Yes, and thank goodness. It does highlight the problem and the impossible challenge of "blended worship" that faces the Protestant church...and some Catholic parishes. And it's important to see what's going on in churches that might come over....
Blasphemy! It is beyond astonishing that the people who perpetrate these shenanigans aren't embarassed to death nor show any sign of nervousness over such behaviour in sacred space.
In a typical American Catholic parish, the ministers would likely process out to "Fantasia on Here I am Lord." I will take the Widor instead, thank you very much.
Second time around, when I had a bit more time, I listened until the jazz kicked in. I think I understand why jazz was once considered a pornographic word. As YiaYia says, "pornography."
Cynthia Hall should have been playing that piece on a calliope.
I have always contended that pieces such as the Widor were simply contrived to drive the congregation out of the church. It is inconceivable that anyone would stay to pray after such a performance.
Virtually all the members of our (Anglo-Catholic) congregation sit and listen to the organ voluntary that follows the liturgy. In fact, the announcements follow this voluntary. The people began sitting through the "postlude" 23 years ago, when we got a new organ. Helping to pay for it increased their interest in listening to it.
Were I to play the Widor, I would be playing to an empty building for a number of minutes. Those concert pieces work better as recessionals in large churches. They are not practical for most of us.
Sorry! I hadn't looked at the video when I wrote my largely-irrelevant comment (above). I was replying only to an earlier comment about a stampede at the end of the Mass.
Yeah, I've tried the postlude thing a few times at our church, but people I think are so used to beating a path to the door as soon as the recessional ends that nobody stays to hear it. At the school church, the students end Mass by praying three Hail Marys. I usually play a soft hymn on the organ such as "O Sanctissima" or "Panis Angelicus," etc. while that is happening. Before Mass to set the mood (again at the school church, not where I am the director) I usually play "Asperges Me" or "Vidi Aquam" (depending on the season of course), because we don't open Mass with the Rite of Sprinkling any longer, and I want the students to be familiar with the music later in life. Then, depending on how much time I have, I switch to something else for a while, and then I stop about five minutes before Mass begins.
I have taken, recently, to improvising on the introit for a prelude, accompanying the (very short) procession with something which will allow me to intone the Asperges without a jarring key change, and improvising on either a section of the Salve Regina or on something relevant for the day -- on Corpus Christ's external solemnity, our visiting priest linked everything he said back to the Sequence, so I started there.
As to the videos, I can't bring myself to watch any past the first one. I find the alternation and the eventual combination infelicitous.
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