Society of Saint Gregory

Does anyone in the R.C. church sing "O Valiant Hearts" on Remembrance Sunday? For that matter do we make much of Remembrance Sunday? Apart from the customary wreath and lists of our deceased family members nothing else seems to happen in our church. O Valiant Hearts is such an evocative hy...

Regarding "Shine, Jesus shine" I agree to differ with dmu3tem. However, Southern Comfort strikes a chord with me. I am only an average musician trying to provide decent music with my small choir in the traditional style - doubtless I am not only the only member like this. Our congregation ...

As I am rather past the first flush of youth I will not be going to Cofton Park, probably because I'd have to leave home at 0130 to pick up the coach. This early start has put off all the elderly members of our congregation and probably also has for many in the same situation from other parishes. Ca...

Oh dear! Didn't they have an organ available...... I feel I'm losing the battle for good church music. There's plenty of acceptable French stuff around if they didn't want to keep to the English tradition. I'm a founder member of the B.A.G.I.C. society - (ban all guitars in church) so think I'll go ...

My little group - multicultural, virtually non music readers, made a good stab at Peter Jones' Magnificat and will haul it out for the 16th August. We've done Panis Angelicus lots of times (in other churches as well) and people love it. We find Rutter quite difficult so keep off him, apart from The ...

I am most grateful for all the comments and advice following my request for sources of CDs for plainchant masses. I have now placed orders and await results! In fact, although I do not consider myself much of a musician, I do not find plainchant difficult - perhaps because I was under the care of th...

Hare, you're fortunate. Here, after the sacrament of confirmation, seems to be the time for complete absence of our young people from anything to do with the church; they don't appear to darken our doors again and one can only hope that, in later years, they will return to the fold. Two choir member...

I know I'm ignorant but, can anyone tell me where I can purchase a CD of the plainchant mass di angelis? I find the repetition of the music I teach my choir invaluable.... they still aren't happy with reading music so, sadly, parrot fashion is usually acceptable. I've tried all the usual avenues, Am...

Gwyn - We're using the Gregory Murray version but of course
we're not a very good choir and tend to stick to the easier stuff.

We sing the Bernadette Farrell "Saints of God in Glory", putting in our own relevant saints. The congregation pick up the refrain easily and sing it well, or, rather, wholeheartedly! I improvise softly while the cantor reads the saints' names and this seems to work well. We sing "O le...

My Catholic press tells me that the Pope is considering the removal of the sign of peace from its present place in the mass to after the intercessions. I wholeheartedly agree with Benedict that shaking hands, etc. is not appropriate before the most solemn part of mass. As an organist I find myself r...

Many thanks to Ros, Helen and Mancunian for their help. My choir has been asked to provide the music for a solemn mass to commemorate a patron saint's day at a local AngloCatholic church. The vicar(who fancies himself as a musical knowall) has, in his wisdom, decided that the Lourdes 2008 gloria and...

Does anyone know where I can obtain a CD of the music of the mass celebrated by the Pope during his recent visit to Lourdes? Although I have a score of this music I have no idea who composed it and what it sounded like. The score says Chants Messe 2008 so I imagine this is a new composition............

When I played the organ in an Anglican church the PPC insisted I was paid. This I refused as the parish was in dire financial straights but we compromised by me agreeing to take travel expenses which, although these were less than a fiver a week, made everyone happy. I drive just under 10 miles to c...

We're not doing too bad for St. Paul in our deanery. There's a pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi taking place early in 2009 (already oversubscribed) and we have a lecture about St. Paul next month organised by the Diocesan Education Office. Wonder if someone will produce any Pauline music or if there's ...