Need Music for Easter Vigil
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,978
    Every year, the choir has sung the response (244 in Ritual Song) "You have put on Christ, in him you have been baptized. Alleluia" after each baptism at the Easter Vigil. It's by Howard Hughes, and sounds ridiculous. I detest it! Since the people who run the RCIA program like the words, I need to find a musical setting that keeps the words, but has some dignity to it. Do any of our esteemed members know of another setting?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,215
    I like the Byzantine chant version used in Melkite churches. This PDF is a simplified version set to English words, but you might make something more decorated out of it.

    A MIDI file is available on this page devoted to Melkite chant.
    (Note: that page has way too many Flash animations for anyone's good!)

    The same chant sung in Arabic and Greek (a bit ponderously) is at:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TEXYshbYp8
    It's from a wonderful recording by the late bishop Sleiman Hajjar.
    Thanked by 1Earl_Grey
  • dvalerio
    Posts: 341
    The chant «Omnes qui» is a Communion, and is surely not intended to be sung at Baptisms right after the immersion. But there are far worse things than using a Communion in that way...
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    Look at the English-language settings of this from Russian Orthodox/OCA sources. Easy four-part harmonizations. Goggle "As many as have been baptized into Christ" It replaces "Only Begotten Son of God" in the liturgy on certain feasts. Here's one: http://www.theologian.org/pdf/harmonized/AsManyBaptized.pdf

    I guess you could just change the words to suit the RCIA folks.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,978
    Many thanks to all. It's always good to have better options. :-)
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Ditto, Charles, to MJB's suggestion. That's what we've used for a couple of years. Some arrangements have a lot of doubling among voice parts, which one can discreetly reduce to SATB easily.
  • henry
    Posts: 244
    Isn't it OK to just sing a festive Alleluia after each Baptism? That's what we do. It's short and suits our English/Spanish liturgies because it's the same word in both languages. But apart from language, it seems an appropriate acclamation for one just Baptized, especially on Easter.
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 431
    The Communion antiphon for the Baptism of our Lord, Omnes qui in Christo baptizati estis, has a text very similar to the text you have been singing: "All you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ, alleluia."

    The Latin can be found in the Graduale Romanum. An English adaptation can be found in the part of The American Gradual currently accessible on the Musicasacra Web site.
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