Music for EF baptism?
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    Hey guys, help me out:
    A once (and hopefully future) chorister is getting her new kid baptized in the EF on Sunday. I knew this. Well, at the end of tonight's rehearsal (after half the choir had left), the 2 remaining gentlemen say, "We're supposed to sing something. The previous director did. But I couldn't find anything in the Liber."

    So, is there any chant which is either Proper or customary for such an occasion? If there is, I can sing it and/or the 2 guys can work it with the organist (they get together to go over stuff) Yes, I'm being lazy, but it's past 11 and I wanted to get this out there before I went to bed.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Jeffrey,

    In all the EF baptisms I've attended, I've never seen (or heard) music. For our purposes, the squalling of the infant doesn't count as music.

    There's nothing Proper for a baptism, but I don't know if that means it's impossible. If there were to be music, I presume it would follow the rite at the Easter Vigil.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    That's been my experience with OF baptisms, and don't see why EF should be different. But I just work here.
  • BGP
    Posts: 219
    Music at a baptism seems quite odd to me.
    Have you actually spoken to the person who's child is being baptized?
  • rich_enough
    Posts: 1,048
    For the baptism of a child, according to this site, Psalm 99 with its antiphon can be sung at the procession into the baptistry. I don't see the music for it, however.

    I have sung Sicut Cervus (Ps. 42) at a baptism (Palestrina's motet, but you could also sing the chant from the Easter Vigil) even though it's not part of the rite.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    Well, St. Ambrose sang the Te Deum at St. Augustine's baptism, at least according to legend. Why not chant that?
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • bcb
    Posts: 36
    I always do the Litany of the Saints at the conclusion, and include the Saints that match any of the names of the child (in their proper place, of course! Makes for fun research sometimes...).
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    Thanks for the ideas. Right now, this looks like it was generated by one chorister's vague memory of what the previous director may have done once. I haven't heard anything from Mom, so unless I do, I'm not doing anything.
  • Protasius
    Posts: 468
    There are proper chants for a solemn baptism of adults (you know, with violet cope at the beginning and white cope after the exorcisms). The priest with his clerics before going to the church door is supposed to chant the Antiphon Effundam super vos aquam mundam, et mundabimini ab omnibus inquinamentis vestris, dicit Dominus with Psalms 8, 28 and 41. The chant can be found in the Rituale Romanum.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    Thanks, P. I finally did hear back from the bride mom: "I am completely happy w what Brian used to do, which was to chant a Psalm as we processed in from the narthex." So we're going to do Sicut cervus from LU 1961, since it's a psalm, and I have it, and I'd have to hunt for a pointed and underlaid version, and there's no time. And it's basically travelling music anyway.
    http://www.liturgia.it/ritrom.pdf, p. 20.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    Fr. ix-nayed music at that particular point ("I don't know why [former choir director] got that going.") but let us sing it as a prelude as he came back from the front. We only did 2/3 of it though, as he had to do another Mass at 3 and we'd been delayed by the State of the Parish address. Went OK.

    Now, if only the Introit for P17 didn't start so much like that for P18, or if only I'd taken P17 out of the binder... :-(
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