Triduum

[dunstan]

We usually sing unaccompanied on Good Friday, and the effect is quite distinctive compared to what we usually do - solemn and arid. But the Triduum too, like the Sundays of Lent, is a richer and more complex sequence of liturgical events than a uniform and rather barren musical style might to justice to. In past years we've had piano and guitar for the Mass of the Lord's Supper, in keeping with the sense of community-as-family that comes (it seems to me) from the celebration resembling a Passover Seder meal. (At least, that was how our previous Bishop liked to order the celebration, and I felt that the informal style of the music helped in constructing this.) More recently we've played it 'straight' and gone back to having the organ for some things and doing others unaccompanied.

For the vigil the psalms before the Gloria seem to me to merit organ accompaniment. They would come across as somewhat stark if we did them unaccompanied, I think, and again we're aiming for something richer.

But I agree, unaccompanied singing can certainly be hauntingly atmospheric if it's done successfully.

M.

I'm just embarking on my third Lent and Triduum since our organist/choir mistress was rather abruptly taken back to God in Feb 2003 and I was left like a rabbit in the headlights. I have a very small choir of ladies who are keen to praise God with their singing.

Having followed Margaret's liturgy for a couple of years, I want to introduce some variation in at least one of the key services, and wondered whether to introduce some of the traditional Maundy Thursday plainchant. There is a setting of Ubi Caritas in Laudate, and the introit "Nos autem" and the chant for the washing of the feet I'd transcribe. Finally, the Alan Rees setting of Una Hora (for the watching) is absolutely beautiful. I don't think I'd leave any of it uaccompanied.

I was interested by mcb's comments about a "community" based feel for the Mass of the Last Supper - I was wondering about heading in the opposite direction and using the plainchant to bring solemnity, because the inevitable outcome is Christ's betrayal.


Finally, can anyone advise a suitable book of settings for the Psalms for the vigil? I've got the 1970s Mayhew McCrimmond Orange book for year B, and I guess I'm looking for something similar but a bit more comprehensive.

[VML]

Dunstan, it is great to be able to communicate with others doing the same job at this time of year. As I posted elsewhere here, we have for the last (help) 17 years sung unaccompanied between the Glorias of the Mass of the Last Supper, and the Vigil.
Because I am here, I don't know how others do it, but we have been using mostly the McCrimmon Responsorial Psalter, at first in 3 books, now one book, edited by Stephen Dean, full of some ghastly inclusive language. We use the earlier words, rather than the inclusive versions.


We did a few times use the version of the Red Sea canticle in HON, set to an old Yiddish song tune, Zena Zena.


We are a very small group and add something new or different each year, but no great change.

We have no priest or deacon willing to sing the Exsultet, and over the years 6 cantors have done it, but now there are only two of us who alternate year by year. We use the English words to the plainsong.
The main problem is that we are very thin on the ground at the Main Mass on Easter Sunday, having concentrated on Holy Week. It's going to happen again this year, as no-one has turned us for practices yet.

Promo in the bulletin this Sunday!