I excused myself from the Wednesday practice claiming a cold and sore-back combo.
Apparently, the idea of a Scratch Chant-Day was popular. Let us try to arrange this in September, then we will have enough time to plan and publicise it to get interested people to attend. I will speak to Fr Kenneth about St Mary's hall and church. We may even be able to have an organist if Cath Docherty is available.
The Missa de Angelis was practiced in anticipation of the Masses after Easter. It went well.
The Missa Cum Jubilo swung along. Jack commented on the Celtic sounding nature of the Gloria. Try listening to Mari’s Wedding first, and then the Gloria (I don't hear it myself).
Regina Coeli is coming up over the next few weeks:
Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia,
Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia,
Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia.
Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
For He whom you deserved to bear in your womb, alleluia.
Has risen, as He promised, alleluia.
Pray for us to God, alleluia.
Finally, the Schola is invited to sing at the Latin Mass in Arbroath on 25th May.
I'm told that this date is important for Celtic supporters.
Father Joe and Alan both spotted that there is no Kyrie in the Easter Vigil Mass. So we'll wait and sing something later. No 'Lord have Mercy' this Saturday.
In the meantime, here's some fun.
Sydney Symphony asked their Facebook fans to change the lyrics of the opening chorus of Carmina Burana to whatever they liked, "and we would get the fabulous Sydney Philharmonia Choirs to sing the winning entry. We received a huge number of entries about a range of topics. Matthew Hodge's entry, an Ode to Sleep Deprived Parents and was declared the winner!"
We went ahead and met without Alan who couldn't make it to Stirling.
Our chat was about the Seder Meal for the Bible study group in St Margaret’s on the previous evening (two of us had helped to organise it). Three schola members attended, with wives, and enjoyed the event. Some of the content for this came from A Passover Seder in the Light of Christ by Jewish convert, Roy Schoeman. http://www.hebrewcatholic.org/SederinChrist/passoversederint.html
We opened with the choristers prayer.
I downloaded Missa cum Jubilo from Silos 'Lumieres du Gregorian' and we used it to improve our efforts. We worked most on the Kyrie, then scampered through Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei. We fnished with Ave, Regina Caelorum.
We were a bit concerned about Cambuskenneth on 20th April since next Thursday is Holy Thursday so we won't meet then. We might start to run out of time to prepare after that. Jack suggested that we could meet whenever was convenient to Alan. I emailed him to ask if he would be able to come through one evening soon for another practice to improve our chances.
Even stranger to remember that Alan had been praying about increasing the use of chant the week before on his French retreat. Then on the first chant-related day back in Scotland a random bloke wanders up and asks him about starting chant lessons in Stirling.
If we can arrange an extra rehearsal, then I'll email everyone and post another blog.
Three of us went to the RSNO's Come and Sing choir day on Saturday. We thought that we were prepared for the cold interior of the Holy Rude. But we all struggled. A slim soprano from St Margaret's was also there. She was frozen all day long.
When I arrived with Malky, I introduced us as 'the Gregorian Guys' and was met with warm grins, they were expecting us and I had a solicitous young lady asking me later if I was managing with the modern music notation. I wasn’t.
Ulsterman Christopher Bell was the conductor, he is the Director of the RSNO Junior Chorus and told us that his father is a Church of Ireland minister.
He is a very engaging teacher with a fund of amusing anecdotes. His account of how a Saint Matthews Passion in a similarly cold Cathedral had left him with permanent mental damage whenever he has to conduct the piece. A large American had shouted to his wife to 'get your fanny over here' so that she could warm herself on the radiator he had secured.
Two peoples divided by a common language, indeed.
We spilt into our teams, George and I as Basses, Malky as a Tenor.
Our Conductor, Chris, sympathised with the Altos as they took their places, reciting the Alto's Lament:
It's awful being an alto when you're singing in the choir,
Sopranos get the twiddly bits that people all admire,
The basses boom like big trombones, the tenors shout with glee,
The alto part is on two notes, or if you're lucky, three.
Several ladies joined in the last line, with feeling.
Next our Conductor led us in a vocal exercise that I remembered from our children's time at school.
When I was one, I'd just begun the day I went to sea,
I climbed aboard a pirate ship and the captain said to me,
We're going this way, that way, forward backwards. Over the Irish Sea
A bottle of Rum to fill my tum, And that's the life for me.
For several verses, with actions.
The plan was that we would rehearse the voices before lunch and then join with the RSNO musicians to practice in the afternoon. The climax was to be a public performance for friends and family at 6.00pm.
We began with Howard Goodall's Love Divine. The Sopranos sang the Ah-Ahs and we Basses were to hum. It is a lovely piece. Christopher had us spitting out the alternating phrases such as 'Finish Them' against each other. But he really went for it making us emphasise 'Changed from glory'. He was almost shouting 'Changed-fromCHANGED-FROM!' to get the two sequences working together (at 2.15 in the clip). We men had to get our CHANGED-FROM in there fast and clear.
Here's a school choir doing a better job than we did. (But they'd been working on the piece for months):
We began Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine in English. Christopher decided that our French pronunciation wouldn't be good enough. It was fun to sing and rather a deep prayer:
Word of God, one with the Most High,
in Whom alone we have our hope,
Eternal Day of heaven and earth,
We break the silence of the peaceful night;
Saviour Divine, cast your eyes upon us!
RSNO kept calling Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, the Ave Verum. Which is meaningless. 'Hail True' isn't a prayer, while 'Hail True Body' is.
Hail, true Body, born
of the Virgin Mary,
who having truly suffered, was sacrificed
on the cross for mankind,
Haydn's Little Organ Mass was a real disappointment.
In one of our early Stirling Schola meetings, Alan had explained that a key difference between Gregorian chant and modern music was the importance of words over tunes. This point was very evident in Haydn's Missa Brevis. Both the Gloria and the Creed are incomprehensible because each part (now I know what STAB means) sing different lines in the prayer. They then come together for a few lines before going off into incomprehensible babbles again. The pieces end with elaborate AMENs, so not much time saved.
See here for an example:
The 6.00pm performance was great fun.
My wife thought that the Tenors were louder than the Basses. There were twice as many of us as them. Well done Malky.
LATER EDIT:
RSNO tell me that the abbreviation is SATB (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass).
From Army friends I know that STAB stands for Stupid TA B*****d (ARAB is the counter insult for Regular Army soldiers from the TA)
Six of us gathered in the church crying-room. Alan offered a prayer for choiristers which he had found:
Bless, O Lord, us Thy servants,
who minister in Thy temple.
Grant that what we sing with our lips,
we may believe in our hearts,
and what we believe in our hearts,
we may show forth in our lives.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Alan told us that he had received very positive feedback about the Mass on Sunday.
We reconfirmed dates. Cambuskenneth Mass is scheduled for 20th April. The Missa Cum Jubilo will be used.
The
Edinburgh Festival dates are 3rd, 10th and 17th August. Alan will think
about what psalms to sing, based on nearby saints-days or festivals. We
will try to get a date in early June and July for a practice
performance in Holy Rude.
I will ask whether we can pray vespers in St Margaret’s on a Saturday in May.
We
went through all of the prayers in Cum Jubilo. In the Sanctus Alan
reminded us about the notes being on the vowels. So Deus should sound
more like Deyy-us and Pleni more like Play-ni. Then Bey-ne-dictus qui
vey-nit. Here's a version:
Click to Enlarge
Later a few of us spoke about the depressing news about the Cardinal and the effect of it all on regular parishioners. I mentioned a blog post from the Vocations Director for the Archdiocese of Southwark. He has had to cope with the impact on the morale of men who are in seminary or considering a vocation to the priesthood. http://southwarkvocations.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/a-word-of-encouragement.html
'How would we react if we were to discover that our father was committing adultery? I am sure there would be a range of emotions including anger, confusion and great sadness. But would we blame our mother? No. We would cling to her more closely. We would try to console her by the warmth of our love. We would stick with her. When the Church has been wronged by one of her members it should evoke within us a desire for reparation and a determination to respond with greater fidelity.
This isn't a time to get disheartened. It is a time to be more faithful. That is what the Lord is asking of you today. Please be assured that I am praying for you.'
We need some holy and effective bishops in Scotland.
I hope we get good news about a friend soon.
On a more cheering note, three of us are going to the RSNO's Come and Sing choir day on Saturday:
An earlier event
100 local singers will practice several pieces from 10.00am and sing them as a choir at 6.00pm.
Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus
Howard Goodall's Love Divine
Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine
Haydn's Little Organ Mass
It will be interesting for us, as Cantors of the Holy Rude to sing the Mass prayers in Latin in the church of the Holy Rude.
Seven of us arrived early for practice for the Latin Mass at Holy Spirit.
Alan had us carry out vocal exercises using the De Angelis setting for the single word Kyrie and singing it a note higher each time. He gave us a tip for high notes - to extend the throat as much as possible. It seemed to work.
The three Altar Servers were up for going it alone, so I was able to sing with the Schola. We stood at the back of the church, just inside the doors and began the Kyrie part way through the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar. We sang the Credo, the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei. The resonant acoustics in Holy Spirit made us sound very good. Even if I say so myself.
It was my first public effort and I enjoyed it. The feeling of men singing together is uplifting and the resonation inside my chest was a new experience. There were a couple of amusing moments when men arriving late, thought that we were 'the blokes standing at the back of church' and stood in line with us. Until we started to sing, when they moved away to find a place in the pews.
In other news, I've just adopted a Cardinal to pray for during the Conclave:
Gabriel Zubeir Wako, from Sudan.
Try it yourself (they have 260,000 people signed-up already).
http://adoptacardinal.org/
We missed the session last week, Alan was busy translating and I had a weird two-day virus.
This week, six of us met in the Hall. We began with the prayers for the Pope, despite one complaint that at 7.30pm we were too late. I claimed that we could consider that the Pope stood down at 8.00pm our time, rather than half an hour ago.
Jack told us that he had recently had his DNA sampled and had learned about his family lineage. Everything from the Middle East to Southern Spain. One part included the note that a particular strain of his DNA was common among people with his surname. Amazing.
We had several updates. Alan had news about the Festival Fringe and I had updates about the Holy Rude. They were very helpful and offered us the chance to sing Vespers or similar while they are open for visiting, starting in May. We think that we might be ready by June.
We sang the Missa de Angelis in preparation for the Latin Mass on Sunday. My first effort was too much wide-mouthed frog and Alan had us try again with smaller mouths. He encouraged us to make the music flow up and down to match the shapes of the notes.
For the Creed, we worked on breathing to make 'et propter....de caelis' and 'Et in Spiritum Sanctum....vivificantem' in one breath. In the section on baptism, we should sing Conf-ee-teor.
In the Sanctus, Alan had us pronounce excelsis as if it read egg-shells (as we did in the Gloria). We practised the pause after the third note in the third Sanctus, just before the highest note in the 'Scandicus'. The pause is repeated before the high note in the Saah of Sabaot(h) and in the two excelcis.
We sang Ave Regina caelorum, working on softening the end of each phrase. This sounded much better than our first attempt.
Alan had brought a new Mass setting, Missa 'Cum Jubilo' Ordinary IX. It is in Mode I, which he described as 'What shall we do with the Drunken Sailor'. Here are the notes and the music:
Click to Enlarge
Missa 'Cum Jubilo' (with Joyfulness/Jubilation) is used for Masses on the feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
We spoke about the Cardinal but knew only what we had read. It wasn't very Joyful.
