We sang Midnight Mass at Fr Brown's Church, St Mary of the Rosary Forest Hall. Due to restrictions imposed on Fr Brown by the local bishop this was technically a 'private Mass' (so no publicity - not even mentioned on the parish newsletter) but it still attracted 60 people.
My aim with the music was to make it 'user-friendly' so that anyone not a regular at the TLM would still find things they found familiar. We started with two carols, which were followed by the blessing of the crib. We then sang the whole of the Proper of the Mass (only using psalm tones for the Gradual and Alleluia verse). The Ordinary of the Mass was Mass VIII (de Angelis) with Credo III (both sung antiphonally between Schola and people). At the Offertory we sang Adeste Fideles and at Communion Adoro te Devote. The Mass ended with a roof-raising rendering of Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
One or two mistakes aside, a happy and successful occasion.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Sunday, December 17, 2006
The Great Antiphons
Christmas really is approaching: today is the 17 December and the day appointed for the first of the Great "O" Antiphons.
As we were singing at St Joseph's Gateshead this morning I was able to sing the first Great Antiphon "O Sapientia" during Communion.
There is a good commentary about the Great Antiphons here:-
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0374.html
As we were singing at St Joseph's Gateshead this morning I was able to sing the first Great Antiphon "O Sapientia" during Communion.
There is a good commentary about the Great Antiphons here:-
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0374.html
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Taking the Chant to Forest Hall
I have received an invitation from Fr Michael Brown, Parish Priest of St Mary of the Rosary Forest Hall, to introduce some Chant into his Sunday morning Novus Ordo Parish Mass.
We had experimented with this during 2006 but it never became regular and it was not a huge success. I certainly had underestimated how far the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI have taken liturgy and music in an average parish church away from traditional ways and the principles of Vatican II.
Fr Brown has suggested that we try to have a "Chant Sunday" once a month and we have agreed on the first Sunday of the month. A few parishioners have expresed an interest in joining a Chant group and I hope we can build on that.
My plan is to start with something very simple, probably just the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei from Mass XVIII. I then hope, during the year, gradually to introduce more Chant elements, including at least some of the Proper.
We had experimented with this during 2006 but it never became regular and it was not a huge success. I certainly had underestimated how far the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI have taken liturgy and music in an average parish church away from traditional ways and the principles of Vatican II.
Fr Brown has suggested that we try to have a "Chant Sunday" once a month and we have agreed on the first Sunday of the month. A few parishioners have expresed an interest in joining a Chant group and I hope we can build on that.
My plan is to start with something very simple, probably just the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei from Mass XVIII. I then hope, during the year, gradually to introduce more Chant elements, including at least some of the Proper.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Advent
We were able to get off to a good start for the new liturgical year with a sung Mass for the First Sunday of Advent at St Joseph's Gateshead. This was something special as it was the first time that Fr Adrian Dixon, Parish Priest of St Joseph's, had celebrated a sung Mass in the traditional rite.
I do not intend to review the event as if it were a performance; suffice it to say that I was very happy with the way things went. There was a good turnout of Schola singers (including Mike Forbester who runs the Rudgate Singers) and Peter Locke was there to play the organ and sing with the Schola.
We sang the Introit, Alleluia and Communion, using psalm tones for the other parts of the Proper. The Ordinary of the Mass was Orbis Factor. At the Offertory we sang the beautiful Advent Responsory Rorate Caeli and at Communion we sang Adoro te Devote. We ended the Mass with the great Advent hymn "O Come O Come Emmanuel".
We owe the existence of the Sunday Mass at St Joseph's to the time when Fr Michael Brown was Parish Priest there: it was he who started the Sunday traditional Masses. We are very fortunate that Bishop Dunn and Fr Dixon have allowed the Mass to continue and that Fr Dixon himself is now regularly celebrating the Mass.
I do not intend to review the event as if it were a performance; suffice it to say that I was very happy with the way things went. There was a good turnout of Schola singers (including Mike Forbester who runs the Rudgate Singers) and Peter Locke was there to play the organ and sing with the Schola.
We sang the Introit, Alleluia and Communion, using psalm tones for the other parts of the Proper. The Ordinary of the Mass was Orbis Factor. At the Offertory we sang the beautiful Advent Responsory Rorate Caeli and at Communion we sang Adoro te Devote. We ended the Mass with the great Advent hymn "O Come O Come Emmanuel".
We owe the existence of the Sunday Mass at St Joseph's to the time when Fr Michael Brown was Parish Priest there: it was he who started the Sunday traditional Masses. We are very fortunate that Bishop Dunn and Fr Dixon have allowed the Mass to continue and that Fr Dixon himself is now regularly celebrating the Mass.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Who Is That Ian Graham?
Ian Graham is one of the founders of the Schola Gregoriana of Northumbria and is now its director.
I was born in Alnwick in Northumberland, where I attended the Duke’s School, acquiring some good practical experience of choir training from Aileen Willcox, the school’s music teacher. It was more G&S than Gregorian Chant in those days! After school I won an exhibition to Christ Church Oxford. I was fortunate enough to be there at the time when Simon Preston was organist and choir master at Christ Church Cathedral and regular contact with the music making in the Cathedral awakened in me a deep and abiding interest in high quality liturgical music.
After being awarded a degree in Jurisprudence, I moved to the Middle Temple in London on a Harmsworth Exhibition and Astbury Scholarship to study for the bar. After qualifying as a barrister, I returned to the northeast and now practice as a barrister based in Newcastle, specialising in criminal work. I also sit as a recorder on the Northeastern Circuit.
My first encounter with performing Chant came at the Anglican church of Christ Church Shieldfield in Newcastle, but I never really got to grips with “Briggs and Frear” (I think that’s what it was called).
My first serious experience of Chant came with the “Durham Holy Week” in the late 1980s. This was a wonderful if highly eccentric event, in which the traditional (pre-Pius XII) ceremonies of the Easter Triduum were celebrated in the debating chamber of the Durham Union. It was here that I met Richard Hoban, from whom I learned more about Chant singing and how it works than from anyone else. Richard and I became good friends and his death at the age of 33 I still feel as a terrible loss.
Another big influence on my knowledge and understanding of Chant is Dr Mary Berry. Although I was never one of Dr Berry’s “singers” I was able to sing with her at the 1000 year celebrations of Durham Cathedral and also at a Chant weekend in Manchester organised by the Latin Mass Society. I own all her Chant recordings and am an associate of her Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge.
Away from liturgical music my other great passion is opera, particularly the great romantic operas of the nineteenth century. My musical heroes include Reginald Goodall, Joan Sutherland, Rita Hunter and Carlo Bergonzi. Of musicians still active today I have immense respect for Antonio Pappano, music director of the Royal Opera House, and I adore the singing of the brilliant Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez.
I was born in Alnwick in Northumberland, where I attended the Duke’s School, acquiring some good practical experience of choir training from Aileen Willcox, the school’s music teacher. It was more G&S than Gregorian Chant in those days! After school I won an exhibition to Christ Church Oxford. I was fortunate enough to be there at the time when Simon Preston was organist and choir master at Christ Church Cathedral and regular contact with the music making in the Cathedral awakened in me a deep and abiding interest in high quality liturgical music.
After being awarded a degree in Jurisprudence, I moved to the Middle Temple in London on a Harmsworth Exhibition and Astbury Scholarship to study for the bar. After qualifying as a barrister, I returned to the northeast and now practice as a barrister based in Newcastle, specialising in criminal work. I also sit as a recorder on the Northeastern Circuit.
My first encounter with performing Chant came at the Anglican church of Christ Church Shieldfield in Newcastle, but I never really got to grips with “Briggs and Frear” (I think that’s what it was called).
My first serious experience of Chant came with the “Durham Holy Week” in the late 1980s. This was a wonderful if highly eccentric event, in which the traditional (pre-Pius XII) ceremonies of the Easter Triduum were celebrated in the debating chamber of the Durham Union. It was here that I met Richard Hoban, from whom I learned more about Chant singing and how it works than from anyone else. Richard and I became good friends and his death at the age of 33 I still feel as a terrible loss.
Another big influence on my knowledge and understanding of Chant is Dr Mary Berry. Although I was never one of Dr Berry’s “singers” I was able to sing with her at the 1000 year celebrations of Durham Cathedral and also at a Chant weekend in Manchester organised by the Latin Mass Society. I own all her Chant recordings and am an associate of her Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge.
Away from liturgical music my other great passion is opera, particularly the great romantic operas of the nineteenth century. My musical heroes include Reginald Goodall, Joan Sutherland, Rita Hunter and Carlo Bergonzi. Of musicians still active today I have immense respect for Antonio Pappano, music director of the Royal Opera House, and I adore the singing of the brilliant Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Brinkburn Priory
This is one of the loveliest ecclesiastical heritage sites in the North of England and has a very special place in the history of the Schola. Every year since 1995 an annual Latin Mass has been celebrated at the priory with music led by the Schola. The priory is set on the banks of the River Coquet, in the midst of beautiful Northumberland countryside and is a place of intense peace and tranquillity.
The priory church is the only complete surviving building of a monastery founded as a house for Augustinian canons in the twelfth century. Its original dedication was to St Peter, later modified to include St Paul. The house was never a large one and by the fourteenth century numbered only some twelve canons. In 1536 the monastery was dissolved and its buildings fell into ruin. Careful restoration work in the nineteenth century, instigated by Brinkburn's then owner Cadogan Hodgson Cadogan, restored the church building. This work involved the rebuilding of collapsed walls, the replacement of the roof and floor tiles and even the insertion of stained glass windows and an organ. Unlike some 'restorations' of the Victorian period the work at Brinkburn was carried out in a sensitive and restrained manner.
The building as it now stands is very close in layout to the church as it would have been when completed in the early 1200s. Later changes were minor and most of those were additions rather than rebuilding. The church is considered a fine example of northern transitional architecture and incorporates elements of both Norman and Early English styles.
One of the many remarkable qualities of the building is its wonderful acoustic. This was noted by Paul McCreesh, Director of the Gabrieli Consort. He has used the priory for recording some of his liturgical reconstructions and in 1993 he founded the Brinkburn Music Festival which has brought musicians of international standing to Brinkburn.
It was following an invitation to the Schola Gregoriana of Northumbria to sing at the first of those festivals that the idea was conceived by the singers of the Schola, along with a diocesan priest interested in traditional liturgy, of using Brinkburn for an annual Traditional LatinMass. Permission was obtained from the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle and from English Heritage (who now look after the priory) and that annual Mass continues, more than ten years on.
It has been a great privilege to be able to fill this beautifully restored piece of history once again with the prayers and music of the Church. The Schola has led the music at every Brinkburn Mass, always singing the Proper of the Mass and sometimes a Chant Ordinary as well. On other occasions we have been joined by a polyphonic choir. Cappella Novocastriensis, Antiphon and the Rudgate Singers have all joined us to sing Mass settings by Palestrina, Victoria and Josquin.
The priory church is the only complete surviving building of a monastery founded as a house for Augustinian canons in the twelfth century. Its original dedication was to St Peter, later modified to include St Paul. The house was never a large one and by the fourteenth century numbered only some twelve canons. In 1536 the monastery was dissolved and its buildings fell into ruin. Careful restoration work in the nineteenth century, instigated by Brinkburn's then owner Cadogan Hodgson Cadogan, restored the church building. This work involved the rebuilding of collapsed walls, the replacement of the roof and floor tiles and even the insertion of stained glass windows and an organ. Unlike some 'restorations' of the Victorian period the work at Brinkburn was carried out in a sensitive and restrained manner.
The building as it now stands is very close in layout to the church as it would have been when completed in the early 1200s. Later changes were minor and most of those were additions rather than rebuilding. The church is considered a fine example of northern transitional architecture and incorporates elements of both Norman and Early English styles.
One of the many remarkable qualities of the building is its wonderful acoustic. This was noted by Paul McCreesh, Director of the Gabrieli Consort. He has used the priory for recording some of his liturgical reconstructions and in 1993 he founded the Brinkburn Music Festival which has brought musicians of international standing to Brinkburn.
It was following an invitation to the Schola Gregoriana of Northumbria to sing at the first of those festivals that the idea was conceived by the singers of the Schola, along with a diocesan priest interested in traditional liturgy, of using Brinkburn for an annual Traditional LatinMass. Permission was obtained from the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle and from English Heritage (who now look after the priory) and that annual Mass continues, more than ten years on.
It has been a great privilege to be able to fill this beautifully restored piece of history once again with the prayers and music of the Church. The Schola has led the music at every Brinkburn Mass, always singing the Proper of the Mass and sometimes a Chant Ordinary as well. On other occasions we have been joined by a polyphonic choir. Cappella Novocastriensis, Antiphon and the Rudgate Singers have all joined us to sing Mass settings by Palestrina, Victoria and Josquin.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
History of the Schola
In 1993 a young priest of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, Fr Michael Brown, freshly returned from his study of canon law at the English College in Rome, obtained from Bishop Ambrose Griffiths permission for a monthly traditional Mass at Morpeth in Northumberland. Fr Brown approached me and asked if I would organise some music for this Mass and thus was the Schola Gregoriana of Northumbria born. Singing Gregorian Chant at the monthly Morpeth Mass was the regular work of the Schola for its first months.
Happily, news of the Schola’s existence and requests for the Schola's services grew. While singing for traditional Masses has always been the backbone of the Schola’s work, the choir has taken Gregorian Chant around the region over the past thirteen years, singing at special parish celebrations, weddings and funerals. We have run a workshop on the Chant and provided the music for Mass at St Mary's Cathedral, Newcastle. We have also sung for a traditional Requiem Mass at Middlesbrough Cathedral, gathering enthusiastic praise in the Middlesbrough diocesan newspaper: ‘the truly superb choir … sang the entire Proper of the Mass with consummate skill’.
An early appearance at the Brinkburn Music Festival, sharing a platform with the Orlando Consort, led to the establishment of the annual traditional Mass at Brinkburn Priory, and to further concert work. One notable concert was a joint event with one of Newcastle’s best choirs, the Cappella Novocastriensis, at which the Schola sang the Chant Requiem interspersed with Durufle’s setting sung by the Cappella.
The success of this concert led to the forging of a successful working relationship with the Cappella, who have now joined us to sing a polyphonic Ordinary at the Brinkburn Mass and Victoria’s Missa O Quam Gloriosum for the visit to Tyneside of Bishop Rifan. One of the interesting things about joint events of this type is the interest of the singers from the visiting choir at an opportunity to sing the music of Palestrina or Victoria in its proper context and interweaved with the Chants of the Proper.
We are also fortunate to have a close working relationship with organist Peter Locke. He is a graduate of the Birmingham Conservatoire and was assistant organist at St Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham. He is now organist at St Dominic's Priory, Newcastle. Peter plays for all major Schola events and also sings with the Schola.
The Schola now sings mainly at St Joseph’s Gateshead, where there is a traditional Mass every Sunday at 12 noon. We now aim to sing one Sunday Mass at St Joseph’s each month. Apart from that our plans include Masses on the major feasts and wherever interesting initiatives and invitations might take us. We have an open invitation to sing Vespers at a remote hermitage on the top of a hill in Northumberland…
The purpose of this blog is to record and report on the Schola's activities and plans. Other matters relating to high quality liturgical music may also appear from time to time.
Happily, news of the Schola’s existence and requests for the Schola's services grew. While singing for traditional Masses has always been the backbone of the Schola’s work, the choir has taken Gregorian Chant around the region over the past thirteen years, singing at special parish celebrations, weddings and funerals. We have run a workshop on the Chant and provided the music for Mass at St Mary's Cathedral, Newcastle. We have also sung for a traditional Requiem Mass at Middlesbrough Cathedral, gathering enthusiastic praise in the Middlesbrough diocesan newspaper: ‘the truly superb choir … sang the entire Proper of the Mass with consummate skill’.
An early appearance at the Brinkburn Music Festival, sharing a platform with the Orlando Consort, led to the establishment of the annual traditional Mass at Brinkburn Priory, and to further concert work. One notable concert was a joint event with one of Newcastle’s best choirs, the Cappella Novocastriensis, at which the Schola sang the Chant Requiem interspersed with Durufle’s setting sung by the Cappella.
The success of this concert led to the forging of a successful working relationship with the Cappella, who have now joined us to sing a polyphonic Ordinary at the Brinkburn Mass and Victoria’s Missa O Quam Gloriosum for the visit to Tyneside of Bishop Rifan. One of the interesting things about joint events of this type is the interest of the singers from the visiting choir at an opportunity to sing the music of Palestrina or Victoria in its proper context and interweaved with the Chants of the Proper.
We are also fortunate to have a close working relationship with organist Peter Locke. He is a graduate of the Birmingham Conservatoire and was assistant organist at St Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham. He is now organist at St Dominic's Priory, Newcastle. Peter plays for all major Schola events and also sings with the Schola.
The Schola now sings mainly at St Joseph’s Gateshead, where there is a traditional Mass every Sunday at 12 noon. We now aim to sing one Sunday Mass at St Joseph’s each month. Apart from that our plans include Masses on the major feasts and wherever interesting initiatives and invitations might take us. We have an open invitation to sing Vespers at a remote hermitage on the top of a hill in Northumberland…
The purpose of this blog is to record and report on the Schola's activities and plans. Other matters relating to high quality liturgical music may also appear from time to time.
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