role of choir in EF Mass
  • teachermom24
    Posts: 327
    Could someone please tell me the proper role of the choir in the EF Mass? Point by point, what do they do?

    Thanks,
    Kathy
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    In a Missa Cantata or High Mass, they:
    (optionally sing a Choral Prelude or hymn)
    Sing the Apserges/Vidi Aquam if it is the principal Sunday Mass
    Sing the Introit
    Sing the Kyrie
    Sing the Gloria
    Sing the Gradual
    Sing the Alleluia/Tract
    Sing the Credo
    Sing the Offertory
    (optionally sing a motet in Latin)
    Sing the Sanctus and Benedictus (together if chant, possibly apart if polyphony)
    Sing the Agnus Dei
    Sing the Communio
    (optionally sing a motet in Latin)
    (optionally sing a hymn after Mass)

    Through the entire Mass they should be responding to all of the dialogues that the priest sings.
    Thanked by 5teachermom24 Adam Wood Jenny expeditus1 CHGiffen
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    More from Fr. Nicholas Gihr's book (copyright 1902) on the role of the choir at the TLM:

    The Church has assigned to the choir the task of executing, in the name of the congregation, the various parts that are to be sung. These are very appropriately and skillfully inserted in the liturgy of the Mass, for sacred chant produces many wholesome results: it makes divine worship more solemn and more majestic, elevates the mind, exhilarates the heart, renders the disposition more peaceable, inclines to devotion, excites to piety, softens to mildness and compunction of spirit, produces a flow of tears and raises a desire of amendment, enables the soul to soar above the earth and all that is earthly and to lose itself in heavenly meditation.

    St. Augustine depicts the powerful impression made by the chant of the Ambrosian hymns upon his soul: 'How I wept, O Lord, amid Thy chants and hymns, greatly moved by the voices of Thy sweetly singing Church! They poured themselves into my ears, these voices, and like drops Thy truth penetrated my heart: the fervor of devotion was awakened, tears flowed, and ah, how happy was I then!"

    Thus the chants at the celebration of Mass, by a pleasing variety, drive away weariness and keep the participation of the faithful in the divine service ever on the alert. Formerly, they had a larger scope and were in the form of responsories, or alternate singing, conducted, according to a certain rule of repetition, by precentors and the choir.
    Thanked by 2expeditus1 teachermom24
  • Protasius
    Posts: 468
    @matthewj: You missed the Creed the choir has to sing if it is a Sunday or Feast Day of First or Second Class, on the usual place after the Gospel (and the Homily if held).
    Thanked by 1matthewj
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    Thank you - knew I was forgetting something.

    I corrected my original post.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Commonly, our choir also sings a Marian antiphon (currently Ave Regina Caelorum) at the end of Mass.
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  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,782
    It is the custom in England (UK) to sing the Marian Anthem after Sung Mass. N.B. The V. & R. and prayer after the Anthem are omitted in many places.

    Also the Choir would also sing the 'Prayer' for the Queen ( King ) after the main Sunday Mass, here in England ( U.K.). I believe other places with a Royal family also use the same Prayer.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Obscure question:

    Given that England is a Catholic country.
    Given that Parliament decided at some point to exclude Catholics from the throne.
    Does the prayer for the Queen intend to pray (in our time) for Our Sovereign Lady, Elizabeth II, gloriously reigning, or the current "pretender"?
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    wut?
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,394
    Does the prayer for the Queen intend to pray (in our time) for Our Sovereign Lady, Elizabeth II, gloriously reigning, or the current "pretender"?

    Which one?

    http://my.raex.com/~obsidian/Britpret.html
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    Does the prayer for the Queen intend to pray (in our time) for Our Sovereign Lady, Elizabeth II, gloriously reigning, or the current "pretender"?


    Does the gender in the prayer change when the reigning monarch's gender changes, or when the pretender's gender changes? There's your answer.

    But feel free to start a new thread on Do We Have Two Queens??!! :-)
    Thanked by 4ronkrisman Adam Wood Spriggo Erika
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,979
    I don't have a Queen. My ancestors fought in a war to get away from all that royal nonsense.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Would Kathy take as more on-topic, then, the related question: "What is the proper role of the ORGAN in the EF?
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I don't have a Queen.


    image
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,979
    That is a different order of queenship.
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