Society of Saint Gregory

alan29 wrote:Got to say that the Durufle is one of my Desert Island picks.

Couldn't agree more. It's beautiful.

londonchurchman wrote:Talking of Carols, are most of you also planning a Carol service based losely on the Nine Lessons tradition? My local chuch made a valiant attempt last year, and are doing the same this year on the evening of the 23rd.

If only....

If you consider that the most popular are by Bernadette Farrell, Marty Haugen et al, I would hazard a guess at most. This is a fair point - and I'm one who likes traditional four square hymnody (probably would cite Common Praise as my ideal hymn book). In my experience, the works of these composers...

Actually, he's not making any assumptions about what used to happen. He's commenting on what does, and what could/should happen today.

I suppose the implication is that, 3000 years later, the layout of Solomon's temple is not necessarily binding upon us?

We started using these in September, and after half a dozen weeks, I've got no hesitation in saying that they are splendid. The responses are picked up well by the congregation and the choir is rising to the challenge of learning a new psalm tone every week (I don’t use a solo psalmist; the whole ch...

I have to report that progress has no been too good in this particular part of Britain's first city

But Liverpool isn't in Birmingham. At a stretch, I suppose you could say it was a suburb of Wolverhampton, but I don't see how you could say it was part of Birmingham.

SC, are you saying that the charitable exemption arises as of legal right or simply through the choice of the copyright holder? If the latter then every rights holder is free to choose their own policy on this, a potential minefield for people trying to do the right thing. IIRC, even the use of mate...

a broad wobbling tremulant

Is this not the primary function of a contralto?

All that amounts to though is the statement that 'an organist who doesn't know how to do it won't be able to' - which is not a reflection on the organ. Some fairly basic stuff goes a long way: - determine a tempo and a volume taking into account the size of the congregation (and the proportion of th...

My guess would be that for RC use, Hyfrydol ("Alleluia Sing to Jesus") is the likeliest to be known to a congregation.

I do not agree that the amount-of-air-moved argument is handwaving — indeed, it is no more than common sense. Depends on whether you're talking about amount-of-air-moved in the sense that ultimately you need a large resonant cavity somewhere to get decently developed bass notes, or in the sense of ...

A thorough technical discussion, easily the best on this topic that I have seen, is available at http://www.pykett.org.uk/EndOfPipeOrgan.htm#Technical . It's a lot more specific about the underlying reasons for the inferiority of digital sound than any amount of handwaving about 'amount of air moved...

This is what I use (horse's mouth and all that) http://www.icelweb.org/musicfolder/openmusic.php

Don't be too sad - your question was specifically addressed to 'composers': I doubt I'm the only one of your hundred or so to have read it, mentally wished you well, looked forward to hearing about what you find, but (on the basis of lifetime Opus count of zero) did not feel qualified to answer...