Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass at Westminster Cathedral

I made a day trip to London today to attend the Latin Mass Society's Annual Requiem Mass at Westminster Cathedral.

This was a special event this year as, for the first time, it was a Pontifical High Mass (at the faldstool), celebrated by The Rt Revd John Arnold, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster. Bishop Arnold also preached about the significance of remembering our loved ones who have died and passing on what we have learned from them to others, while remembering that as Catholics we can also unite ourselves in prayer with those who have gone before.

The music for the Mass was Victoria's 6 part Missa pro defunctis of 1605, one of my favourite pieces of liturgical music and one of the highest points of Renaissance polyphony. The choir was not the regular choir of Westminster Cathedral but a group called "the Westminster Cathedral Choir Special Service Choir". They were very competent and included women's voices. They could have done with maybe twice the number of singers to cope with the cavernous acoustic of the Cathedral and the remote place from which they had to sing.

Congratulations Mr President!

I am delighted to report that Leo Darroch, occasional singer with the Schola, has been elected President of the International Una Voce Federation.

Summorum Pontificum Study Day at Ushaw College

I was delighted to be invited to be a speaker at the planned Study Day for Priests at Ushaw College on Wednesday October 24th. Here are the details as they were announced.

Summorum Pontificum
A Study Day at Ushaw College, Durham,
on
the motu proprio of Pope Benedict XVI.
Wednesday 24th October.

Programme.
10.00 am: Opening prayer.
10.00 am to 11.15 am: Rev Dr. Alcuin Reid : An introduction to & study of the motu proprio.
11.15 – 11.30: Coffee break.
11.30 am to 12.30 pm: Questions & discussion on the motu proprio.
12.30 pm: Informal Lunch in the college dining room (general mingling and conversation).
1.15 pm to 2.30 pm: Fr John Emerson, FSSP, on the traditional priestly orders (and the co-existence of both forms in a parish?).
2.30 pm to 3.00 pm: Ian Graham, Founder of the Schola Gregoriana of Northumbria on singing the Mass (and to be a diocesan contact on music for priests).
3.00 pm to 3.10 pm: Coffee break.
3.10 pm to 3.25 pm: Leo Darroch, Secretary of the International Federation Una Voce (giving a brief update on the situation around the world).
3.25 pm to 4.00 pm: Open Forum Questions on the events of the day to all participants and making arrangements with any priests who would like further contact.
4.00 pm Closing prayer.

I am very sorry to hear that this event has been cancelled due to lack of support from the clergy. The organisers had put in a lot of work but priests were either not interested or had things to do that they considered to be a higher priority. It is very disappointing.

Brinkburn Mass

Yesterday was the annual Latin Mass (celebrated according to the Missal of Blessed John XXIII) at Brinkburn Priory in Northumberland. It is always one of the highlights of my and the Schola's year and yesterday was no exception.

Earlier this year I had conceived the idea of using the Propers from the Byrd Gradualia, combined with a Chant Ordinary. The Rudgate Singers sang the Byrd Propers for Our Lady's Birthday and Byrd's "Ave Verum" at communion. I am very grateful to Mike Forbester for organising this. The Schola led the singing of Mass IX ("cum jubilo"). The contrasting but complementary music worked extremely well together. I was very happy with the results and many of the congregation offered praise and thanks afterwards. Peter Locke ended off the celebration with a brilliant Prelude and Fugue by Bach.

The Celebrant of the Mass was Fr Michael Brown, who has been an essential element in the Brinkburn Mass since its inception more than ten years ago. It was good to see Fr Emerson FSSP, who had travelled down from Edinburgh bringing his two regular singers with him.

The weather was glorious and to sing and experience this magnificent music as sunlight flooded into the Priory was an enormous privilege.

Practice as Prayer?

There is a very good piece by Michael Lawrence on the New Liturgical Movement Blog. Here is an extract:-

The process of learning a piece of music is an organic one, much like watching a plant grow. So, to say that only the "finished product" is capable of rendering praise to God is a bit like saying that a child cannot praise God, but his father can. Or it is like saying that the beauty of a sapling does not praise God even if the beauty of a tree does. Without saplings there would be no trees; without children, no fathers. Without the daily effort of practicing, there would be no musical performance worth listening to.

It seems to me that practicing and performance are all a part of the same work, and so the act of praise begins the moment the musical score is cracked open for the very first time. It is not the mistakes and the bumbling around that take place during the practicing that offer praise, but rather the persistent daily effort to attain the ability to sing or play a piece of music in a manner that is truly worthy of divine worship. It is an act of devotion that comes from the musician's awareness that God is deserving of the very best. Sacred music is a sacrifice of jubilation, as the Psalmist called it, and not a self-serving act of showing off.

We musicians should therefore resolve not to bury the talents we have but to nurture them each day and to keep in mind as we practice that what we are undertaking is no mundane, purely necessary task, but rather the first whisperings of the loud praise we shall later offer at the altar of God.

Summorum Pontificum

The long-awaited Motu Proprio has finally arrived! Published on 7 July, it seems to do pretty much all that could reasonably be expected. It states clearly that the Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962 must be given due honour and it is permissible to use it for the celebration of Mass as an extraordinary form of the Liturgy of the Church. The Missal of Paul VI is described as the ordinary expression of the Lex orandi of the Latin rite.

Article 2 gives an unrestricted right to any priest to use the Missal of Blessed John XXIII in Masses celebrated without the people. Article 4 says that such Masses may also be attended by faithful who, of their own free will, ask to be admitted. Don't you just love Vatican drafting...

Article 5 puts an obligation on parish priests to respond to requests from a stable group of faithful who request the Missal of Blessed John XXIII.

The Motu Proprio comes into effect on 14 September.

Whereas the Motu Proprio "Ecclesia Dei" of John Paul II left provision of the traditional liturgy very much the in the hands of the bishops, this new document transfers that down the chain of the hierarchy to priests. This is a great opportunity for them but also a great responsibility.

On the question of nomenclature, I am not too keen on the use of the words 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary' to differentiate the two forms of the Roman rite. I think I prefer 'the Missal of Blessed John XXIII' and 'the Missal of Paul VI'.

To celebrate the publication of the Motu Proprio we sang the Te Deum after Mass according to the Missal of Blessed John XXIII at St Joseph's Gateshead on Sunday.

Ite Missa Est

Today we introduced a new 'traditional' element into the Sunday morning Mass at Forest Hall.

The formal ending of the Mass consisting of the words ‘Ite missa est’ (‘Go, you are dismissed’) answered by ‘Deo gratias’ (‘Thanks be to God’) follows the final blessing in the Novus Ordo. The use of ‘missa’ in the sense of dismissal is very ancient and may be as old as the Latin Mass itself; it certainly dates from at least the 4th century. In fact the very term ‘Mass’ (missa), is taken from this phrase.

A number of melodies for the Ite have survived. In the Edition Vaticana, most of the Ite chants are identical to the Kyries in each Mass setting thus creating a noteworthy musical unity. This tradition of adopting Kyrie melodies for the Ite, whilst not as ancient as the Ite as an element of the Mass, had developed by the 14th century.

We followed that tradition today by singing the Ite Missa Est set to the same music as the Kyrie, which was from Mass VIII (Missa de Angelis).

Easter Sunday

We sang for Easter Sunday Mass at St Joseph's Gateshead. There was a good turnout of singers and many congratulated us on the sound we made. I felt it was a very succesful and uplifting climax to Holy Week.

We were very fortunate that Peter Locke was able to be with us both to sing and to play the organ. During Mass he played music from Georg Muffat's "Apparatus Musico-Organisticus" and at the end he played Bach's brilliant Piece d'Orgue. A joyous way to top our celebration of Easter!

Easter Triduum

There was no call for my or the Schola's services over the Triduum so I was rather left to my own devices.

I decided to listen to Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsories as they are set - for the mornings of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. He set all 27 responsories and the music is notable not only for his distinctive harmonic world but also for his vivid word painting and sudden, sometimes shocking, dramatic and musical turns.

Gesualdo was an extraordinary character who straddled the 16th and 17th centuries. An Italian nobleman, he murdered his wife and her lover when he caught them together. He then hung their bodies on the front of his house. He is also thought to have murdered his son, whose paternity he doubted. Towards the end of his life he became a recluse, it is said hiring handsome young men to whip him. His music is as unusual and exotic as was his life.

In the afternoons I listened to the Goodall recording of Wagner's "Parsifal", act by act. A mystical and strange work dealing with the great themes of Christianity, the music is of enormous passion, depth and power.

Byrd's Gradualia

At the opposite end of the spectrum of liturgical music from the fine work of Carlo Rossini are the two "Gradualia" of William Byrd, published in 1605 and 1607.

Byrd was one of the greatest English polyphonic composers, born about 1540. He is probably best known for his three Mass setting (for 3, 4 and 5 voices) and his "Great Service": settings (in English) of the major texts for Anglican Matins and Evensong.

His Gradualia provide elaborate polyphonic settings of Mass Propers, in particular a full set for all the Masses of Our Lady.

I have heard these Byrd setting used once liturgically, in the chapel of University College Durham. The choir also sang a Byrd setting of the Ordinary of the Mass and the result was, frankly, a bit too much. It was rather like eating a meal at which there was chocolate in every course.

I am keen to use the Byrd Propers however and think that this could be done by combining them with a Chant Ordinary. This would be something of a reversal of the normal contrasting music for Mass - Chant Proper and polyphonic Ordinary - and would be an interesting experiment. I have already discussed it with one of my polyphonic collaborators as a possible project for 2007.

For anyone wanting to hear these Byrd settings of the Proper, The Cardinall's Musick directed by Andrew Carwood have undertaken a large project recording Byrd's music and extracts from the Gradualia can be found on those recordings. I am listening to their CD "Laudibus in sanctis" (which includes the full Proper for Marian Masses of Paschal Time) as I write this.

Rossini Propers

I have just bought a copy of the reprint of these Propers of the Mass, published by the Neumann Press.

Let me first of all clear up the name: this is the work of the Revd Carlo Rossini in the 1930s, not Gioacchino Rossini, the great opera composer of the early nineteenth century. If you were hoping for elaborate coloratura and long crescendos you will be disappointed!

What Carlo Rossini provides is a simple setting of the Proper for every Sunday of the year and every major Feastday, based on the Gregorian Chant psalm tones. The music is set out in modern notation and the words clearly pointed underneath the music. Different psalm tones are used for different parts of the Mass and for different seasons.

Of course the ideal is to sing the whole of the Proper to the chants from the Liber Usualis, but this is a terrific resource for less experienced singers or a group who have limited time to learn and practise some of the more complicated chants.

Having sung in a choir that sang the whole Proper every Sunday to psalm tone 8G, Rossini's work provides a more sophisticated yet simple to learn way of singing the Proper.

I am not ashamed to say that I plan to use it myself! For anyone wanting to have a Sung Mass but worrying about what to do about the Proper - here is the answer.

The Octave of Christmas

I was very pleased to be able to attend a Traditional Latin Mass on every day during the Christmas Octave (mainly thanks to the efforts of Fr Michael Brown).

We sang for the Midnight Mass at Christmas and on the Feast of the Holy Innocents (with singers joining us from Yorkshire and the Lake District for the latter). We completed the Octave with a Sung Mass today, the Feast of the Circumcision. We sang the lovely Vespers hymn Jesu Redemptor omnium at the Offertory and the Veni Creator at the end of Mass.

Why the Veni Creator?

The Enchiridion Indulgentiarum 2004 says:A Plenary Indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who are devoutly present in a Church or oratory for the singing or recitation of the hymn Veni Creator on the first day of the year, imploring divine assistance for the whole of the coming year.