Good Friday Reproaches: to accompany?

[dunstan]

So we were practising the reproaches last night, the Christopher Walker version. Now, previously we have sung this unaccompanied, and once again we were dropping about a semitone per verse.

How off limits would it be to use the achingly beautiful accompaniment? Is singing unaccompanied on Good Friday a general instruction, or is it specific to our parish?

[docmattc]

Surely the instruction is to make the Liturgy work better? If following the instruction means the quality of the music is actually worse, I would give accompaniment.

[Dot]

Accurate tuning matters to a choir or group of instruments as much as accurate reading does to a reader. If pitch slips, so does the tone. What's the point of music if you don't bother about getting the notes right? Of course accompany, subtly, keeping the tone appropriate to the day.

I was at Westminster Cathedral on Sunday morning at 10:30, where the music comes close to perfection and is chosen aptly for the season. It makes for a seamless and uplifting liturgy, it includes the assembly in sung responses and plainchant settings of Credo and Eucharistic Acclamations, uses no hymns or organ except to support congregational singing. I think it sets a magnificent example as the mother church, and we should strive in our own, more modest ways towards that same seamless perfection. Granted, huge resources are needed to support the music at Westminster, not least for the comprehensive booklet prepared for every member of the congregation each week, with words in Latin and English, neums and a brief explanation to newcomers on the meaning of the Mass.

Dot

[Gwyn]

I can't recall anything insisting on unaccompanied singing on Good Friday.

B.T.W. This year we're using Peter Jones's setting of The Reproaches "O My People, what have I done to offend you so?" I discovered it while thumbing through Laudate a week or two back.

I commend it to the house.

[Southern Comfort]

Peter Jones's is an excellent setting - probably the best around.

The latest document of the universal Church to pronounce on the use of the organ in penitential seasons is the document on Concerts in Churches (1987) which says that the organ may always be used for the purposes of supporting the singing. (NB: There are two different translations of this document. The Adoremus one uses more restrictive phraseology than the earlier one, first published in l'Osservatore Romano.)

In this, it caught up with the England and Wales Bishops' Conference document "Music in the Mass", which had with great pastoral foresight established this 'particular law' for our countries almost twenty years earlier, adding the words "even during the Triduum". (The document is undated, but internal evidence and memory puts it at 1970/71.) There has thus been no legal excuse for banning the organ during Advent, Lent and the Triduum for the best part of forty years in England and Wales. It was a preconciliar law, beloved by some, which has long since been superseded. Any instruction to the contrary notwithstanding. It's the old story of Father's personal taste v. what the documents actually say.

[asb]

Peter Jones's is an excellent setting - probably the best around.

The latest document of the universal Church to pronounce on the use of the organ in penitential seasons is the document on Concerts in Churches (1987) which says that the organ may always be used for the purposes of supporting the singing. (NB: There are two different translations of this document. The Adoremus one uses more restrictive phraseology than the earlier one, first published in l'Osservatore Romano.)

In this, it caught up with the England and Wales Bishops' Conference document "Music in the Mass", which had with great pastoral foresight established this 'particular law' for our countries almost twenty years earlier, adding the words "even during the Triduum". (The document is undated, but internal evidence and memory puts it at 1970/71.) There has thus been no legal excuse for banning the organ during Advent, Lent and the Triduum for the best part of forty years in England and Wales. It was a preconciliar law, beloved by some, which has long since been superseded. Any instruction to the contrary notwithstanding. It's the old story of Father's personal taste v. what the documents actually say.

Where does this leave solo organ music during Lent and the Triduum?

[Southern Comfort]

Extract from para 7 of "De Concentibus in Ecclesiis":

In accordance with tradition, the organ should remain silent during the penitential seasons (Lent and Holy Week), during Advent and the Liturgy for the Dead. When, however, there is real pastoral need, the organ can be used to accompany the singing.

By the way, concerning supporting the singing, I misremembered "Music in the Mass", our particular law in England and Wales. Extract from para 37:

The organ may be used to lead the singing at any time, even on Good Friday.

[Southern Comfort]

Forgot to say that Music in the Mass does after all bear a tiny printing date of February 1969, so maybe a year earlier than I had thought. At that time Charles Grant was Bishop of Northampton (he wrote the Foreword in his capacity as the Chairman of the National Commission for Catholic Church Music), the CMA was at 28 Ashley Place, and the SSG Secretary (now the Society's chair) was at Pro-Cathedral House, Park Place, Clifton, Bristol....

[John Ainslie]

Forgot to say that Music in the Mass does after all bear a tiny printing date of February 1969, so maybe a year earlier than I had thought. At that time Charles Grant was Bishop of Northampton (he wrote the Foreword in his capacity as the Chairman of the National Commission for Catholic Church Music), the CMA was at 28 Ashley Place, and the SSG Secretary (now the Society's chair) was at Pro-Cathedral House, Park Place, Clifton, Bristol....

...and the Summer School was at the Cenacle Convent, Manchester (men lodged at St Bede's College next door or the local YMCA) and by special permission it was allowed to celebrate Mass using the 'Missa Normativa' - the 'new' Order of Mass as we now know it - which did not become obligatory until the 1st Sunday of Advent that year. A recording was made on reel-to-reel tape and I believe sold quite well to those interested enough to learn how it should be celebrated properly. Nearly 40 years later, are we any the wiser?

Thanks for the clarification, Southern Comfort, on the use of the organ in Lent and on Good Friday. I wonder how many churches have an instrumental interlude during the Veneration to save the choir singing (or leading the congregational singing) continuously for 20 minutes or more?

[Gwyn]

John Ainslie asked

Nearly 40 years later, are we any the wiser?

Yes, the traditional rite is now accessable once more. Deo Gratias.

[VML]

Forgive my ignorance: what traditional rite? Are we talking the Mass or the Triduum?

In this parish, we have only ever sung the Damian Lundy version of the Reproaches, though I grew up with the full two choirs/ Latin and Greek. As it happens, we started in the mid 80s singing unaccompanied from Gloria to Gloria, Maundy Thurs to Vigil, but now I see we have probably been rather extreme in this. Before 1985 there were ten or so years here when there was no music whatsoever over the Triduum, just a couple of hymns on Sunday morning.
This year we will sing, 'My song is love unknown' at the veneration of the cross, and I think I may accompany it on quiet organ.

For the first time will omit two of the Vigil readings as we have two families being received, including child Baptisms, and adult Confirmations. There is something special about singing all the psalms without acct. and coming in with a triumphant Gloria and Alleluias.
Hope everyone's preps are going well.

Our choir decided tonight that Pange Lingua was too difficult, - we've done it more or less alternately with the English- and I was sorely provoked when a very old friend asked if the Pange, Lingua was for the Vigil or Sunday...She's only been there 20 years.
It does bring home to me how much I take for granted that people actually notice what is going on.

A blessed Holy Week and Easter to all.

[asb]

Forgive my ignorance: what traditional rite? Are we talking the Mass or the Triduum?

In this parish, we have only ever sung the Damian Lundy version of the Reproaches, though I grew up with the full two choirs/ Latin and Greek. As it happens, we started in the mid 80s singing unaccompanied from Gloria to Gloria, Maundy Thurs to Vigil, but now I see we have probably been rather extreme in this. Before 1985 there were ten or so years here when there was no music whatsoever over the Triduum, just a couple of hymns on Sunday morning.
This year we will sing, 'My song is love unknown' at the veneration of the cross, and I think I may accompany it on quiet organ.

For the first time will omit two of the Vigil readings as we have two families being received, including child Baptisms, and adult Confirmations. There is something special about singing all the psalms without acct. and coming in with a triumphant Gloria and Alleluias.
Hope everyone's preps are going well.

Our choir decided tonight that Pange Lingua was too difficult, - we've done it more or less alternately with the English- and I was sorely provoked when a very old friend asked if the Pange, Lingua was for the Vigil or Sunday...She's only been there 20 years.
It does bring home to me how much I take for granted that people actually notice what is going on.

A blessed Holy Week and Easter to all.

My oldest choirmember once asked whether Maundy Thursday was "The one with all the readings"!

Afraid I must take issue over accompaniment of My song is love unknown. How can you accompany that last verse on "quiet organ"? Either do it all unacc or go to town!

[organist]

Yes My song is love unknown and the end of When I survey need a good full body of sound from singers and organ. Alas the reproaches will always be associated in my mind with the demise of choirs in my last parish so I'll not comment on them. The setting in Music for the Mass 2 is good. Dot we must meet - we serve at the cathedral!