Sundays ago. Today we tried out a hymn which, to my knowledge, we haven’t sung before: John Newton’s Glorious things of thee are spoken (in the Celebration Hymnal for Everyone version with modernised pronouns), with the line On the Rock of Ages founded, what can shake your sure repose? Our opening hymn Christ is made the sure foundation touched on the same theme.

For this the last Sunday before Lent, we had two fairly sunny choral items: firstly, John Rutter’s The Lord bless you and keep you, in which the line The Lord make his face to shine upon you echoed the last verse of the responsorial psalm; and secondly Peter Hurford’s Litany to the Holy Spirit.

The latter was chosen with both of today’s Communion antiphons in mind:

I call upon you, God, for you will answer me;
Bend your ear and hear my prayer.

and

I tell you solemnly, whatever you ask for in prayer,
believe that you have received it, and it will be yours, says the Lord.

The words are the first three stanzas of Robert Herrick’s (1591-1674) prayer in verse about last things. Peter Hurford’s charming melody might be thought an incongruous vehicle for Herrick’s rather morbid supplications, but the end result is an uplifting focus not on death and judgement, but on the reassurance of trust in the Holy Spirit, the comforter.

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

Sunday, 27 February 2011

 

Entrance	All my hope on God is founded
Kyrie	Kyrie Eleison from Missa Ubi Caritas (Bob Hurd)
Gloria	Missa Ubi Caritas
Psalm	Ps 61 (Martin Hall)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	Seek ye first
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Assisi Acclamations (Nick Baty)
Agnus Dei	Lamb of God II (mcb)
Communion	In God alone (Taizé) & Ps 127 (Bévenot)
Postcommunion	Quaerite primum regnum Dei (W.A. Mozart)
Recessional	Lord, for tomorrow and its needs

 

Today’s Gospel reading gave us some memorable phrases, not least of which was

Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be gven you as well.

We found two contrasting musical settings, firstly in the well known modern hymn setting (in yet another fine choral arrangement from the RSCM collection Sing with all my soul), and then in the polyphonic setting by the young Mozart.

He wrote it at the age of fourteen, as part of the entrance examination for the prestigious Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna. Legend says that it took him a mere half an hour of the allotted three hours. Although at least one critic maintains that the outcome shows the young composer’s failure to master an unfamiliar idiom, to my ear Mozart’s genius transcends the straitjacket, and gives us a little gem that looks forward to, say, the Clarinet Concerto rather than backwards to Palestrina. At any rate, that’s how we tried to sing it.

The unifying theme behind the first reading, the Psalm and the Gospel reading was encapsulated in the psalm response: In God alone is my soul at rest. Both our entrance hymn and our Communion processional song reflected on these words.

Also in today’s Gospel, the words

So do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself

prompted the choice of an old favourite for our recessional hymn.

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

 

Entrance	Praise to the Lord, the almighty
Kyrie	Jubilation Mass (James Chepponis)
Gloria	Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Psalm	Ps 102 (Stephen Dean/Laurence Bévenot)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	Will you let me be your servant
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Assisi Acclamations (Nick Baty)
Agnus Dei	Holy Family Mass (John Schiavone)
Communion	Forget not what God has done (Marty Haugen)
Postcommunion	Laudate Pueri (W.A. Mozart)
Recessional	God is love, his the care

 

Today’s communion antiphon came from Psalm 9:

I will tell all your marvellous works.
I will rejoice and be glad in you,
and sing to your name, Most High.

Psalm 112(113) also sings praise to God’s name:

Praise, O servants of the Lord,
praise the name of the Lord.
May the name of the Lord be blessed,
both now and for evermore.
From the rising of the sun to its setting,
praised be the name of the Lord.

We sang Mozart’s spirited setting from his Vesperae Solennes de Confessore of 1780. Sleeve notes tend to call it a “learned” or “conventional” fugue, but it’s unmistakably Mozart, even if less sunny than, say, Laudate Dominum from the same work.

I looked for songs to echo the line from today’s Gospel reading:

Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you

but the one or two I could think of seemed too banal, either textually or musically. Any good suggestions out there?

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

Sunday, 13 February 2011

 

Entrance	O God, thy people gather
Kyrie	Jubilation Mass (James Chepponis)
Gloria	Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Psalm	Ps 118 (Martin Hall)
Gospel Acclamation	Here in our Midst (Peter Jones)
Preparation of the Gifts	Eye has not seen (Marty Haugen)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Assisi Acclamations (Nick Baty)
Agnus Dei	from Beneath the Tree of Life (Marty Haugen)
Communion	Teach me, O God (Christopher Walker)
Postcommunion	Tantum Ergo (Maurice Duruflé, 1902-1986)
Recessional	Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore him

 

Today’s second reading, from Corinthians, spoke of

the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him.

Our song at the preparation of the gifts was Marty Haugen’s thoughtful setting of the same text.

The first reading, the responsorial psalm and the Gospel reading all talked about the law, and our Lord’s completion of it. So Chris Walker’s Teach me, O God, to follow your ways was our communion song.

Christ’s completion of the law finds its fulfilment above all in the Eucharist. In the words of Thomas Aquinas,

Et antiquum documentum
novo cedat ritui

(And let the old practice yield to the new rite.)

We sang Duruflé’s dreamlike setting of the traditional chant melody. I’m pretty sure I could hear some older members of the congregation humming along.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

 

Entrance	Come, ring out your joy (arr. Martin Foster)
Kyrie	Jubilation Mass (James Chepponis)
Gloria	Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Psalm	Good people are a light (Paul Inwood)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	Christ be our light (Bernadette Farrell)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Assisi Acclamations (Nick Baty)
Agnus Dei	from Beneath the Tree of Life (Marty Haugen)
Communion	Blest are they, the poor in spirit (David Haas)
Postcommunion	Beati Quorum Via (Charles Villiers Stanford, 1852-1924)
Recessional	Tell out, my soul

 

Martin Foster’s setting of Psalm 94(95), from which today’s entrance antiphon is drawn, to the music of the 17th Century Peruvian Hanacpachap Cussicuinin, made for an imposing Entrance Song. We used the opening verse

Come, ring out your joy to God,
Hail, the Lord, the rock who saves us
Let us come before him giving thanks,
With songs let us hail the Lord.

as a refrain, which the people joined in with heartily, while the choir supplied some of the other verses, variously in two- and three part harmony for women’s and men’s voices.

Our final hymn, well-known as an adaptation of the Magnificat, echoed the communion antiphon from Ps 106(107): He has filled the hungry with good things.

Today’s readings spoke of the good and the just as a light shining in the darkness. Stanford’s unaccompanied six-part motet Beati quorum via extols the same virtues. It would have done nicely for next week too, when the psalm response is They are happy who follow God’s law.